#team torque episode 7

[i-am-church-the-cat]

Logan and Alex decided to be boring on Team Torque today, here’s all you need to know:

- Logan mentioned Oscar at the post-Miami party

- Alex kissed a stingray four times and Lily got jealous

- Alex won a karting race with Charles over the weekend

- They both want Golden Retrievers

- Logan prefers New York pizza, Alex prefers Italian pizza

- PubSub mention!! Logan’s go-tos are an Italian or a Buffalo Chicken Tender

- They did not discuss Lap of Legends or Alex’s contract renewal

Overall it was really stilted and Alex didn’t go on a single tangent. I don’t think it’s been this awkward since episode 1. I’m very 🤨 rn

[cakeofthepan]

So, that episode huh? Have a compilation of the 7 times Scary was joking about murder and the one time she was not. I did also cry while transcribing this, these poor teens are dealing with so much right now, someone give them a hug and some therapy please.

[Audio Transcript:

[Theme from  Agatha Christie’s Marple plays]

Anthony: So when we last left you, you had just learned that the first anchor that you needed to find was the anchor of loneliness and it had taken the form of Tony Pepperoni the principal of teen high

Will: [Gasps]

Matt: I feel like our instinct is not to just murder it’s uh, it’s to be 4 therapy teens and solve this

Normal: Something in my heart tells me that the anchor is in Tony Pepperoni

Taylor: So do we kill him?

Scary: I’m down with killing him

Normal: I don’t wanna kill- I mean he’s my arch enemy, I kinda hate his guts but like-

Taylor: So you wanna kill him?

Scary: Yeah

Normal: I don’t- no. The whole point is to not kill people

Normal: Team huddle, everyone just- give us one second Mr-

Tony: I just want someone to fix me or kill me

[laughter]

Scary: You heard him he wants to be killed

Link: No no!

Normal: No no! Dah! Guys, we really bit off a lot here, this is a little out of my depth

Scary: Guys I know what we have to do

Normal: What we- what do we have to do? As I’m pretty sure we just torqued this guys marriage?

Scary: Yeah, we gotta kill Ralph

Link: Yeah but like, we just ripped the bandaid off

Normal: Gotta kill Ralph??

Scary: Yeah

Link: Well, wait what’s that gonna do Scary?

Scary: I don’t know. I just know it’s the right thing to do

Link: Oh, well

Normal: Well let’s table that for now

Matt: As I’m walking-

Link: Hey Normal, do you think that maybe his wife’s also the problem? Do you think this is-

[laughter]

Scary: We gotta kill his wife

Scary: Maybe you’re the problem

Taylor: Woah, woah Scary

Anthony: Roll persuasion… or intimidation.

Beth: I got a 7

Anthony: Alright, she goes

Margarita: No, I’m not the problem maybe you’re the problem

[various gasps]

Margarita: Maybe they saw you and they thought eww, if a girl that ugly can exist than I don’t wanna be alive anymore

Scary: Guys, guys we need to kill Margarita

[laughter]

Scary: If you guys are still down with killing her I am

Link: Yeah maybe, I’m so bad at this guys

Link: Look, you either gotta stop being lonely or we’re gonna have to kill you, that’s the situation

Scary: Yeah

Anthony: Roll intimidation

Matt: That’s a 12

Anthony: A 12

Tony: I mean, that’s a little strong, you’re coming on a little strong for that. I already feel like I’m dying inside anyway so what’s the point?

Tony: I just wish someone would kill me.

[laughter]

Scary: I’m saying guys, it would be so easy

Tony: Would it help if I told you that I’m racist?

[laughter]

[music fades out]

Willy: Scary-

Anthony: And he like, looks at you and he follows Scary’s gaze to Tony Pepperoni and he looks back at Scary and he goes

Willy: Just say the word

Scary: Go ahead

Willy: Okay!

Anthony: And he pulls a knife out of one of the knife holders and just stabs Tony Pepperoni in the throat with it

Link: Mr. Pep- Normal: I-

Link: You’re not-

Matt: I hold his hands- does he die?

Will: I rush up, I cast cure wounds on him

Scary: Wait, stop

Normal [yelling]: What do you mean fuck you Scary are you fucking kidding me right now?

Taylor [yelling]: Why are you telling him to stop? What the fuck?

Will: And I cast cure wounds

Willy: It’s over. It’s already happened. It’s done

Normal [yelling]: NO!

Willy: It’s done. It’s okay

Normal [yelling]: What?? No?

Willy: It’s fine. It’s fine!

Normal [yelling]: Call an ambulance

Anthony: And Link is there holding Tony Pepperoni and Tony’s like

Tony: [trying to speak but can’t]

Link: Hey man, I’m here you’re- you’re not alone man. I’m- I’m here with you.

End Transcript]

[autumn816]

People I want on a Team Torque episode (from a reasonable choice to a dreamy one)

1. George (come on, he is at the williams garage all the time. how hard can it be?)

2. George and Lando (2019 rookies reunited)

3. Yuki (Alex and Yuki are a very underrated duo. And Yuki talks to Logan too)

4. George and Oscar (the episode with these four would be hilarious)

5. Fred (he is merc’s reserve driver. they can do this. oscar can join)

6. Charles so I can get chalex content

7. Jenson (Alex with Jenson and Logan with Jenson will be epic. We already saw Jenson/Logan in laps of legends so you know it will be good)

8. Lewis (need more Alex and Lewis interactions. I haven’t forgotten Alex swaying and giggling at whatever Lewis said)

[dear-ao3]

silverstone, england. the british grand prix. home race to many. insane track with an even more insane crowd. sight of pivotal moments in this season and many others. an important weekend to many.

unless of course you are logan sargeant. then it is fourth of july weekend.

welcome back everyone. its silverstone, another highlight race of the year. in true silverstone fashion, it was raining and records were broken. today is july 19, 2024 and lets hop in.

theres a lot in here. lots to unpack. and unfortunately ive had a busy two weeks and now need to speed run this to still be on time for this weekend. so. my apologies. ill go into much detail as i can but alas. im positively strapped silly for time. due to that, there might be some stuff in here thats Technically supposed to be on next weeks post and not this one but consider that i am tired. i also hand write all my notes on everything while im watching and i have a record 8 pages front and back of notes this week so. with all that in mind. lets fucking go.

-so its silverstone. england. british gp.

-big fucking deal.

-its lewis, george and lando's home race

-and!!! alex albon's, technically. he races under the thai flag but he is half thai half british and his family lives 20 minutes from silverstone so. it is also his home gp as far as i am concerned.

-as far as teams. a few of them are based in england.

-mclaren, williams, aston martin and i think thats it...

-but! a whole lot of teams (7) have their head quarters in the uk, around in and around silverstone (ish? idk my uk geography is Really Really bad). mclaren, williams, aston, mercedes, red bull, alpine and i think haas??? maybe??? anyway. big fucking weekend for everyone pretty much

-AND it'll be an even bigger deal next year because haas announced that they signed ollie bearman for the 2025 season. we all knew it was coming but it is still exciting! which means we will have now 4 (technically 5) british drivers on the grid

-anyway we will come back to silly season

-both red bull and williams ran special liveries for the british gp

the williams one was kind of especially hilarious because well:

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-that's right!

-logan hunter sargeant, literally from fort lauderdale, florida, and the only american on the grid, had to drive the british car with the british flag on it with his (half) british teammate for a british team at the british gp on fourth of july weekend. later in the team torque video he says that he wanted to find a giant american flag to wrap around himself to walk into the paddock with. unfortunately i dont think he did.

-the only other funny thing to come out of that specific team torque episode was alex albon making fun of george by texting him "yabadabado" (which is what he said over the radio after his win the week before in austria). george's response was, very simply: "hahaha. paddle later?"

-george was able to aparently get his badge back form lando, who stole it the week before or maybe the week before that

-alex also stole lando's paddock pass because lando left it on the dash of his convertible

-and every interviewer ever tried to get the drivers to comment on the max/lando incident in austria

-they were incredibly uncsuccessful

-i wont include every response here for the sake of time and also my sanity but here were some of the good ones

-upon being asked if he and max had spoken since the incident, lando said in the press conference on thursday that "yeah, we did...honestly i dont think he needed to apologize. i think like some of the things i said in the pen after the are were more just cause i was frustrated at the time. a lot of adrenaline, a lot of emotions and i probably said some things i didnt necessarily believe in, especially later on in the week. its...you know its tough. it was a pretty pathetic incident. in terms of what ended both of our races. you know, it wasnt like a hit, it wasnt like an obvious bit of contact. it was probably one of the smallest bits of contact you could have but with a pretty terrible consequence for both of us especially for myself so so yeah...he doesnt need to, i dont expect an apology from him. i dont think he should apologize. i thought it was, as a review, good racing. at times, yeah maybe very close to the edge, but like we've said, we've spoken about it. we've talked about it and were both happy to go racing again.

-max also said "the only thing i care about is maintaining my relationship with lando because we are great friends. after the race, i said we have to let things calm down because emotions run high. we immediately spoke on monday and i think we came to the conclusion that we actually really enjoyed out battle."

-so the two of them were clearly over it. i think even max said in a different interview that he went to text lando about it but lando had already texted him. this however did not stop the media from trying to milk the fuck out of it

-"it was just racing. it was the slightest bit of contact" said nico hulkenberg

-"it was fighting for a win. youre not going to just wave someone by" said danny rics

-"max will push to the limit, as most top drivers do" george said.

-"that's part of racing" yuki said.

"I didnt think anything of it. i was more concerned about my race and enjoying the teams win" said lewis. and then upon also being asked what advice lewis had for lando racing against max he said "i dont really need to (give him any). they have been racing eachother for many years.....that has nothing to do with me."

-charles though had probably the funniest response. if i can find it.

-aha

-this was coupled with the fact that charles was seen running around the paddock on i think one of the free practice days (?) wearing an inchident friendship bracelet. you know as in the "nothing just an inchident" thing from when he and max were kids

-none of the pictures were abundantly clear, but this one was the clearest i could find

-anyway, one team was absolutely not having max's "antics" from Austria and surprise surprise it was mclaren, specifically zak brown

-how many times is this now that zak brown has had things to say about red bull? idk but its been a lot

-"were seen there be a lack of respect" he said about austria and other things. "whether its financial regs, sporting, on track issues with fathers, etc. i just dont think thats how we need to go racing. im also disappointed in such a great team like red bull that the leadership almost encourages it"

-max responded to this by saying, when asked what his thoughts were about it "who is zak brown?"

-and now we speed through the rest of the pre race shit because i am tired

-mclaren sent thank yous to the teams that helped them during their fire last weekend that i think were cookies in the shape of fire extinguishers

-lando and oscar went on a bunch of radio shows leading up to the british gp, and i think surprised a fan who missed her prom to be on the show

-oscar, who has said that about half the calendar was his home race this year and even got adopted by charles to keep this bit up loudly declared that the british gp was Not his home race, just the teams. yeah its probably cause Britain colonized australia, but it was still hilarious.

-lando also met a child that was dressed as him in the paddock, people lost their minds over it

-mercedes is loosing puma and tommy hilfiger as sponsors for next year (probably because lewis is leaving i think) and im pretty sure theyre getting replaced by adidas. this is bad news if you're george russell, who perpetually looks like a tommy hilfiger ad

-danica patrick is unfortunately not actually fired from sky sports for her lizard people video, but she is taking a break from commentating until i think coat to focus on something, i dont remember what. jenson button is probably upset about this

-speaking of jenson button, he was around this weekend, driving his first ever f1 car, the williams fw22. he was very excited about it. he also did the post race interviews but we'll get there

-alex albon got overtake of the month for his double overtake in canada.

-and the dogs!

-roscoe appeared in the paddock, as he usually does. roscoe being lewis hamiltons's dog. and he was right alongside lewis slaying in his fashion week outfits as usual

-leo was also present in the paddock

-charles was asked if leo and roscoe have met up yet. they have not. but charles wants them to because leo is still young and does not have many dog friends

-and arthur leclerc, charles's younger brother, got his own leo, probably to make fun of charles.

-alex albon also released merch that was themed for his pets and matched his helmet (he has a lot of pets) and he traded merch with roscoe

-and there was of course some weird ass pr

-some very interesting ferrari pr

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-and because it was the semi finals (?) of the euros, they had everyone try to score a goal in a soccer net and it was a right disaster for everyone, but especially pierre and Esteban who i think were the only two to miss the goal? actually no oscar missed too. crofty even said "even when you two try to work together you get it wrong"

-geroge and lewis sat on the fan stage and watched the ending of the semi finals, where england won

-max was asked his favorite british food. he said it didnt exist.

-and of course, stake continues to be stake.

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-so silverstone is home to some pretty damn iconic shit, but the year i want to highlight briefly is 2022

-this was carlos's first race win. and in the car on the way to the paddock, carlos and charles ran into a fan who said to carlos "i want to see p3" and carlos, after the guy left, said "why p3?" the two of them reminisced about this in the car on the way to the track this year as well

-and it was also during that race that we got possibly the best piece of commentary ever: though goes hamilton

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-of course if you have not seen this i beg, implore and beseech you to because it is insane, but ill also give the transcript. this is crofty talking btw.

-"perez is catching charles leclerc and he Takes Him Towards The Inside, pEREZ ON THE INSIDE! CHARLES LECLERC! GIVES HIM J U S T ENOUGH SPACE! cAn PEREZ SQUEEZE PAST THEYRE GOING WHEEL TO WHEEL! towards vale now! whos gonna be last on the brakes! leclerc has that inside line! pEREZ GOES OFF THE TRACK, HE CUTS THE CHICANE, OFF GOES LECLERC, THROUGH GOES HAMILTON!!! UNBELIEVABLE STUFF!!!"

-there is a bit more in this video, but yeah. through goes hamilton man.

-speaking of hamilton, he has won the british gp a record 8 times (tying with schumacher for most gps won at a single circuit) and has won his home race more than any other driver. just some of his impressive race stats, in case you all forgot about him :)

-anyway. thats enough of that. practice.

-so practice 1 saw 4 f2 drivers and reserve drivers. ollie bearman in the haas, freshly signed, jack doohan in the alpine, still battling for an f1 seat tho we will get to silly season later, franco colapinto in the williams and isack hadjar in the red bull.

-annnnnd i cant find my notes on this hold on

-aha here we go

-so we had jenson, karun and natalie commentating on practice 1, and they mostly yapped about silly season

-so it had been raining, but it was now finally dry, though maybe not dry enough because yuki got stuck in the gravel

-oh hold on, tangent

-because we're in england, the track has the absolute stupidest names for all the corners and the turns:

-anyway, yuki got stuck in the gravel 10 minutes in and red flagged the session

-"im stuck" he said over the radio.

-once his car was cleared, everything else continued as usual

-haas had 6 new upgrades for this weekend

-most of the yapping was about ollie, who they said was i a good team at haas, even though long term he will want to get to ferrari (they use the same engines, blah blah you already know the deal)

-jenson specifically said that it was good that he was starting out in a team thats "lower on the grid" because its less pressure. he said that if kimi antonelli were to get signed by mercedes for next year "it would be a lot of pressure on [his] shoulders" because mercedes is a high ranking team

-zak brown also came on the radio and continued his anti max and red bull campaign, talking about how "lando needs to make sure (an incident like austria) doesnt happen again" because "until someone tells (max) what he's doing is incorrect i dont expect him to drive any differently" and he also said that the "stewards and the pit wall need to enforce the rules better" because "I expect the drivers to race eachother as hard as they are allowed to" but he also thought that max should have been flagged for moving under the braking, which would have prevented the incident later on

-then there was the obligatory conversation about checo. they were confused as to why checo was signed so early, especially given his recent string of bad luck in races and qualifying and seemingly in general. jenson said that "with the title fight heating up, you need both drivers" and also pointed out that the car suits max, he will likely be happy with any teammate, as long as they are helping him in the championship and not stuck way down the grid somewhere.

