#that's the pattern established by tens to hundreds to thousands

[ladymordecai]

Honestly, I think the misunderstanding is rooted in a natural human difficulty with understanding the sheer size difference between 65 thousand and 65 million, let alone 65 billion.

To someone accustomed to 17k, 65k is a comprehensible number--when I was making that, I could understand what having 4x as much money could have done. I could easily picture what I could do with quadruple the money I had. It wouldn't be perfect--the above story shows that it wouldn't be--but it was easy to understand how much better it would be.

And 170k would be life-changingly amazing if you're used to 17k--literally ten times what you have. It's a comprehensible amazing, and it would be amazing for both the person with 17k and 65k--it would provide security that's impossible with less money. So it's easy to feel resentful of people who make 4x or 10x what you make--how dare they be less than satisfied with money that would rock your world??

The problem is when we move out of the easily-comprehensible amounts.

Linguistically, in English, it sounds like 17 million should be something like 100x 17k--after all, it's the next number-name. But no--17m is ONE THOUSAND TIMES more money than 17k. There's two "steps" between 17k and 17m that aren't there linguistically. (170k and 1.7m)

And like. I can almost, allllllllmost picture that--how my life would change with 17 million dollars a year. Heck, I could make 17 million dollars last the rest of my life! I could help all my friends and my entire family! The world opens up at that point!

It feels like being in a fairy tale, like being Cinderella marrying the prince.

But it isn't.

17 billion is marrying the prince, and that's an order of magnitude bigger than anything we've talked about.

17 billion is ONE MILLION TIMES more than 17 thousand.

My imagination breaks down. What would you even do with that kind of money?? And even though we know the answer is "anything you want," it's so so hard to picture what that would be when you're living paycheck to paycheck and worried about becoming homeless and what if that tooth gets infected? What if you get in a car accident and can't drive to work? 17b is so far away from your experiences it's not even worth daydreaming about. You want 170k, heck, even 65k or 40k would be so so good and would solve all of your immediate issues--you could save money, you could go to the dentist, you could afford a new car--you might need loans for those things, but you'd qualify for them and be able to pay them.

It sounds like the lap of fucking luxury to have 4x the resources you have. It's so easy to resent those people, who you actually see and interact with, who complain about problems you wish you had.

So our human brains lump them all together. They could all fix the problems you have instantly, right?! So they're all rich assholes who don't know what REAL problems are!

I get it, I've been there, I've made poverty wages and hauled myself into not-really-comfortable lower-middle class, I've daydreamed about what I could do with 65k a year or 170k a year. I'm aware of how lucky I've been to have the supports I do, that enabled me to do that at all.

But my enemy is not my cousin, who's also a nurse, who's raising three kids on that salary while her husband apprentices at his dad's blue collar business. My enemy is not my dentist, who makes 4x what I do, or even the person who won the lottery once, who owns a couple fancy cars and a couple nice houses and can send their kids to college without loans.

My enemies are the people who own all the rest of us. Who buy and sell corporations. Who make, literally, a million times more money than a comfortable lower-middle class person. Not a million more dollars, a million times more. We struggle to survive on their pocket change while they win the lottery every year.

I understand, so much, how viscerally painful it can be to watch someone who makes money that would change your life complain about theirs. But the thing is, to the actual rich, none of us make more than pocket change.

We have to understand that to move forward. We need all the allies we can get.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[project-shereshoy]

Numbers

What's 6 in Mando'a? What about 501st? How do you say "execute order 66"? In this blog post, we'll cover the Mando'a cardinal and ordinal number system, how to make any number from 0-9,999 and other words useful when discussing number and math. Sources are indicated with symbols (^ *) and listed at the bottom.

Numerals

Mando'a uses a base-5 numbering system supplemented with base-10 suffixes. This means 1-5 are unique words along with 0, 10, 100, and 1000. All other numbers are a combination of those words. As it stands, KT Mando’a allows us to count up to 9,999. Here are the counting numbers:

0 - naas^ (literally "nothing") 1 - solus (prefix: sol) 2 - t'ad (prefix: ad) 3 - ehn (prefix: ehn) 4 - cuir (prefix: cur) 5 - rayshe'a (prefix: she) 6 - resol (prefix: rol) 7 - e'tad (prefix: tad) 8 - she'ehn (prefix: shen) 9 - she'cu (prefix: shek)

For the tens place numerals (20, 30, 40, etc), add the “tens” suffix -’eta to the prefixes above above. 0 and 1 do not act as prefixes for counting purposes. 10 is a unique number (ta+raysh aka "two fives").

10 - ta'raysh 20 - ad'eta* 30 - ehn'eta* 40 - cur'eta* 50 - she'eta* 60 - rol'eta* 70 - tad'eta* 80 - shehn'eta* 90 - shek'eta*

For the hundreds place numerals, the principle is the same. Add the “hundreds” suffix -’olan to the original numbers. Like 10, 100 is a unique number.

100 - olan* 200 - ad'olan^ 300 - ehn'olan^ 400 - cur'olan^ 500 - raysh'olan* 600 - rol'olan^ 700 - tad'olan^ 800 - shen'olan^ 900 - shek'olan^

For the thousands place numerals, the pattern continues. The suffix for “thousands” is a conjunction between the suffixes for “ten” and “hundreds”, -’eta’olan. This makes it literally “tens of hundred”. 1000 is an exception to the rule and is instead “ten hundred”.

1000 - ta’raysh’olan* 2000 - ad’eta’olan^ 3000 - ehn’eta’olan^ 4000 - cur’eta’olan^ 5000 - she’eta’olan* 6000 - rol’eta’olan^ 7000 - tad’eta’olan^ 8000 - shen’eta’olan^ 9000 - shek’eta’olan^

More Numbers

To fill the gaps in the above list, simply write out each place with a space between. Eleven (11) is ta'raysh solus*. Two hundred-sixty-three (263) in English is ad’olan rol’eta ehn^ in Mando’a. "Execute order sixty-six" becomes "Ke narir haar’ke’gyce rol’eta resol".

Ordinals

To turn a numeral into an ordinal (1 to 1st or 10 to 10th), add the descriptor suffix -yc. Theoretically this should also work with the suffix -la, but -yc is the one explicitly acknowledged in the KT dictionary. The last (singles) place numeral receives the descriptor suffix. E.g. she’olan sol'yc (501st) or cur’etayc (40th)

Other Useful Words

Soletar, verb, "to count" Sosol ti, phrase, "equal to" Majycir, verb, "to add" Te'habir, verb "to remove or take out" aka subtract

There's no ready answer for "multiply" or "divide", though creative use of tatugir "to repeat" could work in some cases. Fractions might be verbally represented as solus be ta'raysh "1 of 10" or some other prepositional combo that can also represent division. "Mathematics" also doesn't have a dedicated word, but "to calculate" is mirdir.

"But do Mandalorian space-barbarians really need to know math--" Yes. Ballistics. Logistics. Counting pay. Math is everywhere, it is inescapable. Inevitable. Evil Essential.

Sources

Words without source symbols are from officially published works by Karen Traviss, namely the Republic Commando novels. Reference this index to see the book & page number.

Asterik* words are from the lexicon Karen Traviss published digitally, which is hosted as-is on Mandoa.org without alterations (or corrections).

Carat^ words are derivations from the canon words' established patterns. As such, if you want to go with a different interpretation, have fun! These are suggestions and I ain't a cop. We'll answer follow-up questions on how they're derived, but we're not interested in arguing merits of one interpretation over another.