-last year, max had enough points to pretty much win the drivers and the constructors on his own, but this year with the fight heating up, they need both drivers getting points conssistently. but again, we will come back to silly season.

-the session ended with oscar having a hydraulics issue and limping back to the pit lane

-i didnt watch practice 2 or 3 but i do know that at one point, lando and carlos were the only cars on the track. carlos asked if any other cars were on the track, his engineer said "lando only" and carlos responded with "car-lando"

-and sky sports posted this...interesting post about it

-thus concludes the practice sessions

-which takes us right to qualifying

-which started with pierre getting a 50 place grid penalty for replacing pretty much his whole engine. i think that this was because it wasnt working???

-q1 was a tad of a disaster.

-the practice sessions had been led by lando, lando, and george. red bull were aparently worried because they had aparently been going and standing outside of the mclaren garage and trying to peek in.

-but it was damp which meant the intermediate tires were out

-still, people were sliding. and someone. perhaps it was crofty, perhaps it was ted, idk, said "the difference is that youre sliding between an uh oh and a yeehaw"

-and checo was on the uh oh side because he ended up in the gravel. and he was stuck. which meant that he was out. in q1. again.

-checo really did not want to be out and over radio he said "all i need is to be pushed back, there's tarmac over there" which is is not allowed to do because that counts as outside assistance.

"can they pull me forwards?" checo asked over radio a minute later. "That would count as mechanical assistance, you wouldn't be able to rejoin qualifying"

-so they red flagged to get him out, and then it started raining

-max went off into the gravel in the same spot as checo, but he managed to get back on

-it was a very tight elimination round, but we ended up loosing pierre, checo, esteban, kevin and valtteri

-which MEANT that for the first time this year ZHOU WAS THROUGH TO Q2 IN A RACE QUALIFYING and he had OUTQUALIFIED HIS TEAMMATE!!

-AND!!! LOGAN WAS THROUGH TO Q2 FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A RACE QUALIFYING AS WELL!!

-esteban though was pissed. "the only lap i have to push was the lap it was wet!" he complained loudly over the radio.

-heading into q2, max had some floor damage from his trip into the gravel, but he managed to stay in

-and charles was having problems, as seems to be usual. he was fighting his tires. he was not doing well at all. he ended up getting out in q2.

-logan also got out, but he was in p12. an all time, record high for him this year.

-we also lost zhou, yuki and daniel

-q3 was where the real fun happened

-zak brown thought that it was going to come down to merc and mclaren for pole cause max had damage. zak brown was correct.

-lando started out on provisional pole with a 1:26.03

-then george went .006 faster than lando, taking provisional pole with a 1:26.024

-max tried to go faster than the both of them, but only ended up in fifth

-toto had aparently promised to be quiet on the radio until the whole of qualifying was over, lol

-lewis briefly went faster than george, taking provisional pole, but then george snapped it back with a 1:25.819, putting him on pole! with lewis p2 and lando p3! the three brits in the top 3 for the british gp! the last time there were three brits in the top 3 of qualifying was in 1968 in south africa.

-and. surprisingly. nico hulkenberg. was faster than carlos. he qualified 6 while carlos qualified 7, making nico the fastest driver with a ferrari engine. Interesting.

-but back to the brits

-lando was excited for some good battles in the rain tomorrow and said that lewis and george both put in good laps

-lewis said that the "car felt great" (whatever upgrades they've put in it clearly seem to be working) and he said that "there was still time left on the table, which george managed to find"

-george said that "the car at the moment is feeling so so good" but also that it was "going to be tight with lando and max will be fast well"

-and then the post show was well. interesting.

-toto was pleased with the front row lock out, the last time merc had one was in 2022 in brazil

-jolyon palmer said that it was a "really good effort" from logan, who absolutely needed a good qualifying this week (logan also has now out qualified checo seven times this season alone. out of 12 races)

-and the ferrari. oof. laura winter said it great. "the car hasn't looked or felt good for charles or carlos all weekend" the two of them managed to qualify 11 for charles and 7 for carlos. which is kinda abysmal.

-horner was also asked about checo. "to go out in q1 is not what we can afford" he said. and he was also asked about checos contract, but said pretty much nothing about it, as in, if they are thinking of replacing him mid season. he did say earlier though that at the moment they are a "one car team" and that checo is "nowhere."

-and well that is our cue

-our cue to talk about silly season

-as we know, ollie bearman got signed to haas. ollie is presently (or at least he was at the time of the race) 14th in the f2 standings. (f2 does have more drivers in it than f1, there are 22 drivers)

-one of the red bull mechanics, whose name i do not know, posted an instagram story after the ollie announcement saying that "im not knocking this kids abilities, we all saw how good he was when he stepped in the ferrari this year. but he is p14 in the f2 championship, 89 points off of the championship leader paul aron who has no f1 seat secured for next year. what more does paul from have to do? 😅"

-then he posted a follow up story saying "a few of you are missing my point. im not slandering barman singing, nor his talent. but what more does the championship leader have to do to secure a drive in f1?"

-and hes kinda right tbh. lets take a very very brief intermission for a second to talk about f2 with the disclaimer that i know very very little about f2

-théo pourchaire won the f2 championship in 2023. he did not get an f1 seat, tho i think it was close between him and logan (maybe?) at williams for 2024. he was briefly driving for the arrow mclaren indy car team this year and then kind of inexplicably got fired (idk what's going on there if you really wanna know do your own research but i know they've been through a bunch of drivers)

-felipe drugovich was the 2022 f2 champion, he is presently the test and reserve driver at aston martin f1, he never got an f1 seat

-oscar piastri was the 2021 f2 champion, he got a seat at mclaren f1 in 2023 and was the test and reserve driver at alpine f1 for 2022

-mick schumacher won the 2020 f1 championship, he got a seat at haas f1 for 2021 and 2022 before he got let go by gunther steiner (gunther didnt like him, i really dont know why) and then be became the test and reserve driver for mercedes f1 and he also competes in the world endurance championship in alpine hyper car

-nyck de vries was the 2019 f2 champion. he did not get an f1 seat in 2020. he subbed in for alex albon at williams in the italian gp when he had to have his appendix out back in ... 2022? and then got signed to alpha tauri f1 in 2023 but was replaced mid season by daniel ricciardo

-george russell was the 2018 f2 champion and he was signed by williams f1 for the 2019 year. he was later signed to mercedes in 2022.

-so of all those names, only two are presently still on the grid. and oscar had to still take a year before he got signed, george and mick were the only ones in recent history to get signed immediately after winning.

-but thats not to say that other drivers havent been brought up from f2 to f1 who havent won

-aside from ollie we have also had logan sargeant, who finished in 4th in 2022 (behind liam lawson (who is still waiting for his red bull seat), théo porchaire, and filipe drugovich), zhou guyanu, who finished in third in 2021, yuki tsunoda who finished in third in 2020, and nikita mazepin who finished in fifth in 2020 (he briefly drove for haas, long story), nicholas latifi who finished second in 2019 (he was a williams driver for 2 years before logan), and of course, lando norris who finished second in 2018 and alex albon who finished third in 2018

-theres probably others that i am forgetting but alas. the signing of ollie does really beg the question of what the hell do you need to do to get an f1 seat besides have an inordinate amount of luck. because also, as we have seen, despite doing well in f2 some of the time the same people dont do super great in f1

-aside from that tangent

-haas needs a second driver

-and right now it seems like they are not going to re sign kevin, they are going to sign esteban ocon

-i have no other information on that except that its a possibility.

-then theres also the checo problem

-as horner said, they need two red bulls fighting for podiums and checo is currently Not doing that

-red bull is pretty much Just Max right now

-but checo has already signed an extension

-however when red bull do contracts i remember reading somewhere that you get signed to the red bull entity or something, which allows them to legally do the swaps (idk just trust me) so they could still swap him with Someone (and they could axe him. they've done it before)

-aparently according to some gossip pages theres a clause in checo's contract that says that he cant be more than 100 points or 5 places behind max in the drivers championship by belgium. belgium is in 2 races from silverstone. unclear if this is for his present contract or the next one or if theres any truth in this at all.

-also. red bull are notoriously ruthless with their drivers and often have dropped and resigned and swapped people like snap. so i think if they were planning to do this they would have by now. also he has an extension, as we said

-that has not stopped speculation tho

-there is more speculation that it would be daniel getting checo's seat in a swap. why daniel over yuki, idk, especially because yuki is out performing daniel. it might have something to do with max's preference because max has had daniel as a teammate before from mid 2015 (?) - 18.

-it does seem that that was the original plan as well, to swap daniel and checo at the start of the season, based on pr and other things (see the red bull cans i mentioned like idk several updates ago), but daniel had a bad start to the season and checo did not

-aparently max also had a decent chunk of say in checo getting re signed

-tbh, idk what to ever believe about red bull. cause lets remember everyone thought that daniel was getting cut before silverstone and now theyre saying he could be up for a red bull seat so ! whos to say

-then as usual we have carlos. hes still jobless. tho pierre said that he wants carlos as a teammate. as we know, the alpine seat seems to be between mick, jack and carlos and mick had his test scheduled during the off week after silverstone (yes its already happened since this post is late, no im not talking about it here im making you wait until the next one tee hee)

-toto also aparently reopened the possibility of carlos getting the merc seat. who knows how true that it but apparently its possible. toto also said about kimi possibilities that "a champion needs to perform in cold water and needs to swim"

-kimi antonelli had a response to this, and it was to have his first f2 win this weekend in silverstone

-and james vowels is still talking about logan. specifically about replacing logan. "i want to give him every opportunity" mr alphabet said "but there will be a lone in the same where we have to make a decision for '25 and maybe for something this year"

-so with all that

-the race

-before the race started though, a quick word from everyone's favorite monaco based youtuber

-yes thats right

-nico rosberg was in the paddock

-well, kinda

-he was at the race with an electric bus of grad students that he was sponsoring to look at travel and biodiversity

-and of course, sky sports asked him who he thought was going to win

-and of course he said lewis hamilton

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-but we all know about the great nico rosberg curse. would he thwart lewis? only time will tell

-and its race time

-checo decided to replace his power unit so he was starting from the pit lane

-pierre had some kind of problem in the great box on the formation lap and had to retire his car pretty much before the race even started

-but the lights went out, away they went

-max got ahead of lando almost instantly and the top three all managed to get out of drs of eachother

-rain was expected around lap 6. because its silverstone. and its always raining around here.

-this was great news for mercedes because they really like cooler conditions

-it was bad news tho for anyone trying to stick to a tire strategy, because the lack of Precise news when the rain would hit made it hard to determine when and if intermediate tires would be needed at all

-lap 18 was when the pit stop window was set to open, but pretty much everyone stayed out, maintaining their pace to hold out for inters because the rain was supposed to hit at any moment

-the rain started on lap 14

-and lando was closing on max for third. he was .657 off

-he passed max on lap 15 on the straight, very clean and orderly and nothing like austria

-so it was raining

-we had george out in front, with lewis 1.546 seconds behind, lando 3.015 seconds behind him, and 1.062 seconds behind him and oscar 1.218 seconds behind him.

-drs was still active and oscar had drs on max

-he passed max on lap 17 for fourth

-and then lewis passed george on lap 18 for first

-at this point it was pretty damn wet on track

-and everyone was still on their slicks (tires meant for a dry track)

-so things were getting slippery

-so slippery that both mercedes manages to go off track, allowing lando to pass gorge for second on lap 19

-and drs was turned off because of the low grip

-this did not stop the mclarens, who were here with an absolute vengence

-lando passed lewis for p1 on lap 20 and then immediately oscar passed george for p2

-so we had a mclaren mercedes mclaren mercedes and then max. and it was raining.

-people started to box for intermediate tires, namely charles and checo. this would be a mistake.

-oscar passed george for p2

-the top four was running pretty close together, which would be vital later on

-lando was on p1, 1.389 seconds behind him was oscar in p2, then 1.047 seconds behind him was lewis in p3 and .927 seconds behind him was george in p4

-lewis was offered intermediate tires on lap 21. he said no. it was too early. he was correct.

-checo came on the radio on lap 22 and conformed this, saying that "its too dry man, its too fucking dry" for intermediate tires (this is because the intermediate and the wet tires look like normal car tires, with treads to push the water away and when youre going super fucking fast this just causes the car to slide around if you have no water to push out of the way)

-also having this problem were esteban, charles, and zhou who had all put on intermediate tires

-theyre "all living on a prayer at the moment" crofty said. and they were

-esteban pitted for medium tires. charles stayed out, in true baffling ferrari fashion

-charles went off the track on lap 25. and he was starting to get lapped.

-"its too early for inters" oscar said on lap 26. and as charles was proving, he was still correct

-but by lap 27 it was definitely time for inters

-first max and carlos pitted (yes, charles had been put on inters but carlos had not been. interesting), then lando pitted, but oscar was too close to him (only .304 behind him) so they couldnt double stack the cars because oscar would loose too much time in the pits, so they left him out an extra lap on the slicks (which turned out to be a bad call), mercedes did a flawless double stack

-max's pit got him a little closer back towards the front

-which meant only one thing

-it was hammer time

-aka when lewis absolutely fucking sends the shit out of it

-so after the pit stops on lap 30 we had

-lando, +3.115 lewis, +4.353 max, +3.012 george, +3.011 carlos, +4.983 oscar

-everyones tires were starting to degrade, oscars were not because he did one extra lap on them, but he was 19 seconds behind lando

-the rain was supposed to last until lap 40

-charles pitted for another set of inters

-on lap 34 george was told to retire the car, seemingly out of nowhere

-"shit, fuck" he said over the radio

-"amen to that, i'll see if i can figure out what happened" ted said

-aparently it was a water systems issue. the car wasnt cooling itself properly and would have exploded if it had kept going

-"george russell is the only person to be affected by a lack of water issue in silverstone today" crofty said. and he was right. but we didnt have time to think about that because things were happening

-things were that lewis was closing in on lando. he was 2.058 seconds off on lap 36

-lando was loosing time. but he had an extra set of mediums. mercedes only had softs and hards. this was good for lando. he could still hold first if he pitted for the right tire at the right time

-lewis boxed on lap 38 for softs

-max boxed on lap 39 for hards

-oscar pitted on lap 39 for mediums

-and lando pitted on lap 40 for softs

-why did he do this when the preferred tire was a medium? no one knows. he was given the choice and aparently he picked softs

-lando also had a slow stop. he spent 4.5 seconds in the pit box.

-lando came out in second, behind lewis

-"norris same tire" bono, lewis's race engineer said to him. "leave me to it mate" lewis said.

-so we had a three way battle. lewis was 2.520 seconds ahead of lando who was 3.273 seconds ahead of max. anyone could win it

-and it became very clear, very quickly, that lando had chosen the wrong tire to win the race on

-still, lewis was holding lando somehow around 2.5 seconds behind him on lap 46

-by lap 47 though max had gotten within drs range of lando

-there were five laps to go

-"if youve got any finger nails left i would be utterly amazed" crofty said

-but no one was listening to him because max managed to pass lando on lap 48

-by lap 49 max was 3.349 seconds behind lewis and closing, but it became clear that he didnt have quite enough time to pass lewis

-sainz and perez both pitted on lap 51 for softs to try and get the fastest lap

-but lewis was still holding out in front

-heading into the last lap max was 2.760 seconds behind him. he didnt have enough to pass

-it was "prime lewis hamilton in his prime real estate" (according to ted) as he zoomed towards the finish

-"DONT CALL IT A COMEBACK, HE'S BEEN HERE FOR YEARS" alex jaques yelled as lewis crossed the line

-he had done it!

-LEWIS HAMILTON WON THE 2024 SILVERSTONE GP!!!!!

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-now why was this a big deal?