[racefortheironthrone]

A Guildsman Goes Forth to War, Inciting Event and Main Characters

Inciting Event:

The city of Brugghe is one of the largest and richest in all of Europe. It is a center of vertically- and horizontally-integrated textile production in wool, cotton, linen, and silk, and the people wear their reputation on their richly-dyed, patterned, and embroidered backs. As the northernmost of the cloth fairs that stretch all the way from Gallia to the southernmost reaches of the ancient Kingdom of Lotharingia), and the confluence of the North Sea and the Rhine, Brugghe is a natural entrepôt between the merchants of the Hansa and the commercial republics of the Lega, and thus one of the leading financial centers on the Continent.

A bustling cosmopolis of two hundred thousand souls, with a lively Foreign Quarter representing merchants and bankers from Portugal and the Basques to a half-dozen Lega republics to representatives of the Sublime Porte. In Brugghe, even the poorest and least educated rural migrants are bilingual (even if they insist on speaking only Gallician or Imperial), a respectable burgher is expected to speak at least four, and a man is considered educated only if he speaks six. A center of the printing trade (and thanks to its dyeing industry, a lively art scene), it is an unusually literate city, only more so thanks to the recently-established University.

For the last thirty years, the city has been ruled by the tolerant but firm hand of Baron Froederick van Zonder Vrees, although for the last ten the day-to-day governance has been conducted in his name by his significantly younger wife due to a long and lingering illness that has forced the Baron to a sickbed and (accoridng to reports) to his deathbed. Although by all reports a loving and capable partnership, the Baron and Baronness are childless. If the Baron should pass, what shall become of Brugghe?

Main Characters:

Margrit van Zonder Vrees (née Marguerite de Corbenic), Baronness of Brugghe

The daughter of a noble family from Brittany (with extended ties to Cornwall and south Wales) with a strong Gentry heritage of elfkind, Margrit (or Marguerite, depending on whether she's speaking in Gallician or Imperial) was sent to the Burgundian court following a romantic indescretion in her youth, where she became one of the court beauties and a poetess beside, reknowned for the strength of her Glamour and wit alike.

At the age of twenty, she was married to the significantly older Froederick van Zonder Vrees as part of diplomatic efforts to maintain Gallician/Imperial harmony in the Low Countries. Despite the age gap between the two, Froederick came to respect his bride's surprisingly well-educated mind and supported her patronage of the newly-founded University and the city's cultural industries, while Margrit came to admire her husband's commitment to light-handed and tolerant governance that had seen Brugghe reach heights of prosperity that it had not seen since the collapse of the Flemish revolt.

When Froederick began to fall ill, Margrit smoothly gained influence within the Baronial Council of State that governed the city until she became the Regent in all but name. At the outset of A Guildsman Goes Forth to War, Marguerite's dilemma is that she has no child to pass the title to upon her husband's death - and due to the complicated mix of family intermarriages, there will be claimants from both the Kingdom of Gallia and the Sacrum Imperium.

[Need to find a good picture]

Ludovico "Malasangue," Captain-General of the Bonafortuna Mercenary and Insurance Company, graduate of the University of Padua, and guildsman of the Arte dei Giudici e Notai of Florentia.

The younger son of the Bilancia banking family, Ludovico was the subject of considerable scandal, for from birth it was quite clear that he was Gentry-born of some rare and unknown lineage, while neither his mother nor his father had any such connexions. A brawler of violent temper, Ludovico was packed off to Padua by his decidely chilly and aloof father to avoid embarrassment - and to ensure that he would have a career that would avoid any interference with his older (some would say "legitimate") brother's inheritance of the family business.

The curriculum at the great university of the hills seemed to calm the intemperate youth and Ludo proved to be quite adept at both the Old Learning of the trivium et quadrivium, the New Learning of the studia humanitatis, and his chosen degree in Law. It was widely expected that, upon his graduation and return to the city of his birth, he would take up a respectable and conventional career in the leading Arti Maggiori. Thus, it came as something of a surprise when instead Ludovico and some of his university friends announced the formation of a new kind of mercenary company.

The Bonafortuna Mercenary and Insurance Company would be made up not of impoverished noblemen and ambitious peasants, but entirely of urban guildsmen recruited from among the Lega. In times of peace, the Company would make its income from providing a comprehensive suite of services from messenger and parcel post to commercial and residential insurance to private security, to individual and municipal clients alike - with significant discounts for joint customers of the condottieri side of the business.

[daisyachain]

Went out to the town fair yesterday for the first time since like 2018. Fun cultural experience, deep fried goods, etc. The people-watching revealed one dire omen, though, in the patterns of the clothing there. Eleven young woman out of twelve chose to wear a ribbed cotton crop top with light/stone wash high-to-mid-waisted distressed cutoff shorts. The uniformity was shocking. After the first two-odd hours, it started to look like a Twilight Zone episode. What do these people come to, dressing not just in line with an overarching trend, but slavishly adherent to one (1) single outfit established by some nameless influencer and infinitely replicated? They show no colour variation. There were maybe nine-odd I saw through the whole day who wore a mix of pieces to make up a trendy silhouette rather than just wearing the Approved Combo. Ten thousand Ms. Smiths bore down each second on my peripheral vision. The girls of this town life in such terror of male judgment that they’ve delegated all self-expression to one single Steal Her Look graphic that eclipses pre-internet fashion in its narrowness. Seriously. If You’re Going To Honour The Old Tradition of Dressing as a Stampede Slut. At Least Have Some Variety About it. What’s wrong with a plaid shirt knotted just under your boobs, or a crochet top, or a jean jacket over just a bra. It’s disconcerting to see actually around a hundred-odd youths bleaching their most effective method of self-expression into the plainest outfit imaginable. What threats of suffering must these girls endure to want to be perceived as a pair of legs on a department store model.

[novankenn]

Excerpts from "Monster"

So just to kind of follow up my little rant. Like I mentioned, I have a fic where Atlas is attacked by a horde of grimm... here's what I had to do to make Atlas BE the military super-power it's supposed to be.

The below are just portions of the indicated chapters, and only focus on the battle.

The Battle for Atlas...

(Chapter 15) Word of the gathering horde sent Mantle and Atlas into a near frenzy of panic. In an attempt to stamp down on the growing unease and negativity, Atlas began to a rapid deployment of resources. The edges of Atlas and the walls of Mantle suddenly started to brim with CIWS pods. Behind the walls, SRBM batteries quickly were arranged and established. Civil and military contractors were pressed into service, and resources commandeered to start the rushed process to bolster the integrity of the wall.

Missives were sent out, requesting Huntsman and Huntress aid, while mothballed and antiquated equipment was once again brought forward into operational service. Soon, the streets and roadways of Mantle and Atlas played host to shining Paladins and T-34 Saybre Tanks. Militia units were formed, and given defensive positions, supported the general military forces.

Air defence was also bolstered as Naval command echoing the example of the Army pulled the precursors of the backbone of Atlas air superiority. Squads of P-51D Griffons and A-10 Boartusks soon appeared in the sky, and quickly began preemptive strikes against the closing mass of negativity. Twenty-four thousand five hundred feet above the paired cities, the formidable and stalwart Lancaster-Nevermores cruised in the near freezing air, accompanied by the looming forms of AC-130 Wyverns.

These older resources were limited, and those who volunteered to man them knew the chances of return from the preemptive combat operations were minimal; if at all.

/=/

“Report. Estimated Time of Arrival for the grimm.”

“With in fourteen hours, the grimm will be visible from the wall. If speed remains constant, sir.”

“Status of wall operations.”

“Work on the walls is proceeding ahead of schedule, however the ETA of the horde will supersede those completion estimates by twenty-four hours. Installation of CWIS pods is however complete.”

“Assign a Saybre and Paladin troops to each compromised segments. Status report on auxiliary perimeter defensive structures.”

“The third line of razor wire is being installed now, and should be complete prior to 20:00 hours. All pre-Vytal anti-personnel and anti-armour measures have been deployed, sir. ” 

“Deployment of knight units.”

“Eight platoons per access point. All units have been scrubbed, and fresh base operative protocols loaded. They will focus only on grimm, all other target parameters have been deleted, sir.”

“Hunter reinforcements?”

“CCT coverage is limited, but we have received responses.  Mistrel has declined, slating limited resources. Vacuo has reported the dispatch of fifteen teams, unconfirmed ETA. Vale has confirmed but like Mistrel is indicated limited vailability. Confirmed they will send five teams.”

“So we're basically on our own. Air operations.”

“Thirty percent causality rate with Griffon and Boartusk strafing and bombing runs. Five percent causality rate for Nevermore and Wyvern operations. Cruisers are in a holding pattern above Atlas, sir.”

“Effectiveness of preemptive operations.”

“Incendiary payloads appear to the most effective. Estimates put current attrition rate at about fifteen percent of estimated original total mass.”

“Cease Griffon and Boartusk operations. I want all remaining units grounded and prepped for danger close operations. Nevermore and Wyvren sorties will continue until causality rate is ten percent or the horde is with in sight of the walls. Evacuation status.”

“We are at sixty percent emergency shelter occupancy, with an estimated forty percent of the designated Mantle population having been transferred, sir.”

“Munitions.”

“Standard ballistic munitions are exceeding normal stockpiles by thirty-five percent. Dust munitions at normal stockpile levels. SAM munitions at seventy-five percent normal stockpile. Ballistic and Dust artillery stockpiles at sixty percent of base levels. Strategic ammo dumps are established, sir.”

“Chemical and incendiary agents?”

“Twenty percent of pre-Vytal levels for chemical. Non-dust incendiary at fifty-five percent pre-Vytal levels, sir.”

“I want installation of the entire chemical agent stockpile, behind an auxiliary perimeter. Rig for remote deployment, and issue counter agents, and protective gear to all on ground forces.”

“At once, sir.”

“Sir!”

“Report.”

“Observational reports indicate there is a large mass breaking off from the main, and rapidly approaching our perimeter. ETA six hours. Estimated size, fifteen percent of main mass, sir.”

“Alert all air defence batteries. Scramble all squads, and sound general quarters on all navel units. It's starting. Engage intercept operations at two thousand metres from the wall.”

“At once, sir.”

The CDS leaned forward on the rail of the command platform. Her weary eyes watching the real time Doppler showing a mass moving ahead of the main horde. Sh gave a silent prayer to the Brothers, before standing up and adjusting her uniform jacket.

/=/

“Air-defences are slowly being overwhelmed. We have reports of grimm landing in Atlas and Mantle. Ground units are engaging, sir!”

“Sir, the main mass land speed had increased again. ETA two hours!”

“Multiple reports of CIWS pods shutting down, sir.”

“Priority command. Any available personnel are to get those units operational. We must keep up the pressure. Report casualty rates.”

“Minimal, less than one percent of on ground forces. Thirty percent of airborne forces, sir.”

“And this cloud of grimm?”

“Twenty-five percent of estimated mass, sir.”

She closed her eyes. The main host of grimm was closing much faster than anticipated. Their air-defences were being overwhelmed. If they couldn't get the aerial threats whittled down, they would lose essential support for the ground forces when the main host arrived.

“Order all non-engaged armour, to switch to air-burst munitions, and to fire-at-will!”

“At once, sir.”

She knew this was going to be close. This battle was one of attrition. Would this flood of death overwhelm and outlast the might of the Atlean military. Would their technology be enough to turn the tide, or were all those brave and stout souls willing to stand against this darkness to be nothing more than sacrificial lambs. They needed to outlast. They need to decimate, and obliterate. But their resources were finite.

/=/ 

“Grimm host is with in one hour of the wall, sir.”

“Scramble all Nevermore units still capable of flight. I want them in the air now. Target is the middle of the horde, use of FAEs is authorized.” she ordered as her hands white knuckled the railing before her. “Scramble all available Boartusks. Target front edge of horde. We need to break their advance.”

“All Wyvren units in the air on standby. Standing order to engage once horde is with in five thousand metres of the perimeter defences. What are the weather conditions?”

“Stable. Minimal winds at less than one knot, sir.”

“Direction.”

“Easterly, sir.”

“Good. Status of aerial threats.”

“Thirty-five percent of estimated mass, sir. Air-defence units starting to report ammo reserves reaching critical levels, sir.”

“Order them to hold out, and keep up the pressure. Switch to small arms if required. Support units?”

“Reporting, difficulties. Grimm, starting to land and harassing lighter armed units, sir.”

“Airstrips are being overwhelmed. Requesting any available support. Grounded aircraft unable to lift off, and taking heavy damage, sir.”

“Dispatch all hunter teams. Have them clear the supply routes and hold the airstrips. Paladin units to prioritize on ground, grimm.”

She pressed her thin lips together. Their resources were finite, but they needed to hold out. Mantle and Atlas must remain standing; they would remain strong. They would break this horde, and prove the might of the Atlean forces.

/=/

“Grimm host, ten thousand metres from the walls, sir.”

“Alert all wall based units. Mortar teams prep for White Phosphorus and Chemical munitions. Activate knights. Have battleships prepare for air to surface bombardment. Status aerial threats.”

“Forty-three percent of estimated mass. Minor threats are nearly removed, larger targets proving resistant to current munitions, sir.”

They were making a dent, but considering the soon-to-be split in the focus of her resources, the end results still seemed disheartening. She offered another silent prayer to the Brother Gods. Hopefully the gambles the defence council had come up with would work. There were too many unknowns with grimm and much of what they were going to bring to bear was designed for use against human and faunus targets. This would be the greatest test of the strength of Atlas and Mantle. This would either become the shining moment, or turn into their hour of demise.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.” she uttered as her tired eyes watched the Doppler. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

[rjalker]

transcription part....1/5 maybe?

The Lizard of Woz, by Edmund Cooper. Originally published in the August 1958 edition of Fantastic Universe Science Fiction magazine.

___

Ynkwysytyv dropped his flying saucer down to ten thousand feet and allowed it to amble through the sky at a thousand miles an hour. Below him lay the United States of America, which he found very boring to look at.

His telescope had revealed no signs at all of intelligent lizard life—only a host of odd-looking bipeds who lived in peculiar shaped hives and used primitive land carriages to get from one place to another. True, they had flying machines—but of a somewhat amateurish design.

As a matter of fact, Ynkwysytyv had whiled away the last few minutes by playing leap-frog with two ridiculously flimsy jet aircraft. But when they began to pump rockets at him, he lost his temper and nearly burned off their wings with a heat ray—which made life interesting for a couple of incredulous Air Force pilots. Fortunately, their ejector seats and parachutes were in working order.