-well

-*cracks knuckles*

-the last time lewis hamilton won was in saudi arabia in 2021, it was his 103rd victory (at that point he had already surpassed schumachers 91 win record)

-with this victory at silverstone lewis

-became the first driver to win after their 300th start in f1 (other drivers with over 300 starts for context here include rubens barrichello, michael schumacher, jenson button, fernando alonso and kimi raikkonen) (this was lewis's 344th start)

-became the oldest winner of the 21st century (39 years and 182 days)

-now held the longest gap between first and last wins (17 years and 1 month)

-held the record for most wins at a single circuit (9) (he previously shared this record with schumacher)

-became the driver to have the most podiums at a single circuit (15)

-became the driver to have the most consecutive podiums at a single circuit (12)

-extended his record for most podiums (199)

-and extended his record for most wins (104)

-it was also his 150th podium with mercedes

-and since mercedes also won in austria with george, they are now the first team other than red bull to win back to back in the last 3 seasons

-also we have now had six whole different race winners in one season, and it was the first time since 2022 that max has gone more than one race without a win

-in any case, it was a very important race for lewis, and he was very emotional over his win, as he should be, because it shows that he still had it. which was really important for him after getting essentially robbed of his 8th world title in abu dhabi 2021 cause of the safety car call and all of that

-he was incredibly emotional getting out of the car, hugging his dad and doing his immediate post interview

-jenson button hosted the post race interviews and he and lewis were actually teammates at mclaren years ago. jenson was also pretty much basically crying interviewing lewis while lewis was also crying.

-"ive never seen you this emotional after a race" jenson said. "yeah...i just cant stop crying...i wanted to win so much for them...forever grateful to everyone at mercedes," lewis said. "it's been 2.5 years since you've won a race, i need thought we'd say that about you" jenson said. "you gotta continue to dig deep even when youre at the bottom of the barrel" lewis said

-he elaborated on this later in the press conference

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-as an aside here, pretty much everyone in the world congratulated lewis on his win, but the one that i am going to highlight was sebastian vettel's instagram story

-people were pretty quick to point out that the capitalization and the periods make it very likely that seb himself posted this and not whoever runs his ig account

-and nico rosberg! who we know was there! was entirely silent on the whole ordeal! even though he predicted it! did he break the rosberg curse or is lewis just immune to it? we may never know

-anyway

-despite his emotions, he was still able to absolutely pick apart exactly what went wrong with lando's race in the cool down room

-"you stayed out too long" lewis said. "you could've gone on mediums...wouldve been faster probably"

-this only managed to fuel lando's epic sulk fest that was happening in the cool down too,

-and lewis was right, mclaren absolutely fucked up the call at the end there. they could have had probably a double podium if they had double stacked oscar and put lando on the mediums

-this didnt stop lando though from making oscar do a shoe post race with his own shoe, and then chucking oscars shoe into the crowd

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-max though, decided to shit on mclarens shit strategy it post race

-another team with abysmal calls this weekend was none other than ferrari

-"I am not feeling good, it's too much now. it's too many races, i dont know what to say anymore when i come here. we just have to reset as a team but yeah, there is always a different reason why it doesn't click" charles said post race

-he also filmed his post race ferrari video inside, out of his race gear and it was clearly scripted, which was Highly Unusual

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-fred, the team principal, claimed that both charles and carlos were given the same information about the rain and the tire choice. "we gave the drivers the same infos on track conditions, but charles and carlos were in different parts of the track. carlos was copying max's race while charles was behind stroll and 10 seconds behind. this made the team and charles make a decision."

-people who watched the driver view and listened to the team radios disagreed.

-charles was told "heavy rain on next lap" and carlos was told "chance of rain in sector 3"

-pretty immediately after the race, ferrari released this team statement

-ok now there was a lot that happened in the post race show, it was actually a very good post race show but unfortunately i am sleepy and wont talk about all of it

-tldr: alpine was a shit show, checo continues to not impress (and red bull were testing liam lawson the week after, the team dont have anything to loose really by putting a different driver in so Why Wouldn't They?), logan had a great performance (ended p11 but it could be too little too late, mclaren continue to have strategy problems as do ferrari, aston seems to have fixed their car a little cause they didnt suck, haas absolutely slayed in fact they kinda slayed better than ferrari did and nice was on pace with max at one point

-and they talked about the f1 movie

-essentially theres an f1 movie coming out next year with brad pitt and damson idris and they've filmed some of it at races and stuff actually they filmed some interviews at the paddock in silverstone while some of the drivers (lando) were having the worst time and it was pure comedy

-anyway. the trailer for it came out and no i havent watched it but. lewis hamilton is a producer of the film, aparently hes been pretty involved and well. first of all they interviewed the director of the film who pretty much said that basically everything that is in the movie has happened in real life. and well lets take a look here

-here we have our two main characters right

-and then here we have mercedes in 2015 ish (lewis hamilton and nico rosberg, fmaously in the thick of their rivalry)

-were all seeing this? right????

-lewis hamilton what the hell are you up to buddy

-they interviewed lewis's dad at one point, which i will talk about. antony said that "i know lewis and as far as im concerned he still has everything he needs to run at the top...when lewis gives his best he usually ends up with the win...its the dams that come to the british gp.... you never know what youre going to get there but you do get a spectacle"

-and will buxton closed out the post race show with this, which i will leave you all with:

"we said we could whisper it a few weeks ago, now we can shout it, f1 2024: we have got a season!"

-see you all in budapest

(also ps this post is now long enough that i cant see reblogs so if theres anything you want me to know or see put it in the replies)

Sorry i tried to scroll past but, i know nothing about f1 other than max verstappen is fast, my dad doesnt like lewis hamilton, fast car goes in a loop and sometimes expodes. Could you give me a crash course in f1 drama? Im very intrigued. Whats the tea as it were?

a terribly loaded question, but i will do my best. i’ve talked about some of the drama before like the red bull second seat and the chronicles of haas but allow me to briefly try my hand at explaining the nightmare that is the upcoming silly season

under the cut we go

silly season is when the drivers go through contract renewals, extensions and switches. usually it’s confined to the first half of the season (march-july) but it has been known to extend all the way to the last race of the season and they like to switch people around at random sometimes. driver contracts are complex, there’s a lot of money involved and basically You Are The Face Of The Team so if you have a shit season then you make the team look bad. but at the same time you could have a shit season because you have a shit car. it’s sticky stuff.

so. there are only twenty seats in formula 1. 10 teams. each team gets two drivers. (there’s also reserve drivers but we’re not going to get into that). who ends up with a contract is largely up to the teams, they can pull the contract out from under people they can also cut you mid season. they’ve done it before.

of the 20 drivers on the grid, 14 of them have contracts expiring at the end of the year. yes. 14. you see how this could get complicated.

so let’s meet the teams.

red bull racing. they came first this year (and last year) in the championship. like aggressively first. like they won the championship by over 350 points. they are definitely the team to beat. but if you end up with a seat at red bull, you do have to deal with max verstappen being your teammate and he won all but three of the races last year. he’s the golden boy. red bull are also notoriously silly when it comes to contracts and famously swap people mid season who aren’t performing.

mercedes. merc is home to 7 time world champion lewis hamilton and they have won the championship a great many times, though not since 2021. they are kind of in their flop arc and their car the last 2 years has been pretty garbage, but they have still made it work because they were able to come in second last year.

ferrari. god help the poor little meow meows with a ferrari contract. ferrari is a notoriously great team and they’re trying to get back to the top again but their strategy every single time has fallen short. to the point where their drivers are the ones doing the strategy in their cars while driving. they came in third last year and have been decently consistent at getting first in qualifying and then getting beat by max verstappen on race day.

mclaren. they’ve definitely worked their way up over recent years. they ended fourth last year and have had some championship wins before but not nearly as many as say merc and ferrari. their team ceo (owner? director?) is a little interesting and their car started out a pile of flaming hot garbage at the beginning of the year but they did manage to get their shit together.

aston martin. they are owned by canadian billionaire lawrence stroll, father of lance stroll (one of the drivers for the team). they’ve undergone several name changes over the recent years (force india, racing point, etc). they positively slayed at the start of the season and then one day they sucked. they finished fifth in the championship.

alpine. the frenchest french team. they’re (i think?) still partially owned by the french government. both of their drivers are french. (their drivers also hate eachother but we’ll get to that. just know they’re in the middle of a modern french civil war). they had the opportunity to have a good rookie driver (oscar piastri) this past year but in a thrilling twitter battle, he publically flamed the shit out of them and went to mclaren instead (and slayed). they're usually solidly middle of the pack. they ended sixth in the championship.

williams. williams has been one of the back of the grid teams for the last many years but they have finally started to get their shit together and don’t quite suck as much as they used to. all of the points this year were scored by only one driver though (except one but we’ll get there). they came in seventh.

alpha tauri. they are the sister team of red bull. so technically redbull owns both teams (meaning they can swap drivers between teams. they like doing this.) they’ve just kind of been There for awhile but they did slay towards the end of the season when one of their drivers led the race for several laps. basically tho, this team is the gateway to redbull. they came in eighth.

alpha romeo. recently renamed to stake f1 team (but sometimes they are going to be called kick sauber. this is a whole other drama post and i’m not getting into it). they’re also just kind of there. generally unproblematic. seems that really great drivers who get ixed out of a contract for a younger driver end up here or young drivers who are in their early years are here before they go to a better team. they ended ninth this year.

haas. oh haas. goofy team. they suck. point blank they suck. they keep loosing sponsors because they suck, they don’t win ever (one time they came first in qualifying last year). they cursed themselves in australia in 2018 by not tightening their tires and its been downhill ever since. they came 10th. their team principle got let go (fired?) who’s to say today.

so those are the teams. it is important to note that:

-there is a cost cap. each team is allowed to spend no more than 135m per year.

-not all cars are equal. some things are standard. they all undergo the same testing. but the cars are all very different. so you can be a good driver but stuck in a shitty car. which makes it impressive if you are doing well in a shitty car.

let’s meet our drivers!!!

starting with the guys who’s contract is not ending in 2024:

max verstappen. 3 time world champion. 26 years old. general beast on the track. he dominated the whole season. he’s currently racing for red bull and has a contract with them through 2028.

lewis hamilton. 7 time world champion. 39 years old. he drives for mercedes. he will not leave mercedes until he retires. he really really wants to win an 8th world championship and is willing to stick it out a few more years as long as merc still believes in him. his contract expires in 2025.

george russell. the other merc driver. 26 years old. hes aggressively british and says thinks like blimey unironically. walking meme. got his merc seat in 2022 right when they entered their flop arc by getting his tractor of a williams to finish second in qualifying in the middle of a rainstorm. his contract expires in 2025.

lando norris. mclaren driver. 24 years old. he has notably never won a race in his five years of formula one (mostly because right when his car finally was good enough max verstappen was 20 seconds ahead of anyone) but he is regarded as Very Good. he has only ever driven for mclaren. and even though there is another year left on his contract there is mass speculation that he will not renew his contract with mclaren after it expires and he may move up to one of the top teams (red bull, merc, ferrari) (tho i think he doesnt hate himself quite enough to go to ferrari). his contract expires in 2025.

oscar piastri. the other mclaren driver. 22 years old. this was his rookie season and he positively slayed. like people compared his rookie season to lewis hamiltons rookie season. he also had the positively funniest start to his rookie year because alpine announced that he would be driving for them (he had been their reserve driver and in the alpine academy) and he posted a tweet that basically said yeah thats false i never singed anything with you and im going to race with mclaren instead (he dodged a bullet) and then alpine tried and failed to sue him for $4m USD. he signed a contract extension with mclaren this year and his contract expires in 2026.

lance stroll. aston martin driver and son of the aston martin owner. hes doing ok, tho there was conspiracy that he wanted to quit and have a tennis career awhile ago. but basically since his dad owns the team it seems that hes guaranteed a seat for as long as he wants one.

so now. moving onto the good shit. the people who have contracts expiring in 2024. hold onto your hats people.

charles leclerc. (everyones favorite slutty little soup can). 26 years old. he is currently at ferrari and he has been since 2019. notably, he was given the longest contract in the history of ferrari after a stellar rookie season at sauber (renamed to alpha romeo, renamed to stake f1) where he got the tractor of a car consistently into the points. having the longest contract in the history of ferrari was a flex at the time, but now its likely how he will introduce himself at therapy sessions. ferrari have fucked this man left right and center up the ass with a plastic lunchroom spork. hes talented, he can drive, and he can drive well. but the strategy that ferrari has absolutely sucks. either something is wrong with the car (see him blowing out his gear box on the formation lap in monaco, his car completely crapping out and spinning into the barrier in brazil before the race even started) or they fuck up his pit stops or put him on the wrong tires and honestly its just frustrating. but will he leave??? likely not. you'd have to pry ferrari out of his cold dead hands and at this rate that might be where this is headed though there has been some minor speculation of him going to another team like merc or red bull, but merc doesnt have any open seats and red bull is a whole other dumpster fire of drama. ferrari are going to have to pay him a boatload of money to make him stay.

carlos sainz. the smooth operator. 29 years old. ferrari driver. previously carlos was at toro rosso (renamed to alpha tauri), renault (renamed to alpine), and mclaren before signing with ferrari. he has been at ferrari since 2021 and has voiced that he would like to stay with them for however long he can. there is speculation that lando might replace him at ferrari (but landos contract is not up until 2025) and there is also some speculation that alex albon might replace him. while charles is clearly the golden boy at ferrari, carlos is slightly slower but also definitely consistent. he was THE ONLY non red bull driver to win a race this past year, in Singapore after max verstappedn was knocked out of qualifying by alpha tauri reserve driver liam lawson (more on him later) and because he basically came up with his own strategy in the car while he was driving.

sergio perez. aka checo. red bull driver. 33 years old. and oh boy here's where we open the can of worms. checo was previously at racing point (renamed aston martin) and it was very near the end of the 2020 (?) season and he was out of a contract. he had a bonkers race where he was knocked to the back of the grid and then overtook everyone and somehow ended up winning (there is more to that story but just trust me) and christian horner, red bull team principle, mr ginger spice and definite disney villain called him and said congrats sir you have a seat at red bull! well. fast forward. hes been causing problems. problems as in crashing a lot, generally not doing great and pissing the crap out of red bull. it is basically guaranteed at this point that he will not be getting a contract extension. there was actually talk this year of him losing his seat mid season to one of the alpha tauri drivers, because remember, red bull owns both teams and they can switch them whenever they want to (and they have!) but ultimately this did not happen. even though checo has a seat at red bull until the end of 2024, its mass speculated that he is going to get switched with an alpha tauri driver, probably daniel ricciardo (more on him shortly) mid season because there is a speculated clause in daniels contract that says that if checo isn't performing well in the first few races daniel is getting his seat.

daniel ricciardo. 34 years old. alpha tauri driver. man oh man what a guy. outside of being the prankster of the paddock, he has one of the most batshit careers of anyone currently on the grid. he started out at red bull and was showing real talent and skill and was on track to win things (and was!) and was there until the end of 2018 when max verstappen (his teammate) started getting preferential treatment and also red bull started having a lot of problems with their engines (which were being outsourced from Renault (now alpine) and another team on the grid) and well very very long story short he made the surprise move of the century and decided to sign with Renault (which makes no sense they're the one with the engine problems) and was there for 2 years before moving again to mclaren where he was reportedly not treated very well and had a hard time driving the car so they mutually ended his contract with them early and he basically retired at the end of the 2022 season and became a red bull reserve driver. then halfway through the 2023 season alpha tauri ixed one of their drivers, nyck de vries, because he wasnt doing well and promoted daniel back up to a full time driver at alpha tauri (which we know is only a step down from red bull) but then he broke his hand in a crash in zanvort (?) and then he was replaced for a few races by formula 2 driver liam lawson (who we will also talk about) and then he came back to finish out the season in alpha tauri after he was cleared. daniel has admitted openly that he never should have left red bull and he was given bad advice to do so. hes towards the end of his career at this point and its well known that he Really Really wants to finish out his career at red bull again. he and max have already been teammates before and they do work well together and daniel is great driver (see his comeback in texas (or maybe it was brazil?) this year). so. Pretty Sure that daniels going to get either an extension at alpha tauri or go up to red bull. thats what we all want. get this man in a red bull we need him there biblically.