If, the truth be known, Ynkwysytyv—or Ynky, as his colleagues in the United Planets Organization called him—was not only bored but definitely unhappy. He had to admit, however, that the assignment to this remote and backward area of the galaxy was largely his own doing. If he had not allowed his tail to be turned by the irresistible scales and yellow streak of the Senior Administrator’s only daughter, he would still be at U.P.O. headquarters on Woz.

He sighed nostalgically, as he thought of his home planet, five hundred light years away. He sighed as he remembered the clear green skies, the deep blue grass, the pink rain forests and the boiling crimson oceans. Then he shorted with disgust as he looked down at the miserable world he had come to survey.

The colors were wrong, the inhabitants were backward and ugly, and the whole place would probably have to be fumigated to make it fit for colonization. Possibly a few of the more intelligent natives could be retained for slave labor. But their rudimentary technology seemed to indicate that this was hardly worthwhile. Robots would be far more efficient.

[there’s a line break here between paragraphsd but I can’t tell if it’s like, on purpose….]

However, his instructions were the survey the planet, establish friendly contact with the inhabitants, and prepare a detailed report on their culture—if any. All of which was a complete waste of time, since the report would be filed away and forgotten for a couple of centuries. Then some junior official would stumble across it and sign an order for total demolition under the slum clearance programme.

Ynky had every justification for taking a cynical view of life. His journey to the Solar System had lasted more than ten years, and his hibernation clock had accidentally woken him up eighteen months before planetfall—thus giving him ample opportunity for reflection on lizard’s inlizardity to lizard. It was downright vindictive of the Senior Administrator to pack him off to this hole—and all because his sex band had turned purple at the wrong moment.

Being a mere two hundred years old, Ynky regarded it as the worst possible beginning for the best century of his youth. By the time he got back to Woz all the females in his egg-group would have mated, and he would be condemned to a bachelor existence for at least another seventy-five years.

During his hibernation in the flying saucer, Ynky had naturally been programmed to fluency in all major terrestrial languages; for he was not the first Woz lizard to visit Earth. Some years previously a blue-tailed language specialist had touched down to do research on elementary methods of communication. He had managed to beam back to Woz the basic language patterns of English, French, Russian, and Chinese before being converted into a nourishing soup by the uncultured inhabitants of New Guinea.

Ynky gazed distastefully down at the planetary surface and shrugged. Might as well make a start somewhere. He reluctantly eased the saucer earthwards.

Below was a deserted highway and an equally deserted roadside cafe[with fancy E]. Ynky hovered indecisively for a moment, wondering whether he should press on to a more promising location. But what was the use? The whole civilization was monotonously primitive.

He touched down about a hundred yards from the cafe. He got out of the saucer, sniffed the air cautiously—too much poisonous oxygen and not enough nitrogen—and began to walk along the highway. Then, realizing that he had forgotten something, he went back and rendered the saucer invisible as a precaution against any curious bipeds who happened along.

As lizards go, Ynky was an impressive specimen. Posed erect on his hindlegs, he was four foot tall, excluding an extra three foot of red and purple tail that waved proudly behind him like an animated battle standard. However, in accordance with what the late blue-tailed language specialist had observed of diplomatic procedure, he also wore a top hat and a morning coat.

His entrance, therefore, at the Shady Nook Cafe introduced an element of novelty into the otherwise quiet existence of its proprietor, one Sam Goodwin. Sam, whose favorite relaxation was to read all about bug-eyed monsters, behaved with commendable fortitude when one actually appeared.

“Howdy,” said Sam, scratching his gray hair and trying to look as if the top hat hadn’t shaken him at all. “How are things in the galaxy?”

Ynky was pleasantly surprised by this first contact with homo sapiens. He had anticipated some initial difficulty.

“We try to keep the constellations burning,” he said modestly, “but you know how it is.”

“Sure,” agreed Sam confidentially. “What’ll you eat? Steak, fried chicken, burger?”

Ynky shuddered, remembering the blue-tailed lizard’s repeated warnings about the standard of terrestrial cooking. “I’ll take fruit,” he said. “A dozen apples, a dozen oranges, and a dozen bananas.”

“Drink?” said Sam, filling the counter with fruit.

“Milk,” decided Ynky. “About six quarts.”

He disposed of the lot simultaneously, to Sam’s intense interest. Ten seconds later, Ynky dexterously slipped an arm down his throat and extracted empty milk cartons, banana skins and orange peel all neatly tied up in a plastic wrapper for disposal.

“Cute trick,” observed Sam. “Is that normal, or just for the benefit of the natives?”

“Normal,” said Ynky. “We have somewhat delicate table manners on Woz.”

“Come again?”

“Woz is my home planet. I have been given the task of reporting to the United Planets Organization on the state of your world...I may add that, though I find you as a biped less repulsive than I had expected, I shall probably have to recommend fumigation.”

“You have my interest,” said Sam. “What is fumigation, and why?”

Ynky leaned on the counter, removed his top hat and expounded. “Fumigation is a means of rendering a planet sterile by introduction of an interesting gas that our chemists have developed. It is a breeder gas. That is to say, if a small quantity is introduced into any atmosphere it will quickly make the whole atmosphere lethal….A fine achievement, don’t you think? Well beyond your own elementary science, of course.”

Sam had read about this sort of situation in the pulp magazines. He was not sure he approved of it.

“Permit me to enquire,” he said courteously, “why this little old planet should be fumigated?”

Ynky smiled. We have made the mistake of trying to civilize bipeds before. Too intractable. There were some rather promising apes on Sirius Five—intelligent enough to train as technicians, or so we thought. Unfortunately, they developed a mania for political independence and blew three of our battle squadrons out of space before we demonstrated to them the error of their ways...So you see, it is not wise to educate inferior creatures beyond their natural ability. It will be rather a pity about homo sapiens. In some ways you are a definite improvement on the apes of Sirius.”

“Thank you,” said Sam. “That’s nice to know.”

___

(the rest still has to be transcribed, it probably has 5k words total)

[jahidur369]

Although this traffic pattern innovation

 

As for Pinduoduo, although it also launched CPS business He Tuber earlier. However, due to the underlying logic of the platform’s low prices, there is not enough room for premiums for CPS promoters to make profits. Therefore, compared with the growth rate of the total transaction volume of its platform, the CPS section is still far behind the Taobao Alliance.

In this industry, there are also some training service providers and tool service providers such as Taoke, which are continuing to evolve.

After 2017, the large-scale promotion of the CPS industry in Tencent’s ecosystem soon led to frequent attacks by Tencent.

At this time, Tencent has not yet proposed a 2B industrial Internet strategy, so it is not aware of the rationality of private sector retail and has not assumed the main responsibility for its private sector retail infrastructure. On the contrary, it only views these "saboteurs" from a 2C perspective.

After being frequently rectified, a large number of CPS promoters began to make Taoke-like apps out of security considerations and user retention needs. The core idea is to use a multi-level interest bundling model to achieve user fission development and customer acquisition, and to carry out e-commerce sales and share commissions. Some channels that have done micro-business direct sales have begun to join this wave.

Looking back at the background of the rise of social e-commerce, it is also closely related to the e-commerce market environment at that time. The CPS platform, which has worked hard for the platform for many years, feels deeply insecure about the platform's ever-changing policies. It is attacked from both sides by Alibaba and Tencent. Its life is always at the mercy of the platform's policies, and from time to time it is "swept out of the world" by giants.