liam lawson. now technically liam is not actually a formula 1 driver. hes a formula 2 driver, but he was daniels replacement for five races and there has been some speculation and some confirmed news about him so hes getting included. when he was racing for f1 he was at alpha tauri. hes 21 and looks like he belongs in the movie grease. no one was expecting him to slay in formula 1 and he positively knocked everyones socks off. the scene: Singapore. which, if you'll recall, is the one race that a not red bull driver won. this was largely because liam lawson slayed the absolute game in qualifying. the qualifying part of racing determines what order the cars start in on the grid for the race and theres three parts, the first two parts the bottom 5 drivers each time get knocked out and then the top 10 complete for the last 10 spots. liam lawson knocked BOTH max verstappen and checo perez out of qualifying in the second round by going very slightly faster than them, effectively fucking up red bulls race and allowing carlos to win. and he also scored points in that race, which no one was expecting. now thats all fine and dandy, but here's the speculation: hemlut marko (im pretty sure) (who is somehow decently involved in the decision making at red bull though i couldn't tell you how) said that he thinks that liam lawson will be in an f1 seat no later than 2025. meaning that he will probably get offered a contract this year. and hes already raced for alpha tauri. red bull have sunk a good amount of money into him. they clearly want him. so if he gets offered an alpha tauri seat in 2025, that means theres a good chance danny rics is going to red bull. do you SEE how the plot here is THICKENED

yuki tsunoda. age 23. currently at alpha tauri. and fun fact, the only alpha tauri driver to race there the whole year. he had three separate team mates. he is slaying and hes often slept on. he has a bit of a temper and likes to shout on the radio and also hates working out (they had to force him to move to italy or something to work out, long story) but hes been kinda killing it. he led several laps in the abu dhabi race this year and hes decently consistent. people think theres possibility that he could get moved up to red bull on account of the fact that he is younger than daniel and clearly has more years in him,, but there is also possibility that he might not because red bull like to make stupid decisions. and if he doesnt get moved up to rebel, will he stay with alpha tauri? we don't know.

alex albon. age 27. currently a williams driver. alex albon is another one with a batshit career. he started out his rookie year in 2019 at alpha tauri then got moved up to red bull halfway through the year when red bull decided that pierre gasley wasnt doing a good enough job (more on him later) and stayed with red bull for a solid year and a half until he lost his seat in 2021 to checo. he has been with williams for the last two years and is basically carrying the team. like. williams as a team scored 28 points this year. and alex albon scored 27 of those 28 points. and as we know, williams is still kind of in their shit arc (though they are doing much better. they didnt score any points for a solid 2 (?) years. so this is an improvement.) and if you can get a shit car to perform you catch the eye of bigger teams. now, alex has already been a red bull driver. and he was on the cusp of podiuming two separate times when lewis hamilton ran into him. this (among a few other things) basically killed his chances at getting resigned at red bull because he wasnt ""performing"" and red bull are bitches who love to win. but some people think that red bull should give him another shot. like daniel, hes already been max's teammate and he can definitely drive. but theres also talk he might go to ferrari because ferrari think that he might compliment charles's driving style (or something). but going to ferrari at this point is kind of suicide. so.

logan sergeant. age 23. the only american on the grid. the other williams driver. he just finished his rookie year. he scored a grand total of one single point this season, in texas, and it was because charles leclerc and lewis hamilton both got disqualified because the floor of their car had more wear (by literally less than millimeters) than it was allowed to, bumping him up from 12th to 10th. he has never done better than alex albon. he was also the very last driver to get a contract for 2024, with williams waiting until i think december of 2023 to announce his contract extension. clearly, hes on thin ice. but people have also said that he needs time to get used to formula 1 (other people have pointed out that oscar piastri slayed his rookie season this year and this statement about needing time is largely false). where logan ends up next year though will largely depend on how well the 2024 season goes for him.

fernando alonso. 42 years old. many people like to point out that oscar piastri is actually younger than fernando's racing career. he won tiktok creator of the year (somehow) and is also a 2 time world champion. he retired a few years ago, just to show back up again and slay. during the first half of the season when aston martin had a zoom zoom car he killed it, and then they had problems on top of problems and he didnt do well. except for that one race in brazil where he came in third, beating checo by literally .05 seconds. he hasn't really made any hints about retiring a second time and he is kind of carrying aston Martin right now (he scored 205 points this season, coming in 4th and tying in points with charles leclerc, lance stroll only scored 74 points this year.) and they did have their best year yet this year. (though they are relatively new).

pierre gasley. 27 years old. french. drives for alpine. the french team. previously he raced with toro rosso (now alpha tauri), then got promoted to a red bull driver in 2019, then halfway through the season they decided he wasnt doing a good enough job and he got demoted back down to alpha tauri. then he won a race with alpha tauri just to stick it to red bull. after the great oscar piastri contract twitter war, he was signed as alpines second driver, with Esteban ocon being the other driver (more on him soon). estie bestie and pierre (both french) were childhood friends and now hate each other for unknown reasons and basically feuded on the track for most of the season. french civil war at alpine. he scored 62 points in 2023 and came in 11th. not really sure where he will end up, it is possible that he will stick it out at alpine.

esteban ocon. 27 years old. also french. currently driving for alpine. another one with a silly bonkers career. he started out at force india and had a baller few seasons there but his teammate at the time was checo, and checo didnt really cooperate with him too much and caused some drama that cost estie bestie some places and some points. max verstappen also beat him up in the garage once. thats not really relevant but it did happen. anyway, after the owner of force india was arrested for .... i don't remember what maybe it was embezzlement or bankruptcy or something money related, the team was backed by lawrence stroll and became racing point. but all of that happened mid season and lawrence was basically like look ill back you guys for now but next year my son gets a seat (lance) so one of you two (checo and estie bestie) have to go. and ultimately they let estie bestie go even though he was more consistent because checo had more sponsors and they needed money. so he was out of formula 1 for a few years (but was a merc reserve driver) and then went to Renault, which then became alpine. he did come in 12th though overall this season, just behind pierre. so. will alpine keep both him and pierre and keep the civil war going? whos to say.

nico hulkenberg. 36 years old. haas driver. in his 200+ f1 races he has never been on the podium and he really really wants to be on the podium. unfortunately this will never happen in a haas because haas fucking sucks. and everyone knows it. he is getting towards the end of his career though. though! stake f1 will become the mario Andretti and audi team in 2026 (don't question it) and they have supposedly voiced interest in nico. so we will see if he hangs on that long to end up at audi. for now tough, hes definitely hating it at haas. though, haas are going to have a different team principle next year so maybe that will change things. i have a sneaky feeling through that haas will probably end up with another 2 rookie drivers because everyone else is smart enough to not race for them.

kevin magnussen. 31 years old. haas driver. hes another deeply interesting character. he has had one podium. in his rookie season. in his first race. and none since. kevin started at haas in 2017 and then left at then end of 2020 when he basically got kicked off because the team needed money and they wanted to bring in drivers with more sponsorships. these drivers were mick schumacher and nikita mazepin. so kevin basically was forced to retire after the 2020 season. this went decently well for haas. until russia invaded ukraine right before the start of the 2022 season and, well, nikita was Russian and it was never distinctly proven that his dads company (who was sponsoring the team) wasnt also funding the invasion. so nikita got fired and they were literally like 2 weeks out from the start of the season, down a driver. who are you gonna call? kevin magnussen! and hes been back ever since. but hes clearly getting annoyed with haas. there was one great clip from this year where his car caught on fire and he kind of just stared into to, clearly hoping it would burn for a long time. so the likelihood of him extending his contract is looking slim.

valtteri bottas. 34 years old. currently a driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo, kick sauber, whatever you wanna call it). previously, he was a mercedes driver and notoriously helped lewis hamilton win a great many championships, until he lost his seat to george russell in 2022. there was a rather awkward part of the 2021 season where valtteri knew that he was out of a merc seat the following year and kind of just chose violence. he slayed. then he went to alpha romeo, grew a mullet and made a calendar of his ass. quite the glow up if you ask me. hes also very interested in cycling. honestly though, i have my own personal speculation that hes going to retire at the end of this year.

zhou guanyu. 24 years old. driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo/kick sauber, etc etc). hes doing alright. he just finished his second season, in his first season he was majorly out qualified by valtteri but this past season he managed to out qualify him a good 6 times. which is decently good for the tractor of a car hes driving. its possible that he could get a contract extension, but like logan, its probably going to depend on how the 2024 season goes for him.

and thats all the drivers. theres also a few others i didnt talk about, like some other f2 drivers who want seats and mick schumacher, who is currently a merc reserve driver, all of which could be contenders for f1 seats. but one things for sure. this is going to be the silliest fucking silly season.

feel free to add on and peer review me

[cascadeofrp]

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Episode List (Production Order)

List taken from the Wiki here: https://blosc.fandom.com/wiki/Episodes_by_Production_Number

-

All of the episodes can be found on archive.org here

-

Movie WatchCartoonOnline | wcofun

TV Version of Movie Part 1 WatchCartoonOnline | wcofun Part 2 WatchCartoonOnline | wcofun Part 3  archive.org | Alternate archive.org upload

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NOS-4-A2 DailyMotion | wcofun

Lost in Time DailyMotion | wcofun

The Torque Armada YouTube | wcofun

Gravitina WatchCartoonOnline | wcofun

The Planet Destroyer YouTube | wcofun

XL DailyMotion | wcofun

The Return of XL YouTube | wcofun

Star Smasher YouTube | wcofun

The Beasts of Karn YouTube | wcofun

Wirewolf YouTube | wcofun

The Plasma Monster YouTube | wcofun

Rescue Mission DailyMotion | wcofun

Shiv Katall DailyMotion | wcofun

Tag Team YouTube | wcofun

Mindwarp YouTube | wcofun

The Taking of PC-7 WatchCartoonOnline | wcofun

The Main Event YouTube | wcofun

Little Secrets WatchCartoonOnline | wcofun

The Starthought YouTube | wcofun

Good Ol' Buzz YouTube | wcofun

Dirty Work DailyMotion | wcofun

Mira's Wedding YouTube | wcofun

42 DailyMotion | wcofun

Inside Job YouTube | wcofun

Strange Invasion YouTube | wcofun

Root of Evil YouTube | wcofun

Speed Trap YouTube | wcofun

Enemy Without a Face DailyMotion | wcofun

Panic on Bathyos YouTube | wcofun

Clone Rangers DailyMotion | wcofun

Conspiracy YouTube | wcofun

Eye of the Tempest YouTube | wcofun

Head Case DailyMotion | wcofun

The Crawling Flesh DailyMotion | wcofun

Return to Karn YouTube | wcofun

The Yukari Imprint DailyMotion | wcofun

Downloaded YouTube | wcofun

The Shape Stealer YouTube | wcofun

Opposites Attract YouTube | wcofun

Star Crossed WatchCartoonOnline | wcofun

Devolutionaries YouTube | wcofun

Bunzel Fever DailyMotion | wcofun

Revenge of the Monsters YouTube | wcofun

Large Target YouTube | wcofun

A Zoo Out There YouTube | wcofun

Stress Test DailyMotion | wcofun

Ancient Evil YouTube | wcofun

Stranger Invasion YouTube | wcofun

The Slayer YouTube | wcofun

Rookie of the Year YouTube | wcofun

Super Nova YouTube | wcofun

Lone Wolf DailyMotion | wcofun

The Lightyear Factor YouTube | wcofun

Sunquake YouTube | wcofun

At Large on a Small Planet YouTube | wcofun

First Missions DailyMotion | wcofun

Haunted Moon YouTube | wcofun

Planet of the Lost DailyMotion | wcofun

Holiday Time YouTube | wcofun

Millennial Bugs YouTube | wcofun

War and Peace and War YouTube | wcofun

Revenge of the Raenoks YouTube | wcofun

[shriekbackmusic]

Collaborations #1 (’Shriekback are Seeing Other People’)

Well, collaboration is everything really innit? No man is an island, not even the ones who pretend they are. That’s what I reckon.  Merging somebodys’ talents and energies with yours. What a thing. The very stuff of life.

Still, it can be a fractious business: politics will come into it. LIke: who’s in charge here?  Who gets to say whether your bit is better than my bit? And how do we work that shit out? A microcosm of the world or what?

Undeterred, we  seem to do it (collaborate) quite a lot. And these are some pretty successful tunes, I would say. Good for us. Bold and resolute Shriekback! 

So there’s Hope, right?

(BA)

MART’S TRACKS:

DROP BY DROP Barker/Burridge

Taken from my Album" Water and Stone." Exploring my rolling Gtr and groove in 7 with the wonderfully talented musician cellist Emily Burridge.

Inspired by the miracle of water, its rhythm, its music, its journey, its myths, its poetry and beauty 

FLYING SAUCER Barker/ Roedelius/Noah1

Lovely to have met and worked with the master of Ambience, Hans Joachim Roedelius for the Album Fibre.

Recorded up in the hills of Shropshire with George Taylor (Noah1) and Jez coed

This piece was inspired by my riff Im playing on the Hang Drum, hence the title "Flying Saucer"

GOLDEN MOON Barker/Young

Taken from my mini Album”  Blue” Talitha Rise.

This was my first big endeavour into the musical spiritual world and  collaboration with Jo beth young.

We are joined on the Riti by Juldeh Camara.

PILGRIM`S WAY Barker/Adams

My new project/collaboration still ongoing with the mighty talent of Justin Adams .

This first piece inspired by ancient walks.

This new whole album partly inspired by the writing of Robert Macfarlane "the old ways"

SANDLINES. Barker/ Adams

Second piece inspired the Ancient paths of the desert. 

THE LAKE Barker/Young taken from the album" Abandoned Orchid House” Talitha Rise

Another collaboration with Jo beth Young and another piece in 7!

Intense, energetic and rich with riddles.

THE SELKIE. Barker / Pynn

Second Piece taken from my Album "Water and Stone”

Inspired by the Myths and stories of the Selkie. With the magical multi instrumentalist Nick Pynn on Violin.

CARL’S TRACKS:

Words Fail Me

with AMANDA KRAVIT

(Barratt/Marsh)

David Barratt and I were introduced to Amanda by John Mrvos, one of the A&R team at EastWest Atlantic in New York (Happyhead’s label) - she was his girlfriend and he wanted to get her recorded, basically, so we came up with this. Dave had done some kind of publishing deal that allowed him to sample the company catalogue, hence Ravi Shankar playing sitar all over it. Backing vocals by Bill Clift; some of the drums sound like Jim Kimberley, sampled from HH sessions  (1992ish.)

The Longest Goodbye

with BILL CLIFT

(Clift/Marsh)

I’ve written loads with Bill under various banners, of course. This is a mid-90s demo recorded in Bill’s flat in Greenwich. BVs by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle, bass (I think) by Gary Brady… not sure who did the wibbly organ. This song was later recorded by Bill’s band Fuzzbuddy, re-titled Killing Me Now - it’s just been re-released as part of their Complete Studio Recordings compilation.

THE PALACE DOGS

with GEOFF WOOLEY

I’ve collaborated with Geoff Woolley since Out On Blue Six, and in school bands even before that. These two tracks, from around 1995, are both built from sampled TV shows (and therefore subject to all sorts of potential copyright issues…).

Queen of Peoples’ Hearts

(Marsh/Woolley)

The self-styled QOPH’s Panorama special, cut up and pumped up with added Dario Argento and a spot of Jeremy Paxman. The Original is all-electronic; the Guitar Version has not only mine and Geoff’s rhythm bits but some wildfire lead from Steve Bolton (Atomic Rooster, Paul Young, The Who etc. and currently fronting the mighty Dead Man’s Corner). Take yer pick.

Crazy Dames

(Marsh/Woolley)

The main voice and piano on here are from a 1961 Twilight Zone episode called The Midnight Sun, in which the Earth is knocked out of orbit and is spiralling towards the Sun… it gets hot. Other vocals by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle.

GASWERKS

The Ying Tong Song

(Milligan)

Basically the same format as The Palace Dogs with the addition of Bill Clift, whose idea it was to knock out a dance version of The Goons’, er, classic. Dig that crazy rhythm, indeed. We were told the novelty song market was a hard one to crack… by the singer of Black Lace, who should know, I suppose…

WOOLLEY/MARSH

The Girlfriends Of Dorian Gray

(Barratt/Marsh/Woolley)

David Barratt came up with the conceit of a modern Dorian Gray who preserves his youth (or immaturity) not by having a grotesquely ageing portrait in the attic but by having an ever-changing string of girlfriends who absorb the consequences of his many flaws and are discarded one after another. Dave sketched out the chorus and then proposed that he, I and Deni Bonet (NY-based violinist and writer that we’ve worked with on various projects) should write our own versions of the story, possibly with the idea of creating some kind of meta-version combining them all. That never happened, but I like the track Geoff and I came up with and the lyric is nice and tricksy - shades of Costello, maybe, if I say so myself.

You’re The Only One

(Marsh/Woolley)

A re-write of a Happyhead demo, switching New York electronica for some 90s Britpop vibes, it sounds like. Bit of a kinky ménage à trois scenario with reasonably loud guitars. Nice.

BARRY’S TRACKS

The Frances & Martine poems, with Hilda Sheehan (2014)

part 1: GLOW, GOOSE, CORN-REMOVER

part 2: COAT, ARM, KNOB OF BUTTER

I met Hilda Sheehan - through the (surprisingly vibey) Swindon poetry scene when I was stationed back there for 10 years in '04.  She was often the star turn at their spoken word events and, I thought, had the mark of a real artist in that she came with her own self-contained world (’magical realist Northern UK kitchen sink’, if I had to describe it).

I thought it would be fun to 'set' (as they say) some of her poems to music and so I did. From Hilda's considerable oeuvre, I picked the Frances and Martine series - I liked F&M's mutually abrasive dependence - the key ingredient in any sitcom - and the succinct and sometimes brutal nature of each of their adventures. 

Dame Hilda Sheehan

The Anaxaton6 EP with Mike Tournier (2013)

I first worked with Mike Tournier (Big Mike as opposed to Little Mike - these were Flukes' Contrasting Mikes at the time) as producer on their OTO album c.94. Techno outfit Fluke apparently liked them some Olde Shriekback (they had worked previously with Wendy and Sarah) and thought I might add something to the project. 

It turned out that producing a techno band is every bit as awkward as you might imagine (there’s only one computer screen for a start) and we abandoned the collaboration after I'd failed to insert myself into Fluke's process in any useful way (sandwich run doesn't count).

Anyway, we stayed in touch and collaborated rather more successfully on a Fluke/Shriekback tune and performance for MTV.  

It was the redoubtable Julian Nugent, Fluke's manager, who got in touch - in 2013 to suggest that Mike and I might like to try knocking up a tune together.

I liked the idea of this straightaway. Mike can produce huge, hi-torque productions and I had an idea of a songwriting approach which I though might complement this. The vocalist would be recognisably the bloke out of Shriekback but CG’d with florid new appendages. I fancied some mad-as-a-rat lyrics (Welcome to their secret sign: Boola Stack! Haunted Lego of the Mind! Boola Stack!) but the music would be slick and vivid and solidly crafted because that's always how Mike rolls. Thus you get something quite absurd being taken very seriously which is, to my mind, the best thing you can possibly have.

extract  from the sleeve notes:

BONE MARAUDER tells of a pure love, painful engorgement and hog sorcery. 

JUJUGRID (GO LIVE!) wrangles with hedonic guilt, ecclesiastical turpitude and leaves everything else the fuck alone. 

BOOLA STACK! - There are so many things to say of Boola Stack that to ennumerate them insults us both.

NO FOOL BOLETUS... let's just be clear about this: you got nothing to hide, there's no need to worry. Be lucky.

Michaele don Turino and Bleary Android are the naked mortals chained to the husky obelisk of ANAXATON6 

Anaxaton6 has some videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anaxaton6

Mike Tournier

[allislaughter]

Recommended BLoSC Episode Viewing Order

Designed by @thirddoctor a few years ago as a potential order to watch Buzz Lightyear of Star Command in order to best enjoy the various story arcs and continuity things that are lost due to the official release order. Split into “Seasons” to make it more manageable~

* S2 E10 Holiday Time - This is the Christmas Episode so watch it whenever you want to feel festive. *

Pilot - The Adventure Begins

Season 1 S1 E06 NOS-4-A2 S1 E01 The Torque Armada S1 E02 Gravitina S1 E03 XL S1 E04 Little Secrets S1 E05 Inside Job S1 E08 The Beasts of Karn S1 E10 The Main Event S1 E07 The Planet Destroyer S1 E09 Tag Team S1 E11 The Return of XL S1 E12 Strange Invasion S1 E13 The Taking of PC-7 S1 E14 Mindwarp S1 E15 Mira’s Wedding S1 E16 Panic on Bathyos S1 E17 Shiv Katall S1 E18 Stress Test S1 E26 The Slayer S1 E19 A Zoo Out There

Season 2 S1 E20 Root of Evil S1 E21 Super Nova S1 E22 Downloaded S1 E23 The Plasma Monster S1 E24 The Crawling Flesh S1 E25 Dirty Work S2 E11 Opposites Attract S1 E27 The Lightyear Factor S1 E28 Clone Rangers S1 E29 Bunzel Fever S1 E30 Devolutionaries S1 E31 Head Case S1 E32 The Yukari Imprint S1 E33 The Shape Stealer S1 E34 Star Crossed S1 E35 Haunted Moon S1 E36 Stranger Invasion S1 E37 Eye of the Tempest S1 E39 Lone Wolf S1 E40 Planet of the Lost

Season 3 S1 E41 Revenge of the Raenoks S1 E42 The Starthought S2 E08 Return to Karn S1 E44 Conspiracy S1 E48 Large Target S1 E45 At Large on a Small Planet S2 E05 Star Smasher S1 E47 First Missions S2 E01 Lost in Time S2 E02 Rookie of the Year S2 E04 Rescue Mission S1 E46 Sunquake S2 E06 Enemy Without a Face S2 E07 Good Ol’ Buzz S1 E43 Millennial Bugs S2 E09 Speed Trap S2 E13 42 S2 E12 Ancient Evil S1 E49 War and Peace and War S2 E03 Wirewolf S1 E38 Revenge of the Monsters

[militant-holy-knight]

Benioff and Weiss Were Always Hacks: You Only Noticed Now

Or why you should be worried for the future Star Wars movies made by them

(Disclaimer: this blogpost contains spoilers for Game of Thrones)

With only two episodes left for the series to reach it’s conclusion and the announcement for future Star Wars movies in the horizon made by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (henceforth referred to as D&D for simplicity sake), not many fans seem to be excited about it as they should due to the creative choices taken in regards to the final season of Game of Thrones. Speaking as a GoT fan, I used to enjoy the show a lot and I believe it reached it’s peak on Season 4 and started to go went downhill on Season 5. If D&D were in charge from the beginning what happened?

D&D’s job was always to adapt the book series by George R. R. Martin, which means any merit to the show’s writing can be attributed largely to Martin while D&D were only fit for it to make it work into a tv show - which is still laudable in it’s own right because there are things in the books that still wouldn’t translate too well into the show. In any case, they did their job well from Season 1 to Season 4 which adapted the first trilogy in the series. Even though there are still five books in total released at the time, Season 5 is where they started to run out of material to adapt because some storylines didn’t find their proper conclusion and they needed to come up with their own unique deviations.

Season 5 is considered by many fans to be the low point in the series because of it’s extremely low pacing and controversial liberties taken: the biggest ones have to be the Dorne subplot because that meant axing popular book character Arianne Martell, Stannis Baratheon turning irredeemable evil and paying with his life and Sansa’s marriage to Ramsay Snow leading to her rape, which is still a very hot button among the fandom to this day (and understandably so). Season 5 did have some moments like Hardhome which showed the strength of the true villain of the series, the Night King, the leader of the White Walker invasion who brings winter with him. He is the Thanos-like menace who is teased since the very start of the show with the very first scene opening with a White Walker killing some Night Watch’s rangers and warning us about the danger he represents.

Season 6 fixed some of these problems by giving a more dynamic pacing and build it up with the Battle of the Bastards as the climatic encounter instead of something completely anti-climatic like Season 5′s finale where Stannis Baratheon’s forces were liquidated by the Boltons offscreen. But still, it was an entire season wasted to fix another one’s problems and it still had some individual problems. 

And then Season 7 came along and it all went to waste. I wouldn’t say it was as bad as Season 5 because at least shit happened and it wasn’t boring, but it was still full of groan-worthy moments like trying to force some romance between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen which doesn’t work because they have no chemistry and they are related by blood, curing Jorah Mormont who has been infected with a dangerous disease that will turn him into a snow zombie by simply cutting out the infected area, and of course lest we forget the Wight Hunt in Episode 6 “Beyond the Wall” which broke all suspension of disbelief. Lemme sum it up for you what happens in that episode so you can get the idea and let me put up a map so you can get it from reference.

The heroes come up with the idea to capture an Wight and bring it South to convince Cersei to from a truce.

The travel by boat to the Wall from their base on Dragonstone.

After reaching the Wall, they walk into the land beyond it to find a wight.

They find one and send one of their members back to ask reinforcements having to sprint a indeterminate distance.

The team gets surrounded by the Night King’s army in a frozen lake for a indeterminate amount of time.

The allies at the Wall send a raven back to Dragonstone requesting help.

Daenerys summons her dragons to fly to the land beyond the Wall to rescue the heroes.

They are fighting to the last against the advancing horde of the Night King just before Daenerys arrives in a triumphant moment to save them.

And all of this happens like... Within a hour apparently. Several days should have taken place between this exchange but time moves at the speed of the plot, but D&D seem to be relying on emotional torque to get viewers to ignore all internal logic and be mindblown by the crowning moments of awesome. And this is the core issue with their writing.

D&D write their scenes the same way they film sex scenes apparently, hoping that the emotional moments will make the audience be carried over. Thing is... I realized this after thinking up about many moments in the past. Hardhome was one such example in Season 5 to make up for its abhorrent dullness and even Season 6 wasn’t safe from this. For example, remember how Rickon Stark died just so he could provoke Jon Snow to act irrationally and spur him into conflict? Why didn’t Rickon run in zig-zag when Ramsay began firing arrows at him? Why did he run into a straight line? Did these writers not watch Prometheus to learn their lessons from it’s mistakes? This problem was carried over in Season 8 and amplified a lot in the Long Night. Many people pointed out the several military blunders made by the protagonists when fighting against the Night King’s army.

I could talk about the moronic choice to film everything in absolute darkness and make it impossible to see shit.

I could talk about how idiotic it was to waste your cavalry against the enemy bulwark.

I could talk about how they didn’t create trenches with tar or use fire for more effective manner against the undead.

But I’d rather talk about that moment.

Arya killing the Night King.

You know at first I was okay with that because:

I wasn’t being a fan of Jon Snow in a long time.

Arya wasn’t a Mary Sue, had skills that justified her, so I could buy it better.

But the more I thought about it, more I came to the realization that it was a wrong choice all along.

Arya never had any investment in killing the Night King. She was a character defined by a list of people she wanted to kill including the Freys, Cersei, Joffrey and others.

Arya was trained as an assassin yes... But her training in Season 5 and 6 was very lackluster. She spent some time doing menial works, impersonating some people and trying to spill some poison on someone’s drink. She never learned invisibility, teleportation or any other cool shit.

And most importantly... Melisandre predicting that Arya would shut down “blue eyes” way back when they met in Season 3. If she sensed she was always destined to kill the Night King why did she ever support Stannis? Why did she even support Jon Snow? She even referred to him as the Prince that was Promised. Some fans can try to spin this as much as they want, but it breaks the plot retroactively very hard.

The actress herself didn’t think she deserved it

Of course all of these things were ignored by a large part of the fanbase, more specifically the “woke” crowd because YAS QUEEN SLAY. Little did they know that the very next episode would force them to eat a real shit sandwich when “The Last of the Starks” seemed to turn the narrative against Daenerys Targaryen by turning her into the Mad Queen, killing her handmaiden Missandei and setting up Jon to be the next King of Westeros. Not helping matters is that a series of leaks not yet confirmed as of the time of writing were released prior to the episode (but I personally feel they were legitimate due to some specific things but that is not the point) which sent many Daenerys fans into panic mode.

Speaking as someone who really doesn’t like Daenerys Targaryen, I can actually sympathize with them at some level because this shift appears to be very sudden specially now that the authors favored her more until this very moment. Some viewers can argue that there were always signs like her burning the Tarlys for refusing to bend the knee, which I personally took issue with before but it never really came across as the sign of an insane ruler since she offered very valid rebuttals. It all seemed like the plot was tailored to take her side no matter what and I considered Dany a Mary Sue. But just because they seem to be turning her into a villain now, it doesn’t make me hate the story any less.

Now... I spent an inordinate amount of time bitching about Game of Thrones and if you are an Star Wars fan that doesn’t know anything about it, you might be lost to anything I am writing. Well I needed to give an proper context to both GoT and SW fans since those seem to overlap now and give you a warning because Star Wars seems to be more lost now than ever. D&D were never particularly good writers, they were incoherent about continuity, care more about spectacle over substance and seem to share a thing about subverting the audience’s expectations like a certain Ruin Johnson who succeeded in completely ruining a franchise like there was no tomorrow. The key difference between D&D and Ruin is that the duo doesn’t share the same flippant attitude or picking up fights with fans on Twitter - on the contrary, D&D understand the power of fanservice even if it means daggling the metaphorical shining keys in front of the audience. 

As we come close to Game of Thrones conclusion, I have a feeling that nobody will truly come out satisfied with it should the story take the direction that we are really dreading. I’ve seen interviews about how Emilia Clarke sounds really sad and deflated, seemed like she was really disappointed with how the show ended. Whatever happens, the blame can be laid on the feet of Benioff and Weiss for their frankly baffling creative decisions. This season has been disappointing through and through with two or three episodes being needlessly long and filler to booth and to make matters worse, it was supposed to end earlier than 10 episodes. Why did they need to rush it and yet fill the series with so much dead air?

Now can you imagine a Star Wars movie made by them? With all these things I listed? The next trilogy is already dated, we don't know if it's D&D or Ruin Johnson yet. We are talking about a couple of writers that have no sense of realistic scale, continuity or logic, but rely on cheap emotional tricks to have the audience invested until they begin thinking about it. I would laugh until I was sick if this season turns everyone against those two fuckwads that Disney changes their mind about putting them in charge. If the world was a just place, this is what would happen at least.

[emperorbigdaddydrip]

The News of The People - Episode #100: "FSU BSU Has This Thursday and Ne...

The News of The People - Episode #100: "FSU BSU Has This Thursday and Ne... https://youtu.be/7RcoEm1IDJs via @YouTube! If you’re interested in gameplay, podcasts, and vlogs, then make sure to check it out, show some support, show some love, and make sure you share!