Therefore, CPS players who received the first wave of dividends began to launch their own e-commerce APPs in order to capture users, traffic and supply chains in their own hands. The idea is that even if they cannot do Taobao and JD.com, they will become a self-closed loop small ecosystem. It's also safer.

In a sense, if social e-commerce follows its original intention, scientifically designs its business model, and does not adopt a fission method that is eager for quick success, there may be a large number of vertical e-commerce.

It is a pity that history has no ifs. Coupled with the consumption upgrade and capital market speculation at that time, social e-commerce quickly became popular and quickly became dizzy.

Ironically, the capital market’s hype on social e-commerce is based on Pinduoduo. However, players generally do not learn Pinduoduo or understand the essence of Pinduoduo, but directly copy the direct sales model. This is one of the reasons why Huang Zheng disdainfully defined Pinduoduo as a social e-commerce company.

The social e-commerce model, which uses multi-level fission as the basic means of traffic, has rapidly emerged with a large number of players. This is true for online Global Catcher, Yunji, Beidian, Darling's Home, Peanut Diary, Miyuan, Fenxiang Life, Haosheng, Meiguang, Taojiji, and Future Market. The offline Xingsheng Youxuan, etc. are also similar. In addition, there are a large number of micro-business team leaders who, although they do not have products, have actually established their own private e-commerce platforms based on this model, such as Chenyi Story.

At that time, some powerful private domain team leaders could quickly fission their team members to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands through multi-level mechanisms. The high commission incentives also stimulated more participants to join the game.

Even Alibaba and JD.com, which have always been cautious, couldn't help but join in and build Taoxiaopu and Fenxiang. However, out of caution, one adopted an agency operation method and the other adopted an investment method to isolate their own risks. Of course the end result is the same. With the tightening of policies and heavy regulatory strikes, social e-commerce has failed one after another.

On the positive side, social e-commerce has further promoted the development of private retail compared to the early Taoke. Specifically, it is reflected in the following aspects.

At the user level, because social e-commerce mostly adopts a membership model and emphasizes long-term relationships, it achieves refined user operations through hierarchical management, which is precisely a necessary step for private sector retail to build long-term repurchase relationships. Compared with the early days of Taoke, which violently solicited groups and violently issued orders, this is a positive step forward. But looking back at history, we have to think deeply about whether to use manual or technical means to solve the problem in the future, or a combination of both.

Secondly, social e-commerce has made meaningful attempts in developing private domain traffic. In the early days of Taobao, there was no substantial innovation in the fission and development of private domain traffic, so they were regularly strangled by the platform. Although this traffic pattern innovation was unsuccessful, lessons can be learned for the future. In addition, compared to the weak connections and enabling relationships between Taobao customers, social e-commerce generally attaches great importance to improving the ability of subordinate relationships and building traffic. This is essentially the same as today's anchor capacity incubation by MCN organizations. , which provides incremental value from the traffic level.

The refined division of labor in the supply chain, expansion, training, operations, tools and other private sector cooperation chains also provides ideas for the productization of the private sector retail industry chain in the future. The finer the division of labor, the lower the industry threshold and the more participants.

Finally, social e-commerce has truly broken through Taoke’s role as a single channel.

[unicornplatform]

The Ultimate Guide to Pricing Your AI App Development

Are you curious about the costs involved in developing an AI app?

AI technology holds immense potential for businesses across various sectors, offering valuable insights and predictive analysis. From healthcare applications to customer support services, AI is progressively becoming a vital tool for many companies. However, the financial aspect of developing an AI application can be substantial and varies significantly depending on multiple factors.

In this guide, we will explore the different costs associated with AI app development and examine the numerous aspects that could influence the total price. Additionally, we'll offer some advice on minimizing expenses while creating your own app so that you can maximize your budget when building a powerful and impressive AI application.

Understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI) Apps

As we progress into an era where Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become integrated into our daily lives – from digital assistants on smartphones to voice-activated tools at home – demand for AI-driven apps continues to grow. These apps serve various purposes but what exactly do they accomplish?

AI apps are designed to enhance user experiences, automate tasks and provide data-driven insights into consumer behavior patterns across industries such as retail or manufacturing. Capable of handling vast amounts of information using sophisticated algorithms, these apps can detect patterns otherwise unattainable by human observation alone; giving users access to invaluable intel like customer service improvement areas or predicting future purchases based on past trends.

Developing an AI app involves combining programming languages with algorithms alongside libraries and APIs specific to each project's unique requirements; which ultimately determines its cost along with factors including data storage capacity needs or platform preferences among others.

Factors Influencing The Cost Of Developing An_AI_App

The overall expense incurred during the development process depends largely upon several key elements:

Expertise Level: Skilled developers well-versed in industry standards are essential for delivering projects within stipulated budgets.

Platform Choice: Platform-specific constraints may affect development costs. However, AI apps are typically created for multiple platforms to maximize user reach and engagement.

Feature Inclusions: Integrating additional features or complex functionalities can increase required expertise and resources, necessitating accurate consideration during cost estimation.

Each project comes with its unique set of requirements; thus careful planning at every stage is crucial to ensure precise budgeting.

Determining the Price of Your AI App

To establish an appropriate price for your AI app, consider the following factors:

Design & Development Expenses

Budget allocation should account for aspects like data cleaning, database setup, API integration, algorithm design as well as coding processes. Depending on project size and scope - these costs could range from a few hundred dollars up to tens of thousands or more.

Cloud Computing Costs

Incorporating cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud Platform incurs additional expenses such as storage capacity fees while using GPUs to run Machine Learning models increases overall operational expenditures even further.

Maintenance Costs

Post-release maintenance – including regular updates/bug fixes; staff training; hardware upgrades and customer support services – will continue adding ongoing expenses if not properly accounted for beforehand!

Supplementary Resources For Developing An_AI_App

Developing an AI app often requires extra resources such as datasets, hardware infrastructure along with specialized software developers whose fees depend primarily on their skill level/experience per hour rates:

Datasets

Procuring extensive datasets or generating self-sourced data can be costly but necessary in many cases. Professional data labeling also adds considerable expense depending upon dataset type/quality needed ($50-$10k+).

Hardware Infrastructure

Investments into computational power/storage capacities contribute significantly towards monthly resource allocations ranging anywhere between $100-$15k.

Software Development

Depending upon location/availability concerns: hourly rates charged by experienced developers vary between $50-$250, with app development itself requiring hundreds of hours' worth labor.

Creating a Landing Page for Your AI App

Developing an effective landing page for your AI app can be costly; however, no-code platforms like Unicorn Platform offer quick and cost-effective alternatives. With its drag & drop interface and AI technology integration, building an engaging landing page is now easier than ever before - even without technical expertise!

Conclusion

In conclusion, the cost of developing an AI app depends on various factors such as project complexity/functionality along with chosen developers' experience levels. Careful evaluation of elements like market research/analysis or hardware/backend development plays a crucial role in determining overall expenses.

Opting for no-code platforms like Unicorn Platform streamlines the process while remaining budget-friendly – making it the perfect solution for startups/mobile apps/SaaS businesses looking to create powerful yet affordable AI applications!

Inspired by: Unicorn Platform's blog post

Made by AI.