Here's Message #1 From The FSU BSU (@fsu_bsu ) :

"The Louis-Desvaristes Administration presents to you the Bobby E. Leach Scholarship Ball 🖤

The Bobby E. Leach Scolarship Ball will be held on November 3rd at 7:30pm in the Student Union Ballrooms ✨

This is a formal event please come dressed appropriately ❕

RSVP is located in @fsu_bsu bio❕❕

#LouisDesvaristes #FSUBSU #CARE19 #CARE20 #CARE21 #CARE22 #FSU26 #FSU25 #FSU24 #FSU23#ForTheCulture"

Here's Message #2 from FSU BSU: "THE BIGGEST FSU HOMECOMING EVENT IS BACK 🍢 THURSDAY NOV 10th @5:30 pm

Come show your school spirit at this year’s BRIDGE THE GAP🔥 Pep Rally at the Tucker Civic Center 🏟 | Organizations from FSU 🏹 & FAMU 🐍 will be in attendance to show up and show out🕺🏽

���: DJ Twan (@twandaguy__)

🎤: Kori Houston 🏹 (@kori.mone) Brandan Louis 🏹(@brandowayne_) Sha’Riauna “Shari” Campbell 🐍(@shariaunac) Robert “Duece” Tucker II 🐍 (@rtdeuce)

🕺🏽: Attack Dance “Crew” 🏹🐍(@attackdancecrew) FAMU Elite Dance Squad 🐍 (@famuelitedancesquad_) Nolettes 🏹 (@fsu.nolettes) KINGS Dance Team 🏹 (@kings_danceteam) Lovely Ladies of Torque 🐍 (@ladiesoftorque) Boyz of Poison 🐍 (@boyzofpoison) Florida State Golden Girls 🏹 (@fsugoldengirls) Category 5 Dance Troupe🏹 (@c5dance_) FAMU Pom Squad - Venom Dancers 🐍 (@famuvps) Strikers Dance Troupe 🐍 (@strikersdancetroupe) Mahogany Dance Theatre🏹🐍 (@mahoganydancetheatre) Melodic Stepping Experience🏹🐍 (@mse.alpha)"

You guys please make sure that you tuning in to the show over to get more details because over here "THE JUICE NEVER STOPS DRIPPING"!!!

Social Media Links:

Facebook - Zachariah White Link: https://www.facebook.com/NerdySuperman/

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Snapchat - King Senor Blanco (drpolitician)

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Spotify - Zachariah White or "The Royal High Table" Link: https://open.spotify.com/show/5S5V9z2JP5w1UNLbCPhYZT

Anchor - Zachariah White or "The Royal High Table" Link: https://anchor.fm/zachariah-white

#zachariahwhite #ZachariahTrevonWhite #TheWhiteEmpire #TheBlueEmpire #BigDaddyDrip #ProfessorWhite #TheNewsOfThePeople #TNOTP #tnotp #thejuiceneverstopsdripping

[savetopnow]

2018-03-17 02 CAR now

CAR

Auto Spies

Owner Takes Model 3 To Track Day And Destroys Brakes After Only 9 Miles

GM To Sell Cruise Fully Autonomous Vehicle Starting Next Year

Ford To Rebirth Mach 1 Nameplate As An Electric SUV

Nissan Claims New Leaf SUV Will Be The First Mainstream EV On The Market

BMW's X3M - Everything We Know So Far

Autoblog

Ford's $11 billion plan for hybrids and EVs — a closer look

Mercedes-Maybach Pullman is the luxury car for the discerning dictator

GM begins mass-production of autonomous Cruise AV in 2019

McLaren F1 team finds perfect sponsor for the Halo: A flip-flop maker

$40M award for boy's death in Jeep fire upheld by Georgia high court

Car Throttle

McLaren's Halo Device Will Be Sponsored By A Flip-Flop Company

The Crew 2 Has A Revised Launch Date And A Glitzy New Trailer

It's Official: A VW Arteon 'Shooting Brake' Is Happening, And It Might Have A VR6

Expect Dodge Challenger Demon Shenanigans In The Next Top Gear Episode

[Community] Get Into Gear Each Week With BOTB TV

Electrek

There’s a new effort to remove the EV tax credit cap just as Tesla and GM are about to hit it

Swiss Police replace diesel cruisers with 7 Tesla Model X 100Ds to save money/fight drones

Wunder’s solar investment funds continue to grow with installations across U.S.

A new all-electric 40-tonne truck unveiled for the mining industry

Watch Tesla’s latest Autopilot update at work in first drive videos

Inside EVs

Nissan Says LEAF SUV Will Be Game Changer For Electric Segment

Motorsport Network To Bring Mahindra Blueprints To Life

Tesla Model 3 Heated Rear Seats Now Activated Via OTA Update

Check Out This Tesla Model 3 In Germany

2018 January Hydrogen Fueling Stations Status in U.S.: 39 Available

Jalopnik

Florida Man Conquers Sebring Infield By Mudding During The 12 Hour Race

How To Turn An Old Diesel Mercedes Into The Ultimate Off-Roading Wagon

Lyft Is Offering A Flat Monthly Subscription Service For Frequent Riders

The World's Most Perfect 1980s Mustang On Film Is One Of The Nicest Photo Shoots In Years

Here's Why You Should Burn Your Saturday Watching The 12 Hours Of Sebring

Motortrend

Here’s Aston Martin’s Future Product Pipeline Through 2023

Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Looks Ready to Swallow Rivals

Toyota RAV4 History: A Closer Look at the Popular Crossover’s Heritage

2019 Ram 1500 First Drive: A Truck That Rides Like a Car

Ford Plans to Sell a Hybrid Bronco SUV

Reddit Cars

Multi-Mustang pileup at Dubai car show

Thank you lorry drivers

Mercedes-AMG Project One Driving around in America

The Wait is Over; Pre-Order your Polestar 1 Now!

Ford planning 6 EVs by 2022, including an SUV. Notable hybrid options for the F-150, Mustang, and Bronco. Also bringing in additional smaller off-road vehicle and plans to make an Explorer ST varient.

Sunday Times Driving

Meaner than ever: Honda’s new Mean Mower Mk. 2 is a 134mph+ beast

Drivers face fines for overtaking too close to cyclists

Man waited 20 hours for the RAC at busy M25 motorway service station

Kia with a sting in its tail beats Ford Mustang muscle car in a drag race

You’ll cry when you watch £400,000 worth of sports cars crushed by bulldozer in Philippines

The Car Connection

2019 Ram 1500 driven, Ford Bronco teased, Ford goes all-in on hybrids: What’s New @ The Car Connection

Import tariffs on aluminum may not have an immediate affect on car prices in U.S.

Updated 2019 Kia Sorento priced from $26,980

Sunbelt ready: BMW adds two-wheel-drive X2, X3 crossover SUVs

2019 Ram 1500

The CarGurus Blog

New to the Used Market: Volvo XC40

Half Price Hot Hatch: BMW M135i

Top Headlines From March 3 – 9

Geneva motor show: Five great cars, five years on

The 10 Most Popular Used Cars in the UK

The Torque Report

Audi e-tron electric SUV priced at €80,000 in Germany

McLaren reveals the 570GT Black Collection

Jeep teases the 2018 Easter Jeep Safari concepts

2018 Mazda6 priced at $22,840

Lincoln Aviator returns! Is it an Explorer based SUV?

The Truth About Cars

2019 Ram 1500 First Drive – Takin’ Chances

Audi Confirms Production of E-Tron GT and Quattro SUV, More EVs to Come

There’s a Ford (SUV) in Your Future: Brand Goes Big on Utilities, Lincoln Might Go All In

ISIS on the Assembly Line: Volkswagen Ordered to Rehire Suspected Militant Who Threatened Co-workers

Japanese Automakers: Trump’s Steel Tariff Will Cost You More at the Dealership

[asfeedin]

Latest Romance Book Releases – 04-28-2020

HAPPY TUESDAY NEW RELEASE DAY!! It’s a BIG list fully loaded with 85 books!!!! And yesterday’s list rocks worlds too, and then… I reviewed and awesome one so we have PLENTY to read, my friends.

In fact… Jan was already prepared!

Jan: Three new release preorders arrived on my kindle this morning. Whoops! I’d forgotten I’d ordered two of them. Where the Lost Wander (which I think I might read first), A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes and another HR, Heiress for Hire by Madeline Hunter.

And while you’re here, don’t forget to check out:

AUDIOBOOK LVERS!

Not a member of Audible yet? Get a free 30 day audible trial (which includes 1 free audiobook + 2 audible originals)

READER RECOMMENDATIONS & BARGAIN FINDS:

TWO MONTHS FREE KINDLE UNLIMITED DEAL!!! <— If you haven’t tried it yet, now’s your chance (it’s still going on through the end of April).

and…

Infinite Us by Eden Butler <— EDEN BUTLER RE-RELEASE! “…Nash Nation loves zeroes and ones, over-sized monitors, and late office hours. He’s too busy taking over the world to make time for relationships—that is, until his new neighbor Willow O’Bryant barges into his life, and now Nash can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t the first time she’s interrupted his world. Then, the dreams start. And in the dreams—memories...”

Kathy: On Amy Harmon’s Facebook page, she posted that she read Eden Butler’s Infinite Us and highly recommended it.

Mony: Just finished The Cornerstone by Kate Canterbary and loved it! Steamy story about Hot Guy & Sassy Girl as they steer through one night stands into something more. Sassy Girl is great – sharp-witted & a tough nut to crack. H is a great alpha. Loved the slow burn & Hot Guy’s transformation. Banter between h & H is clever and even sharper in second half.

A 4.5-star read (deduction cause too much about h’s family). Plan to read The Spire (#6 in series)…story about Hot Doctor & Rebel Girl.  Thanks Jan for mentioning this author!

Cicely: Hi Maryse! I just want to share that Absolution, the third book from The Disenchanted series from L.D. Davis is out now too!! The series is great and is worth some extra love.

Angst loving fanatic like me would love it!!!

  Michele G: Tasha, where are you? I read it because of your high marks….you weren’t wrong!! I just finished The Sun Down Motel and it was AMAZING!! I listened to the audiobook and felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone …or something at times…..so so good!!! I highly recommend!

Tasha J: YESS!! *claps hands* So glad you loved it

PARANORMAL/FANTASY/SCI-FI/DYSTOPIAN NEW RELEASES:

Shadowborn Academy: Year Three (Dark Fae Academy Series Book 3) by G. Bailey and Scarlett Snow <— REVERSE HAREM FAE!!

Possessive Alien Mate (Savage Martians Book 2) by Sue Mercury

Dragon Hero: Guardian Dragons of Prospect Falls by Serena Meadows

Playing Cards With Aliens (Kilbus Lord Book 1) by Erin Raegan

Mating Fever (Morgan Clan Bears, Book 3) by Theresa Hissong

The Unbound Queen: A Novel of the Four Arts by M.J. Scott

Wishes, Wings, and Woes: Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Gods and Demons Book 2) by Kaye Draper

The Impassioned Choice (Etherya’s Earth Book 5) by Rebecca Hefner

The Rising Queen Discovery in Water (The Elemental Chronicles Book 3): Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance Series by Gina Manis

Hidden Princess (The Elements Series Book 1) by M.A. Roth

Flourish: A High Fantasy Reverse Harem (The Blooming Courts Book 3) by Kendra Moreno and Poppy Woods

Kissed by the Alien Mercenary (Warriors of the Lathar Book 12) by Mina Carter

The Fourth Power: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Romance Novel (Order of Magic Book 3) by Michelle M. Pillow

Starbreaker (Nightchaser Book 2) by Amanda Bouchet

Embracing Destiny (The Fae Chronicles #6) by Amelia Hutchins <— ELA FOUND IT!!!

Ela: MARYSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Embracing Destiny (The Fae Chronicles #6) by Amelia Hutchins IS LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CONTEMPORARY NEW RELEASES:

Where the Lost Wander: A Novel by Amy Harmon <— AMY HARMON ALERT!!! “…The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at twenty. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both. But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death...”

Tasha J: I finished Where the Lost Wander and I’m in . I cried a little when it was over. *sigh* Such a good book. …Where the Lost Wander is my best of read of the year for sure.

Mony: Where the Lost Wander is now on TBR list…thanks Tasha!

Michele G: I’m also reading Amy Harmon’s Where the Lost Wander and loving every word! She is such a versatile writer. I’m always amazed.

Rafe: An Arizona Vengeance Novella by Sawyer Bennett <— SAWYER BENNETT HOCKEY STAR SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE ALERT!! “…Now I’m home and when I’m not on the ice with my new team, I’m helping care for my dad. And in the midst of my grief, I find comfort from the one person I never expected. Calliope Ramirez stole my heart at a very young age. The beautiful, smart, headstrong girl next door, she was my first… everything. She has never forgiven me for leaving her, believing that I chose hockey over a future together. What she doesn’t understand is that every decision I made was for her, and I’ve never given up hope that one day we’d be together again...”

To My Arrogant Boss (The Inappropriate Bachelors Book 2) by J. S. Cooper <— SHE TOLD OFF HER GRUMPY BOSS! “…I thought it was time that someone addressed your big head and told you straight to your face that you’re not all that. Just because you have an Ivy league education doesn’t mean you’re the smartest man in the world. In fact, I’m not even sure if you would have gotten in if you didn’t have rich parents. Yes, I went there…”

Can’t Fight The Moonlight (Whisper Lake Book 3) by Barbara Freethy

Enchanted (The Accidental Billionaires Book 4) by J. S. Scott

Mayhem’s Betrayal: Operation Mayhem Book 5 by Lindsay Cross

A Monster’s Beauty (In the Arms of Monsters Book 3) by Sam Crescent <— TRILOGY CONCLUSION ALERT!!

Nailed (Four Bears Construction Book 2) by K.M. Neuhold

Heiress for Hire (A Duke’s Heiress Romance Book 1) by Madeline Hunter <— HISTORICAL ROMANCE ALERT!! “…Now he’s insisting that Minerva has inherited a fortune from his uncle, a wealthy duke. Only one thing could surprise her more: her sudden attraction to this exasperating man...”

Taking Liberty (The Next Generation Book 7) by Riley Edwards

Fierce Shadows: Shadows Landing #4 by Kathleen Brooks

Dirty Desires by Crystal Kaswell <— SHE NEEDS MONEY FOR HER SISTER’S MEDICAL BILLS... “...Ian Hunt has specific tastes. The feisty student is perfect. He has to have her. His offer is simple. Six figures. Thirty days. Him introducing her to every kind of pleasure. It’s ridiculous. The British businessman is richer than sin and hotter than hell. He can have any woman he wants. Why her?…”

Ransom for a Song (The Rockwater Suite Book 3) by Phyllis Clark Nichols

Still Wicked (The Wickeds Book 6) by Kathleen Ayers <— HISTORICAL!!!

Counting On Cole (Wilde Ways Book 8) by Cynthia Eden <— SHE HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED & HE RESCUED HER… “…Evangeline “Evie” Lake fell hard and fast for her tall, dark, and dangerous rescuer. Then he flew her back to her home, kissed her goodbye on the doorstep, and walked his sexy self away with looking back. He broke her heart into a million little pieces, and she swore off the “bad boys”—they were just trouble she didn’t want. Case closed...”

Hard Edge (Cobra Elite Book 4) by Pamela Clare

Cole’s Mistake (Haven, Texas Book 8) by Laylah Roberts

B*stard: Royal B*stards MC (Texas) by Sapphire Knight

Finally (Neighbor from Hell Book 12) by R.L. Mathewson <— R.L. MATHEWSON’S LATEST NEIGHBOR FROM HELL!!! “…After years of putting off taking the next step, Charlie was finally ready, mostly because her best friend had threatened to make her life a living hell if she didn’t. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to pull this off unless she made some changes, Charlie somehow finds herself moving into the in-law apartment of the man that seemed to go out of his way to avoid her only to find herself wondering if she was chasing the wrong dream after all...”

Treasure Island SEAL: Pirate SEAL Rescues his Mermaid (Sunset SEALs Book 3) by Sharon Hamilton

Torque (Wicked Mayhem MC Book 1) by Harley Wylde

An Officer, Not a Gentleman: A Traditional Regency Romance (Brethren in Arms Book 3) by Elizabeth Johns

The Billionaire’s Fake Fiancée by Annika Martin <— HE NEEDS SOMEONE THAT IS NOT HIS TYPE AT ALL… “...my people go and hire Tabitha. My hairdresser. What were they thinking? Yes, I said annoying, but I didn’t mean Tabitha, the most frustrating woman in the world. Tabitha is sunshiny. She has a pet hamster. She loves Hello Kitty, and she gets under my skin like nobody else. As if that’s not bad enough, the minute we step on deck, she thinks that certain people on the yacht are up to something shady–based completely on her soap opera knowledge. She won’t listen when I tell her she’s being ridiculous...”