[tribbetherium]

The Early Glaciocene: 100 million years post-establishment

Scruffalo Soldier: The Cloverfern Scrubland

Ten million years have passed since the peak of the Early Glaciocene. The first few million years were of extreme climes where the cold proved inhospitable for many life forms, and thousands of species, unable to weather the freezing temperatures, were driven into extinction. Yet life finds a way, to somehow bypass this chilly cataclysm, and now, a hundred million years since life first touched this world, the cold has begun to recede--ever so slightly as to still leave massive swathes of land as tundra and glacier-- but just enough to let the warm zones of the equator recover somewhat.

Here, on the continent of Borealonodera, on the Noderan plains, a new biome has sprung up. The cloverferns, descendants of clover that formed bushes and shrubs and grew in abundance in Easaterra, had begun to spread northward, at the same time that the invasive saberleaf, intolerant to the extreme cold, had begun to dwindle to the warmer, drier regions where it faced less competition from other flora. Now, the plains have been overgrown with thick scrubland from the abundant cloverferns, along with several native grasses, primarily weedwood, that had managed to persist the cold snap.

And these scrubland is dominated by a brand-new clade of megafaunal herbivores: the scruffalo. These giant ungulopes originated in the saberleaf savannah, where they fed on saberleaf stems and rhizomes and essentially filled the niche of the mison, in a biome that the mison could not tolerate. But with the Glaciocene ice age both driving the mison to extinction, save for the hammoths of Westerna and Ecatoria, and shrinking the saberleaf savannahs into small fragmented regions, the scruffalo found no competition as they migrated onto the plains of Nodera, and here they evolved into several new species as they came to dominate a niche once filled by the mison.

Many species, such as the helmeted buffalope (Ungulobubalus petrocranis) are relatively small, being roughly the size of a medium-sized cow. These smaller species are predominantly grazers, feeding on the abundance of low-ground vegetation. However, other species grow significantly larger, such as the axeox (Securiceros dimorphis), a large grazer that specializes on the tough stems and roots of grasses, and often follows smaller buffalopes in herds, feeding on the exposed stems they leave behind while the buffalopes only eat the softer leaves and shoots. Axeoxen are distinctly sexually dimorphic: while females possess only a simple forward-facing horn, males are equipped with the namesake axe-shaped protrusion that is primarily used for display, but can also serve as a battering weapon when threatened.

Most remarkable of the scruffalo, however, is the greater thorhorn (Varicoloritherium mjolnir), the largest of all the extant species. This strikingly-colored goliath is an opportunistic grazer and browser, including grasses, cloverfern shrubs and low-to-medium level tree leaves in its diet. However, the most surprising characteristic of the thorhorns is their degree of social intelligence: these giants are highly empathetic to their own kind, with herds of females collectively caring for and defending their young, and their color patterns, unique to each individual, helps play a part in helping them recognize individuals and members of their families, even after a long absence. Females are highly gregarious, raising their young together, while males live separately from the rest of the herd, in smaller groups of about two to four individuals.

The scruffalo, however, are not alone in these scrublands, as various other, unlikely species have since come to dominate these landscapes. While scruffalo fill the niches of large grazers and megaherbivores, the smaller grazers here instead are dwarf girats, such as the spotted prantler (Minigiraffamys triceratus) and the striped giraffalope (Giraffazebroides minimus): far smaller than their towering cousins of the Therocene, they now occupy a niche left vacant by the extinction of the hopping boingos, grazing on softer grasses as well as browsing on cloverfern. And here, vegetation is plentiful enough to sustain even smaller herbivores as well, such as the hare-sized jackrobats (Leporilopus spp.), small, primitive hamtelopes that have remained virtually unchanged since the Rodentocene.

This abundance of herbivores would soon unsurprisingly draw in large predators as well, and with the carnohams gone from Nodera and the beelzeboars driven south by the cold, the canid-like zingos would dominate this ecosystem. Smaller hunters like the plains rintin (Caninocricetus vulgaris) would specialize on smaller hamtelopes and ungulopes, but the bigger game, such as the scruffalo themselves, would be the targets of the maned marewolf (Diomedes lycanohippus), the largest land carnivore of the Glaciocene, at nearly five feet at the shoulder and weighing well over a thousand pounds when fully grown. Relying more on brute strength than speed and agility, the marewolf prefers to ambush its prey instead of running them down, and dispatching them with a powerful crunching bite directly to the back of the neck.

Not all zingos, however, would become powerful apex predators, with some smaller species, such as the pygmy fawndog (Cervicanimys punctus) becoming generalist omnivores instead, supplementing their diet of small rodents, invertebrates and carrion with occasional helpings of plants and fruit as well. This part-time frugivory makes the fawndog an important seed disperser, as it ingests seeds along with the fruit, and later deposits them in droppings near richer areas, its diverse omnivorous diet also making its leavings highly nutritious for the growing saplings.

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[mortallyclearwonderland]

Star Wars Alien Species - Gormak

The Gormak were sentient humanoids native to the planet Voss, a world in the Voss system of the Allied Tion sector in the Outer Rim Territories.

Voss had a temperate climate and solid terrain, with roughly half of the planet covered in rocky plateaus, unspoiled peaks, and verdant forests, while the other half lay under seas and oceans.

An aggressive species, the Gormak held an innate love of warfare and competition, and were extremely hostile toward the other natives of their planet, the Voss species. The Gormak held a cultural belief that in order for them to prosper, the Voss—whom they viewed as an unnatural plague on the planet—must be destroyed. To achieve that goal, Gormak warriors repeatedly assaulted the Voss capital city of Voss-Ka over the course of centuries; however, despite their far greater numbers, they were never successful as their warlike nature has kept them from uniting against their enemy. After the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic established embassies in Voss-Ka, the Gormak viewed both factions as enemies, seeing the off-worlders as no different from the Voss. Although their tribal society and basic speech patterns were considered primitive by galactic standards, their innate talent with technology rivaled the capabilities of the top minds of the Republic. From bits of scavenged electronics and discarded equipment, the Gormak constructed advanced tools, heavy machinery, specialized weapons and even cybernetic implants. However, despite their incredible affinity for technology, the Gormak remained a pre-spaceflight culture confined to their homeworld, which caused them to be viewed as a backward species despite being perfectly capable of repairing, modifying and improving tech created by more advanced cultures.

The Gormak population was numbered in millions and their society was tribal in structure, with Gormak spread throughout the wilderness of Voss in numerous nomadic clans numbering roughly a hundred individuals each. Within each tribe the position of responsibility to maximize the value of all salvaged equipment was held by a Shaman with a particularly strong affinity for technology, to whom the other Gormak looked for guidance not just in matters of technology, but in their daily lives. By far the most populous sentient species on the planet, the Gormak settled in camps, sometimes fortified by stolen off-world technology and actively avoided the forest known as the Nightmare Lands due to its mysterious corruptive influence. The largest Gormak settlement on the planet was Gorma-Koss in the Gormak Lands, where tens of thousands of Gormak have united their tribes at the base of an unnamed mountain under the leadership of Jokull, the Gormak King. The Gormak constructed mines to strip the land of valuable resources for the construction of their machines and weapons, leaving desolation and monolithic structures behind. Apart from working with existing technology, the Gormak also experimented heavily with organic-cybernetic hybrids, using Voss fauna as test subjects. Gormak hunting parties set out at regular intervals to trap mawvorrs, shaclaws and even the deadly vorantikus alive so that the creatures could be implanted with cybernetic upgrades. These monstrous cyberbeasts became faster, stronger and far more dangerous and could be programmed with specific instructions, making them into excellent guardians. The Gormak considered the meat of the insectoid shaclaw a delicacy, and became skilled at capturing and cooking them alive since the giant insects' flesh would become contaminated with toxins within minutes after death. The Gormak would only dine on the shaclaws during special coming of age feasts, and the capture and preparation of such meal was considered an essential part of the ritual celebration. The Gormak revered the local alpha predator vorantiki for their power and fearlessness, often depicting them in crudely scrawled pictures found inside Gormak domiciles.

In ancient times, the Sith came to Voss, where the Gormak were the only one native sentient species. The Sith viewed Gormak as primitive and ignored them as they began to harvest the world's resources. However, the planet and the Gormak were irrevocably changed when the Jedi arrived and attempted to drive the Sith off Voss. Seeking allies among the natives, the Jedi agreed to teach some of the Gormak tribes on how to use the Force, but the Gormak were unprepared for the knowledge. Those tribes underwent radical evolutionary changes in the course of a few generations, becoming a new species named the Voss. The Jedi attempted to teach the Voss how to control their emotions and new powers, but the Voss instead attacked the Sith on the planet, bringing the new species in contact with the dark side of the Force. This caused the dark side to become manifest in a Sith structure on the planet, and this entity came to take the name Sel-Makor as it gained intelligence. Sel-Makor began to feed on violence and suffering, fueling its dark side powers and spreading corruption across the surrounding area, which became known as the Nightmare Lands, and the ancient Sith complex that the entity inhabited was known as the Dark Heart. Not long after his creation, Sel-Makor captured the spirits of two of the Gormak who had been taught by the Jedi, Damek-Ol and Nemok-Ta, and imprisoned their spirits in slave bodies. Damek-Ol was imprisoned in the body of a Dashade, while Nemok-Ta was placed in the body of an Abyssin, and the two became avatars of Sel-Makor's power. After the extermination of the Sith, the Voss forgot their origins and founded the city of Voss-Ka atop the planet's highest peak, while the Jedi eventually died out or departed. Sel-Makor, meanwhile, influenced the Gormak's bloodlust and drove the far more numerous species to attack their cousins throughout the centuries so that he could feed off of their dark emotions.

For centuries between the sundering of the species and the re-discovery of Voss by non-native off-worlders, the Gormak settled across the planet and engaged in a seemingly endless war against the Voss species. Though restricted at the time to pre-flight technology, the technological aptitude, viciousness, and superior numbers of the Gormak made them a formidable opponent to the Voss. Despite that, the Gormak were held at bay by the training of the Voss commandos, the Force visions of the Voss Mystics, and the fortifications of the Voss mountain-top city of Voss-Ka. Following the Treaty of Coruscant that ended the Great Galactic War between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, Voss was accidentally rediscovered by the larger galaxy around 3645 BBY. An operative of the Star Cabal named Albathius arrived on Voss shortly after its discovery, and gained great influence among the Voss Mystics, becoming known as the "Shining Man" and convincing the Voss to stay neutral from the Cold War between two governments. The Shining Man soon died, but his starship remained in the Chamber of Ashes of the Dark Heart, where it was guarded by a Gormak named Xanar for years afterwards.

At some point during the Cold War, a Gormak by the name of Jokull entered the Nightmare Lands and traveled to the Dark Heart, entering the cave known as the Dark Hollow where Sel-Makor was most powerful. Instead of consuming the Gormak's mind like he had done to so many others, Sel-Makor instead chose to awaken within Jokull his species' natural ability—the power to see visions as the Voss did. Horrified that he had been corrupted and seeing all Voss as being marked with evil because of their powers, Jokull returned to the Gormak Lands and became king of his people in order to wage war upon the Voss—so that the Gormak would never be corrupted like he was. Under his leadership dozens of Gormak tribes united in Gorma-Koss, where thousands of Gormak set to work together on a massive project. Using pieces and equipment salvaged from the offworlders and the Voss, the Gormak constructing a Gormak cannon to threaten Voss-Ka and a starship named Gormegan-1 which they intended to use to travel to the stars. These constructions were supported by the Tela Mining Operations, while Jokull stored treasures and trophies from his conquests in the underground vault known as the King's Hall. In the Pelath-Ri Marches the Gormak settled on the Fest Otur Island and began to cut down many of the trees in the region.

Trying to gain an alliance with the Voss, both the Republic and the Empire lent them aid in their fight against the Gormak. The Sith aided the Voss in destroying Gormegan-1while the Republic helped the Voss to destroy the Gormak cannon. In the process, Jokull was captured, and the Voss discovered Jokull's ability to see the future. They enlisted the aid of outsiders in retracing the Gormak king's steps in the Nightmare Lands, soon learning the truth of their species' creation. After Jokull and neutralized, a new leader named Raklann took charge of Gormak in the Pelath-Ri Marches, trying to destroy the Shrine of Healing from below and attempting to excavate and repair the ancient starship named Evuk-Nosk. In 3636 BBY the galaxy was invaded by the Eternal Empire of Zakuul, who after defeating both the Republic and the Sith Empire, placed dozens of massive battlestations called Star Fortresses in orbits of subjugated worlds to watch for possible uprisings. The Voss Star Fortress was protected by a shield bunker located in the Pelath-Ri Marches, and the Gormak saw it as a source of the disease that affected their young, old and weak. In the face of a larger threat, the Voss and Gormak soldiers had united to defend their homeworld during the Invasion of Voss, ending the centuries-long war between two species. Their alliance has proven surprisingly effective, with the meditative reserve of the Voss complimenting the ferocious strength of the Gormak to form a formidable army.

The Gormak were sentient humanoids with green skin. They had flat, noseless faces adorned with frills that swept away from their eyes and mandible, collecting in whorls on the sides of their heads behind the jaw. The eyes of a Gormak varied in color, with red, orange and blue varieties observed. The Gormak had clawed, three-fingered hands—also adorned with frills—and tended to possess a muscular build. The Gormak possessed a sexual dimorphism, with females being slightly shorter than males and lacking a whorl located above their nose. The Gormak also had a natural mental acuity for understanding and employing technology.

Gormaks age at the following stages:

1 - 12 Child

13 - 17 Young Adult

18 - 49 Adult

50 - 74 Middle Age

75 - 89 Old

Examples of Names: Damek-Ol, Hadrik, Jokull, Nemok-Ta, Raklann, Xanar.

Languages: Gormak have their own language of Gormak, though dialects vary widely between different tribal groups and regions.