Saint (Heartlands Motorcycle Club Book 4) by Hope Ford

Hot SEAL, Bachelor Party: A Brotherhood Protectors Crossover Novel (SEALs in Paradise) by Elle James

Carpentry and Cocktails: A Heartfelt Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 5) Nora Everly <— HE’S HER NEW NERDY-HOT LANDLORD!! “…Willa Hill has finally left her teen runaway past behind and wants a fresh start—alone. Men are nothing but trouble and she’s had enough man-trouble to last a lifetime. Too bad her irresistibly sexy, nerdy-hot landlord doesn’t agree. When their mutual yearning becomes a white-hot fling and passion crosses carefully drawn, albeit one-sided boundaries, Everett finds himself in love and Willa finds herself in a pickle. Because, unfortunately, when she returned to Green Valley, her problems came too…”

The Virgin and the Rogue (Rogue Files Book 6) by Sophie Jordan <— HISTORICAL!!

Unmatched Love: Henry & Lei Lu: A SEAL & Strong Heroine Military Romance (Black Swan Book 6) by KaLyn Cooper

Lessons in Lemonade (Starving for Southern Book 3) by Kathryn Andrews

Island Affair (Keys to Love Book 1) by Priscilla Oliveras <— THE FIREFIGHTER IS HER FAKE FIANCÉ!! “...Sought-after social media influencer Sara Vance, in recovery from an eating disorder, is coming into her own, with a potential career expansion on the horizon. Despite the good news, her successful siblings (and their perfect spouses) have a way of making her feel like the odd one out. So, when her unreliable boyfriend is a no-show for a Florida family vacation, Sara recruits Luis Navarro—a firefighter paramedic and dive captain willing to play the part of her smitten fiancé…”

A Shot at Redemption: The Detectives of Hazel Hill – Book Four by Liz Bradford

Losing It All (The Hellfire Riders Book 7) by Kati Wilde

A Duke by Any Other Name (Rogues to Riches Book 4) by Grace Burrowes <— HISTORICAL!!

Airborne by DiAnn Mills <— A VIRUS WAS RELEASED... “…As the virus quickly spreads and dozens of passengers fall ill, Heather fears she’s witnessing an epidemic similar to ones her estranged husband studies for a living—but this airborne contagion may have been deliberately released. While Heather remains quarantined with other survivors, she works with her FBI colleagues to identify the person behind this attack. The prime suspect? Dr. Chad Lawrence, an expert in his field . . . and Heather’s husband…”

Head Over Paws (Rescue Me Book 5) by Debbie Burns

Honey Buns: An Opposites Attract Romance by Cat Johnson

The Run Around by Bernadette Franklin <— SHE’S PLANNING HIS WEDDING... “…He wants her to plan his wedding. She wants to be his bride. Diving into the treacherous world of wedding planning, Hope keeps her word and arranges the vows for the one man she believes she could love...”

A Date for Midnight (The Dating Series Book 1) by L.P. Dover and Heidi McLaughlin <— THE ROCK STAR & THE NURSE ALERT!! “…There, amongst the craft beer and pork rinds, she comes face to face with her high school boyfriend, Brennan McLean. He’s a rockstar. She’s a nurse. To say life led them in different directions would be putting it mildly. Still, time hasn’t lessened the electric chemistry between them. By the end of the night more was dropping than just the ball...”

Her Seafaring Scoundrel (The Crawfords Book 3) by Sophie Barnes

The Highlander’s Lady Knight (Midsummer Knights Book 2) by Madeline Martin

How to Not Fall for the Guy Next Door: A Sweet and Humorous Romance by Meg Easton

At My General’s Command (Men of Fort Dale Book 4) by Romeo Alexander <— M/M ROMANCE!!

Swimming in the Dark: A Novel by Tomasz Jedrowski <— M/M ROMANCE!!

The Thief by Bonnie Dee <— M/M ROMANCE!!

The Wedding Dress: A Novel by Danielle Steel <— DANIELLE STEEL ALERT!! “…The Parisian design houses in 1928, the crash of 1929, the losses of war, the drug culture of the 1960s—history holds many surprises, and lives are changed forever. For richer or for poorer, in cramped apartments and grand mansions, the treasured wedding dress made in Paris in 1928 follows each generation into their new lives, and represents different hopes for each of them, as they marry very different men...”

Royally Treasured (Royal Sons MC Book 4) by Elle Boon

A Duke Too Far (The Way to a Lord’s Heart Book 4) by Jane Ashford <— HISTORICAL!!

Duke of Misfortune (Dukes of Destiny Book 4) by Whitney Blake <— HISTORICAL!!

The Rakess: Society of Sirens, Volume 1 by Scarlett Peckham <— HISTORICAL!!

The Hating Season: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance by K.A. Linde <— K.A. LINDE ALERT!! SHE WAS HIRED TO CLEAN UP HIS IMAGE! “...I’m hired to clean up his badboy image, which would’ve been easy if my life wasn’t falling apart. First, I catch my movie star husband having an affair with his co-star. Then when I return to work, my job is at stake, because Court has gotten himself into trouble…again. Instead of getting him back in line, I find myself falling for his charm...”

Wicked at the Library: A Curvy Woman Romance (Curvy Librarians of Sugar Hill Book 1) by Liz Fox

Reid: An Eidolon Black Ops Novel by Maddie Wade

The Billionaire’s Navy SEAL (Sutton Billionaires Book 5) by Lori Ryan

Knocked Up by the Wrong Prince: An Accidental Pregnancy Romance (Knocked Up Royals Book 6) by Lilian Monroe

Who Will Save Your Soul: And Other Dangerous Bedtime Stories by Skye Warren <— SKYE WARREN ANTHOLOGY ALERT!! “…Features four novellas by New York Times bestselling author Skye Warren. Each standalone story ends in a happily ever after….”

Kyler’s Blind Date Seduction (Hot Hunks Steamy Romance Collection Book 4) by Stephanie Morris

Not the Bodyguard’s Boss: Sweet Bodyguard Romance (Hastings Security Book 3) by Lorin Grace

Necessary Risk (Aegis Group Task Force Book 4) by Sidney Bristol <— SHE HAS TO INFILTRATE A HAREM… “...Ivy Ashley is striking out. Fired from her gig as a live-in bodyguard, she’s at the end of her rope when she is asked to join a special task force for a one-off undercover job. It’s easy. All she has to do is infiltrate a harem. She even has back-up in the form of a lone-wolf spy with the sexiest lips she’s ever kissed…”

ImPerfectly Happy by Sharina Harris <— “…When four college friends formed the Brown Sugarettes Mastermind Group, they had very different goals—but matched each other in ambition. Yet ten years later they can’t help wondering what happened to the hopeful, confident, driven women they used to be—and how to get them back . . .”

Asking for Trouble (Credence, Colorado Book 3) by Amy Andrews

The Letter by Anthony Sciarratta <— FORBIDDEN LOVE SOULMATES ALERT!! “...Victor Esposito mysteriously dedicates every novel he’s ever written to one woman. His trademark protagonist fits the description of Eva Abrams, the bright-eyed and blonde Long Island housewife. Tragedy suddenly strikes Victor’s life when a courageous act leaves him in a coma. Hearing the news from a television broadcast, Eva finds herself suddenly overcome with the memories of a love affair she’d left behind a decade ago…“

Undeniably Perfect (Perfectly Imperfect Love Series Book 1) by S.E. Rose

Promise Me Always (Against All Odds Book 4) by Savannah Kade

How To Date Your Brother’s Best Friend: A snarky, steamy contemporary romance by Karigan Hale

Hook Up (Taking Chances Book 2) by TC Matson <— HER BOYFRIEND IS IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE ELSE... “…While I’m helping my best friend plan her wedding, I get hit with a bomb. One that ruins all my hopes and dreams of marriage and starting a family. My long-term boyfriend isn’t only a lying, cheating, piece of worthlessness, He’s also in love with the woman he’s been seeing behind my back. Now I’m forced to act like my best friend’s wedding isn’t going to hurt my soul while I try to mend my heart. What’s the best way to get over a broken heart? A no strings attached hook-up…”

Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen Book 2) by Kilby Blades

Gone With the Rogue (First Comes Love Book 2) by Amelia Grey <— HISTORICAL!!!

Searching for Signs by Mandy Lee <— “…Fans of the award-winning and beloved television series “The Office” will enjoy a story reminiscent of Jim and Pam’s long-awaited and championed romance, while readers less familiar with the show will enjoy a bilateral story of two sensible people navigating the hardships of love and loss while stuck in their small Southern town and surrounded by quirky personalities...”

Deep in the Alaskan Woods (An Alaska Wild Novel Book 1) by Karen Harper <— SHE MOVES TO ALASKA FOR A NEW START… “…Alexandra Collister came to her estranged cousins’ B&B in Falls Lake, Alaska, looking for a fresh start. The surrounding forest can be harsh and unforgiving—luckily, rugged wilderness tracker Quinn Mantell offers to be her guide. Still recovering from a toxic previous relationship, Alex is wary of getting too close, but when savagely deep claw marks appear outside her bedroom window, keeping her distance from Quinn is no longer an option. Then a body turns up exhibiting the same ruthless slash marks, and Alex knows it isn’t a coincidence…”

The Ingredients of You and Me: A Novel (Hopeless Romantics Book 3) by Nina Bocci

Under an Alaskan Sky (A Wild River Novel Book 2) by Jennifer Snow

PREORDERS (going live soon!!! )

  ➔➔➔  Get Maryse’s Book Blog updates delivered by email (you’ll get one daily email that will have each post from that day consolidated on it).

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Tags: 04282020, Book, Latest, Releases, Romance

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[robertkstone]

Chevrolet eCOPO Camaro Pops an Electric Wheelie on Its First Pass!

Check out what we caught! The literal first-ever run of the Chevrolet eCOPO Camaro, an all-electric drag racer, and it’s popping its wheels up! To reiterate: The photo you are looking at from January 26, 2019, is the first time this all-electric dragster has ever been on a drag strip. Our resident photographer Brandon Lim just happened to be at Arizona’s Wild Horse Pass drag strip because yours truly and my cohost Jethro Bovingdon were filming a new episode of Head 2 Head. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Back to the run, the eCOPO ran a 10.14 on its first launch, before eventually dropping the time down to 10.03 at 138 mph. Does this bode well for the future, or what?

A little background: The SEMA darling eCOPO is a joint venture between McCue & Lane Electric Race Cars and General Motors. Patrick McCue is a high school shop teacher in Washington State. The motors and batteries were designed and manufactured by GM in Michigan, and then McCue and his team integrated them into the eCOPO in Washington. The dual-stack motors bolt right up to any transmission that can handle a Chevy LS motor. Think of it as a concept crate motor. The eCOPO uses the normal COPO’s TH400 three-speed automatic transmission. The eCOPO was built to run in the NHRA’s Stock Eliminator class.

Output is “just under” 800 horsepower, with each motor producing 317 lb-ft torque, for a combined total of 634 lb-ft. The car uses a 32-kW-hr battery pack with enough juice for three full-burst launches. However, the eCOPO team uses a car-specific 11-kW charger to make sure the Electric Blue beastie is fully charged for every run. Why? “Voltage is the limiting factor in RPMs,” says McCue. The more RPMs, the more speed. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that—for instance—a fully charged Tesla Model S launches better than one that’s a bit drained. Moreover, the car has an adjustable ramp rate, which controls how quickly the electrons hit the motors. That first run, the rate was set at 50 percent. The later runs were 100 percent, and the torque simply overwhelmed the Mickey Thompson drag radials.

I reached out to former Camaro chief and newly appointed head of engineering for all things electric at GM, Al Oppenheiser, for a comment. Oppenheiser says, “As Mary [Barra] and Mark [Reuss] have made clear, we are transitioning our company into the next generation. A world of zero emissions, zero crashes, and zero congestion. The eCOPO is an example of what can be done to a traditionally internal combustion sport in a world of zero emissions.” Al adds, “And hey, how about that instant torque?” How about it, indeed? Want to see the eCOPO Camaro pop wheelies and try to crack into the 9s with your own eyes? McCue and his crew will be running it (with wider tires) at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, California, starting February 7.

  The post Chevrolet eCOPO Camaro Pops an Electric Wheelie on Its First Pass! appeared first on Motortrend.

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[technato]

Video Friday: Robot Playdate, Big Drone, and Self-Driving Car in Snow

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

Image: Agility Robotics via YouTube

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):

US National Robotics Week – April 7-17, 2018 – United States

Xconomy Robo Madness – April 12, 2018 – Bedford, Mass., USA

NASA Swarmathon – April 17-19, 2018 – Kennedy Space Center, Fla., USA

RoboSoft 2018 – April 24-28, 2018 – Livorno, Italy

ICARSC 2018 – April 25-27, 2018 – Torres Vedras, Portugal

NASA Robotic Mining Competition – May 14-18, 2018 – Kennedy Space Center, Fla., USA

ICRA 2018 – May 21-25, 2018 – Brisbane, Australia

Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.

Agility Robotics had a good week. And here’s one of their Cassies on a playdate with a four-legged friend. Aww.

Cassie had a meet-and-greet with a four-legged friend during one of our visits to Playground.

[ Agility Robotics ]

Aerones is a company that makes drones. Big drones. Really big drones.

In case you can’t tell how big that drone is, here it is lifting a person out of a boat:

[ Aerones ] via [ TechCrunch ]

It’s the beginning of the end for humans.

And the end of the beginning for robots.

Or something.

[ Kinova ]

Thanks François!

Come Spring 2018, Sandia National Laboratories hosts the Western National Robot Rodeo and Capability Exercise (WNRR & CAPEX) at its Robotic Vehicle Range in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bomb squads from across the country gather to fire up their robots and sharpen their bomb-neutralizing skills, competing in this tough, multi-faceted training event. WNRR training scenarios mimic the dangerous situations occurring every day in the real world which helps prepare these dedicated specialists for when it all goes down on their watch.

[ Sandia ]

Researchers from ETH Zurich are using a new method for digital timber construction in a real project for the first time. The load-bearing timber modules, which are prefabricated by robots, will be assembled on the top two floors at the DFAB HOUSE construction site. The Spatial Timber Assemblies project combines architecture with robotics and craftsmanship.

[ ETH Zurich ]

Torc’s self-driving car, with a safety driver who appears to be very alert, drives around Virginia in the snow:

The Torc self-driving car, Asimov, navigates the beautiful snow-covered town of Blacksburg, Virginia. We encounter snow plow trucks, pedestrians, and bicyclists on the road and safely maneuver through these complex traffic scenarios while navigating snow-covered roads. The snow sometimes reduces visibility or lane lines, but our system overcomes these obstacles to allow for a smooth drive in the winter weather.

[ Torc Robotics ]

From MIT in 1982:

How do I get my Google assistant to talk to me in that voice?

[ MIT Media Lab ]

From the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology:

A sneak peek of Zachary Robert Kondak’s new song, as part of our new rock-opera composed and performed by both human, robots and cyborgs. Zach may be onto something here. With Shimon Robot, Richard Savery and Jason Barnes.

[ GTCMT ] via [ TechCrunch ]

Watching robots precisely picking and placing is pleasing:

[ Fanuc ]

Hinamitetu unveils another gymnastics robot, performing a routine on the uneven bars.

[ YouTube ]

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) are developing unmanned aerial system (UAS) technology to fly into the containment vessels of the damaged units at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and assess conditions. During the project, the SwRI-UPenn team demonstrated that the UAS was capable of autonomously navigating in a confined, GPS-denied environment, avoiding obstacles along the flight path, and surviving the radiation levels expected during a mission inside of the units at Fukushima Daiichi.

[ SwRI ]

This video shows the integration of a whole-body inverse kinematics scheme, based on the OpenSoT framework, and a compliant feedback stabilizer that measures the ZMP with the force/torque sensors at the feet. We show our implementation for iCub, in the YARP framework. The robot is position controlled, yet able to compensate for external forces/perturbations. Control is at 100Hz. This is a joint work between the team LARSEN in Inria Nancy and the Humanoid & Human-centered mechatronics lab in IIT.

[ INRIA ]

Thanks Serena!

Here’s some nice work from Jiaji Zhou at CMU showing how a robot arm can use an external surface (like a table) as another finger of sorts to help it manipulate objects:

[ CMU ]

Cooking drones with microwaves is not quite as cool as zapping them with lasers, unfortunately.

From Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2013, Raytheon’s high-power microwave shot down multiple tier one and tier two drones during a U.S. Army live fire exercise at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The high-power microwave uses speed-of-light technology to disrupt and down unmanned aircraft systems. In this video, the system shoots down a Flanker tier one UAS.

[ Raytheon ]

A literal inside look at some of the robots that Engineered Arts has been designing for Madame Tussauds:

[ Engineered Arts ]

We try to keep an eye on the collaborative robots market, but somehow we missed this announcement: Stäubli launched its TX2 line of collaborative robots to the North American market at Automate last year. You can see the TX2 (covered in touch-sensitive soft pads) in the beginning of this video:

[  Stäubli TX2 ]

An overview of using a Sawyer collaborative robot for research and education, featuring Ian McMahon, lead software developer for research and education products at Rethink.

[ Rethink Robotics ]

For the Demonstration Mission Space a dedicated scenario from the ROBEX lunar scientists was chosen. The scenario describes the installation of an active seismic network (ASN) on the Moon’s surface. Main focus here is the measurement of the internal structure and the composition of the upper layer, the lunar regolith. Other questions are the existence and composition of a central core of the Moon and if there is any seismic activity. The seismometers are planned to be transported by a rover and put down on surface by means of a robotic arm.

[ DLRRMC ]

Drone Delivery Canada USA Testing Program commenced March 5th, 2018 at the Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York – USA. These flights symbolize the start of Drone Delivery Canada’s International testing initiatives, starting with the United States of America.

[ Drone Delivery Canada ]

In this week’s episode of Robots in Depth, Per talks with David Johan Christensen from Shape Robotics.

David Johan Christensen talks about modular robotics and the Fable system. David Johan started early in robotics, getting involved already in high school. At university he found the EU project Hydra, that introduced him to modular robotics. In the Hydra project he participated in developing, among other things, the Atron self-reconfiguring modular robotics system. We also hear how the Fable system emerged from co-operating with Lego and how it’s used all the way from 4th grade to university level brain research.

[ Robots in Depth ]

Video Friday: Robot Playdate, Big Drone, and Self-Driving Car in Snow syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

[emperorbigdaddydrip]

The News of The People - Episode #100: "FSU BSU Has This Thursday and Next Thursday Lit!!!" Here's Message #1 From The FSU BSU (@fsu_bsu ) : "The Louis-Desvaristes Administration presents to you the Bobby E. Leach Scholarship Ball 🖤 The Bobby E. Leach Scolarship Ball will be held on November 3rd at 7:30pm in the Student Union Ballrooms ✨ This is a formal event please come dressed appropriately ❕ RSVP is located in @fsu_bsu bio❕❕ #LouisDesvaristes #FSUBSU #CARE19 #CARE20 #CARE21 #CARE22 #FSU26 #FSU25 #FSU24 #FSU23#ForTheCulture" Here's Message #2 from FSU BSU: "THE BIGGEST FSU HOMECOMING EVENT IS BACK 🍢 THURSDAY NOV 10th @5:30 pm Come show your school spirit at this year’s BRIDGE THE GAP🔥 Pep Rally at the Tucker Civic Center 🏟 | Organizations from FSU 🏹 & FAMU 🐍 will be in attendance to show up and show out🕺🏽 🎶: DJ Twan (@twandaguy__) 🎤: Kori Houston 🏹 (@kori.mone) Brandan Louis 🏹(@brandowayne_) Sha’Riauna “Shari” Campbell 🐍(@shariaunac) Robert “Duece” Tucker II 🐍 (@rtdeuce) 🕺🏽: Attack Dance “Crew” 🏹🐍(@attackdancecrew) FAMU Elite Dance Squad 🐍 (@famuelitedancesquad_) Nolettes 🏹 (@fsu.nolettes) KINGS Dance Team 🏹 (@kings_danceteam) Lovely Ladies of Torque 🐍 (@ladiesoftorque) Boyz of Poison 🐍 (@boyzofpoison) Florida State Golden Girls 🏹 (@fsugoldengirls) Category 5 Dance Troupe🏹 (@c5dance_) FAMU Pom Squad - Venom Dancers 🐍 (@famuvps) Strikers Dance Troupe 🐍 (@strikersdancetroupe) Mahogany Dance Theatre🏹🐍 (@mahoganydancetheatre) Melodic Stepping Experience🏹🐍 (@mse.alpha)" You guys please make sure that you tuning in to the show over to get more details because over here "THE JUICE NEVER STOPS DRIPPING"!!!

[savetopnow]

2018-03-16 20 CAR now

CAR

Auto Spies

GM To Sell Cruise Fully Autonomous Vehicle Starting Next Year

Ford To Rebirth Mach 1 Nameplate As An Electric SUV

Nissan Claims New Leaf SUV Will Be The First Mainstream EV On The Market

BMW's X3M - Everything We Know So Far

Infiniti Topples Lexus In Dealer Service Rankings - Buick Tops Mass Market Brands

Autoblog

2019 Ram 1500 V8 First Drive Review | More of everything

This electric skateboard has your back

Remote-controlled snow plow

Lincoln Aviator to return as a concept in New York

Coming soon to a mailbox near you? Third USPS van option spied

Car Throttle

Expect Dodge Challenger Demon Shenanigans In The Next Top Gear Episode

[Community] Straight from the Geneva Motor Show to your driveway!

Here's Your First Look At The 2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500's Angry Face

Here's A New Angle Of Last Year's 15-Car 'Ring Pile-Up, With An Important Message

[Community] Modest Mistake - 1967 Toyota 7

Electrek

Tesla Semi prototype spotted apparently broken down makes naysayers rejoice, but there’s a twist

Ford teases upcoming electric vehicles, says it will focus on charging experience

Volvo starts taking configurations and $2,500 deposits for their Polestar 1 Plug-in Hybrid

Tesla Model S crashes into cyclist, scooter and another car, media points to Autopilot, but Tesla says no

Audi confirms all-electric e-tron Quattro SUV ‘starting price of €80,000’ ($99,000)

Inside EVs

Ford Makes Big Electrification Commitment, Soft Plug-In Promise

Audi Announces e-Tron Pricing In Germany, Expect ~$100,000 In U.S.

Tesla Model S P100D Launches In South Korea

Nissan To Spend $9.3 Billion On EV Push In China

Polestar 1 Pre-Orders Now Open In 18 Countries, Including U.S.

Jalopnik

Watch This Probably Fake Video Of A Russian Guy Cutting The Corner Off A Car So He Can Park

Here's What It Was Like To Fly On The Soviet Concorde

Nobody Is Good Enough For The New Mercedes-Maybach Pullman

Car Blocking Street Doesn't Stand A Chance Against Baseball Team

Logan Lucky Is The NASCAR Heist Movie That Could've Been The Next Ocean's 11 But Wasn't

Motortrend

Toyota RAV4 History: A Closer Look at the Popular Crossover’s Heritage

2019 Ram 1500 First Drive: A Truck That Rides Like a Car

Ford Plans to Sell a Hybrid Bronco SUV

McLaren 570GT MSO Black Collection is an Under-the-Radar Supercar

2018 Mazda6 Sedan Starts at $22,840

Reddit Cars

The world's only V12 Fisker Tramonto is for sale. It makes 700 BHP and does 205+ MPH.

I drove an Audi S5 convertible for a week and it was life changing

2012 WRX with rod knock...shall we start the bidding at $12k?

New Teaser Image of 700hp+ 2019 GT500

Leroy makes 1125HP with new heads/injectors on only 18.4lbs of boost

Sunday Times Driving

Meaner than ever: Honda’s new Mean Mower Mk. 2 is a 134mph+ beast

Drivers face fines for overtaking too close to cyclists

Man waited 20 hours for the RAC at busy M25 motorway service station

Kia with a sting in its tail beats Ford Mustang muscle car in a drag race

You’ll cry when you watch £400,000 worth of sports cars crushed by bulldozer in Philippines

The Car Connection

2019 Ram 1500

2019 Ram 1500 first drive: the luxury car of pickup trucks

2018 Porsche 911

2018 Porsche 718

2018 Porsche Macan

The CarGurus Blog

Half Price Hot Hatch: BMW M135i

Top Headlines From March 3 – 9

Geneva motor show: Five great cars, five years on

The 10 Most Popular Used Cars in the UK

Top Headlines From February 24 – March 2

The Torque Report

Jeep teases the 2018 Easter Jeep Safari concepts

2018 Mazda6 priced at $22,840

Lincoln Aviator returns! Is it an Explorer based SUV?

Ford Bronco, Shelby GT500 and new small SUV teased

Cadillac Escala may arrive by 2021

The Truth About Cars

2020 Ford Bronco Gains Hybrid Variant, Smaller Off-road Sibling

Tesla Workers Say Almost Half of Model 3 Parts Need Rework

Mazda and Toyota’s Joint Venture Is Official, Tons of Corollas and a Mystery Model Await

Rare Rides: The Glorious 1988 Nissan Pulsar Sportbak, Where EXA Meets Canopy

What’s in the Box?! – With GMC’s CarbonPro Pickup Bed, Plenty

[technato]

Video Friday: Robot Playdate, Big Drone, and Self-Driving Car in Snow

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

Image: Agility Robotics via YouTube

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):

US National Robotics Week – April 7-17, 2018 – United States

Xconomy Robo Madness – April 12, 2018 – Bedford, Mass., USA

NASA Swarmathon – April 17-19, 2018 – Kennedy Space Center, Fla., USA

RoboSoft 2018 – April 24-28, 2018 – Livorno, Italy

ICARSC 2018 – April 25-27, 2018 – Torres Vedras, Portugal

NASA Robotic Mining Competition – May 14-18, 2018 – Kennedy Space Center, Fla., USA

ICRA 2018 – May 21-25, 2018 – Brisbane, Australia

Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.

Agility Robotics had a good week. And here’s one of their Cassies on a playdate with a four-legged friend. Aww.

Cassie had a meet-and-greet with a four-legged friend during one of our visits to Playground.

[ Agility Robotics ]

Aerones is a company that makes drones. Big drones. Really big drones.

In case you can’t tell how big that drone is, here it is lifting a person out of a boat:

[ Aerones ] via [ TechCrunch ]

It’s the beginning of the end for humans.

And the end of the beginning for robots.

Or something.

[ Kinova ]

Thanks François!

Come Spring 2018, Sandia National Laboratories hosts the Western National Robot Rodeo and Capability Exercise (WNRR & CAPEX) at its Robotic Vehicle Range in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bomb squads from across the country gather to fire up their robots and sharpen their bomb-neutralizing skills, competing in this tough, multi-faceted training event. WNRR training scenarios mimic the dangerous situations occurring every day in the real world which helps prepare these dedicated specialists for when it all goes down on their watch.

[ Sandia ]

Researchers from ETH Zurich are using a new method for digital timber construction in a real project for the first time. The load-bearing timber modules, which are prefabricated by robots, will be assembled on the top two floors at the DFAB HOUSE construction site. The Spatial Timber Assemblies project combines architecture with robotics and craftsmanship.

[ ETH Zurich ]

Torc’s self-driving car, with a safety driver who appears to be very alert, drives around Virginia in the snow:

The Torc self-driving car, Asimov, navigates the beautiful snow-covered town of Blacksburg, Virginia. We encounter snow plow trucks, pedestrians, and bicyclists on the road and safely maneuver through these complex traffic scenarios while navigating snow-covered roads. The snow sometimes reduces visibility or lane lines, but our system overcomes these obstacles to allow for a smooth drive in the winter weather.

[ Torc Robotics ]

From MIT in 1982:

How do I get my Google assistant to talk to me in that voice?

[ MIT Media Lab ]

From the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology:

A sneak peek of Zachary Robert Kondak’s new song, as part of our new rock-opera composed and performed by both human, robots and cyborgs. Zach may be onto something here. With Shimon Robot, Richard Savery and Jason Barnes.

[ GTCMT ] via [ TechCrunch ]

Watching robots precisely picking and placing is pleasing:

[ Fanuc ]

Hinamitetu unveils another gymnastics robot, performing a routine on the uneven bars.

[ YouTube ]

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) are developing unmanned aerial system (UAS) technology to fly into the containment vessels of the damaged units at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and assess conditions. During the project, the SwRI-UPenn team demonstrated that the UAS was capable of autonomously navigating in a confined, GPS-denied environment, avoiding obstacles along the flight path, and surviving the radiation levels expected during a mission inside of the units at Fukushima Daiichi.

[ SwRI ]

This video shows the integration of a whole-body inverse kinematics scheme, based on the OpenSoT framework, and a compliant feedback stabilizer that measures the ZMP with the force/torque sensors at the feet. We show our implementation for iCub, in the YARP framework. The robot is position controlled, yet able to compensate for external forces/perturbations. Control is at 100Hz. This is a joint work between the team LARSEN in Inria Nancy and the Humanoid & Human-centered mechatronics lab in IIT.

[ INRIA ]

Thanks Serena!

Here’s some nice work from Jiaji Zhou at CMU showing how a robot arm can use an external surface (like a table) as another finger of sorts to help it manipulate objects:

[ CMU ]

Cooking drones with microwaves is not quite as cool as zapping them with lasers, unfortunately.

From Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2013, Raytheon’s high-power microwave shot down multiple tier one and tier two drones during a U.S. Army live fire exercise at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The high-power microwave uses speed-of-light technology to disrupt and down unmanned aircraft systems. In this video, the system shoots down a Flanker tier one UAS.

[ Raytheon ]

A literal inside look at some of the robots that Engineered Arts has been designing for Madame Tussauds:

[ Engineered Arts ]

We try to keep an eye on the collaborative robots market, but somehow we missed this announcement: Stäubli launched its TX2 line of collaborative robots to the North American market at Automate last year. You can see the TX2 (covered in touch-sensitive soft pads) in the beginning of this video:

[  Stäubli TX2 ]

An overview of using a Sawyer collaborative robot for research and education, featuring Ian McMahon, lead software developer for research and education products at Rethink.

[ Rethink Robotics ]

For the Demonstration Mission Space a dedicated scenario from the ROBEX lunar scientists was chosen. The scenario describes the installation of an active seismic network (ASN) on the Moon’s surface. Main focus here is the measurement of the internal structure and the composition of the upper layer, the lunar regolith. Other questions are the existence and composition of a central core of the Moon and if there is any seismic activity. The seismometers are planned to be transported by a rover and put down on surface by means of a robotic arm.

[ DLRRMC ]

Drone Delivery Canada USA Testing Program commenced March 5th, 2018 at the Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York – USA. These flights symbolize the start of Drone Delivery Canada’s International testing initiatives, starting with the United States of America.

[ Drone Delivery Canada ]

In this week’s episode of Robots in Depth, Per talks with David Johan Christensen from Shape Robotics.

David Johan Christensen talks about modular robotics and the Fable system. David Johan started early in robotics, getting involved already in high school. At university he found the EU project Hydra, that introduced him to modular robotics. In the Hydra project he participated in developing, among other things, the Atron self-reconfiguring modular robotics system. We also hear how the Fable system emerged from co-operating with Lego and how it’s used all the way from 4th grade to university level brain research.

[ Robots in Depth ]

Video Friday: Robot Playdate, Big Drone, and Self-Driving Car in Snow syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com