[thetamrieliclibrary]

Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition: Aldmeri Dominion

The Aldmeri Dominion is a relatively recent creation. [1] Formerly divided into he two realms of the Summerset Isles and Valenwood, the Aldmeri Dominion has its origins in CE830, when the heirs of the Camoran Dynasty began to fight over the Valenwood throne. When a faction of the Bosmer (Wood Elves) made overtures of peace to their longtime enemies in West Cyrodiil--territorial concessions in return for Colovian support for the faction's claimant--the Altmer (High Elves) of Summerset invaded the Valenwood Nations. Citing a stewardship clause in a treaty from a thousand years before, the High Elves quickly established a provisional government, the Thalmor, on behalf of their own claimant, Camoran Anaxemes, whose bloodline had struck the pact with the Aldmeri Council in the first place. As the Cyrodilic Empire was still in the shambles of the Interregnum, the Colovians were quickly driven back by the Aldmeri army. The other heirs of the throne were silenced, the Wood Elves thanked their cousins for bringing back stability, and the High Elves reminded Anaxemes the price of Summerset's aid: fifty years' fealty to the King of Alinor. The Aldmeri Dominion was born. [2]

The Thalmor strengthened its hold on the Valenwood Nations during the foundation of the Third Empire. Savage Bosmer tribes skirmished with the Estates along the River Strid, whipped to a frenzy by their High Elven masters. With the Empire now reunified under Tiber Septim, these attacks have subsided; but encampments wait on either side of the Valenwood border, awaiting a decisive battle.  On the occasions when the Elves probe the Empire's defenses, the Legions have sent them back in tatters. Indeed, the Colovians have taken to calling their enemy the "Old Mary" Dominion, for the womanly offensives of its Elven soldiers. The situation at sea, however, is another story, and the Dominion terrorises the southern waters from the Cape of the Blue Divide to the Topal Bay. [3] Their sorcery has made allies of a few Reachmen, the Maormer of Pyandonea, and, as of this writing, perhaps even the Elsweyr Confederacy. Though no formal declaration of war has been made, Tamriel is divided between the Empire and the Elder Races, and Tiber Septim has made it known to the Thalmor that he is the True Emperor of Cyrodiil, and heir to all of its former holdings. The Elves of Tamriel have yet to answer.

Considering we have endured their offenses for two thousand years, we know surprisingly little about the Aldmeri. (Only Morrowind, under Skyrim domination during the First Empire, and open to travel and trade during most of the Common Era, is somewhat better known.). The Elves of High Rock and Cyrodiil were either wiped out long ago or displaced into obscurity. As for the Elves of the Dominion, our knowledge of their regions is limited to brief Imperial occupations, or to the translations we have of their literature (see "The Scarcity of Elven Writings").

Of particular scarcity is information about either the High Elves or the Summerset Isles. During the Second Empire [4] ambassadors were allowed only in the capital of Alinor, and thus any description of the Altmeri homeland is confined to that city alone, and elsewhere (see Places of Note--Alinor). Furthermore, we can offer only this brief but reliable account of the High Elven people. It comes from the journals of Eric of Guis [5]. Reman's emissary to the Altmer, who lived among them ca. 1E2820:

"High Elves consider themselves to be the only perfect race. Over hundreds of generations they have bred themselves into a racially pure line, and are now almost identical to one another in appearance. The theory that the High Elves do not reproduce as quickly or as often as humans is false. Rather, and to my horror, they kill nine out of ten babies born to them in their obsession for purity.

"The Altmer despise other Elves as unsophisticated churls and barely consider the non-Aldmeri races at all. They pay their Imperial tithes, I'm sure, not for fear of war with the humans but rather to keep an invasion from "infecting" their islands.

"Breeding outside the pure line is a terrible, unthinkable crime, and taken as prima facia evidence of the tainted blood of the individual in question--if they were, they wouldn't have the impulse to do it. Exile to the mainland is regarded as equivalent to a death sentence, since there is no purpose to living outside their ideal society.

:They have a high regard for order and gravitate naturally towards wearing uniforms and speaking in formal patterns. Their trees and their livestock have been bred to be as standard and ideal as they are. They have no real names of their own, only combinations of numbers that, when aloud, sound to human ears as such. They feel no real tenderness for one another and have no concept of compassion.

"They are decadent and self-obsessed, and prize form and their own brand of manners or style as their main value. Aware of their aristocratic position, they surround themselves with riches and treasures, the works of great artists and the finest of everything, but have no real appreciation for any of these things. Each of them is concerned solely with himself, and as a result they do no real socialising; they meet and hold courts only to demonstrate their importance and power to each other. Rarely do they speak to the human ambassadors of Cyrodiil; when they do, their speech is full of riddles, or spell-words that enchant one to a satisfied madness."

Valenwood was claimed as a wasteland province of the Second Empire, and its geography is partially described in several Imperial surveys. Valenwood is noteworthy in that it has no cities or townships built by the Wood Elves themselves. Their strict "Green Pact" prohibits the use of wood or other vegetable derivatives as building materials, and they are too improvident to learn the use of stone. The Wood Elves permitted a few roads to be built by the Second Empire, but neglect their maintenance, as the Bosmer do not need roads to move easily through the thickest forest; these roads would be now overgrown were it not for the High Elves of the Thalmor, who have repaired and widened them for rapid passage of their arms to and from the coast. Much of the region is impenetrable mangrove and coastal rain forest, with few grasslands or glade areas until further north near the Strident Coast. Many of the human trading posts established by the Second Empire have been abandoned or claimed by the beastfolk--Centaurs, Orcs, and Imga--that share the forests with the Bosmer tribes. Humans, in general, have learned not to intrude in the forests of Valenwood. While they once depended entirely on the annual Stridmeet caravans of the Colovian  West, the Wood Elves now rely on the sea piracy of the Dominion for whatever they require from the outside world.

Concerning the Wood Elves as people, we must again turn to the prolific Eric of Guid. After a grateful dismissal from the Court of Alinor, he stayed with the Bosmer for a time at the capital city of Falinesti, during its summer migration. As the city strode along the coastal region of the Cape, Eric of Guis recorded much about Valenwood culture:

"No less abhorrent are the Bosmer than their kin at Summerset, but they are far more cooperative. The Wood Elves love the current human activity because it makes them feel important. 

"They are exclusively and religiously carnivorous. They cannot, or will not, eat anything that is plant-based. They eat game, beastfolk, each other, or meats imported from other regions. This part of the Green Pact is known as the Meat Mandate, and, among its other rules, it requires that a fallen enemy must be eaten completely before three days pass. The family members of the warrior that slew the enemy may help him with his meal. Needless to say, the Wood Elves do not like to engage in large battles if they have not undergone a suitable starvation period.

"Though they are excellent archers, the Green Pact forces their bowyers and fletchers to use bone or similar material, or to buy bows from other cultures. The use of woodcrafts created by another race is not forbidden, nor is the sale of their own Valenwood timber as long as it is collected by a non-Bosmeri.

"The Wood Elves, of course, cannot some anything of a vegetable nature. Bone pipes are common, however, and are filled with caterpillars or tree grubs.

"For a brief time the Colovian armies used Wood Elf archers, as in the War of Rihad two years past. The Bosmer proved to be too undisciplined and prone to desertion for further use. They would sometimes walk into the shade of a single tree and vanish. Their forest-coupling skills are remarkable. The title of their most famous poem, the Meh Ayleidion, means "The One Thousand Benefits of Hiding."

"At the trading posts of the Empire, the Wood Elves become very happy. Some creations of carpentry delight them to no end. Most of it has never occurred to them. They bring their own trade items: hides, river pearls, finger-bone charms made from the still-magically-charged hands of their dead wizards. They often buy woodcrafts that they have no use for or whose use they never bother to find out. Some of the bravest Wold Elven warrior use wagon wheels as shields, or as (they think) impressive headgear.

"While sometimes amusing, the Bosmer have a bestial side. They can resort to animal shapes if they need to, or water. Their most dreaded transformation is the Wild Hunt, which killed King Borgas [6] for the "iniquities" of his Alessian faith. The Wild Hunt is a pack of shifting forest-demons and animal-gods, thousands strong, which sweeps through the countryside killing everything in its path. The Wood Elves do not like to talk about the Hunt, and I gather they do not feel proud of this power at all--Gomini, my Bosmer companion of late, tells me that the Hunt is used for justice, but that also, "every monster in the world that has even been comes from a previous Hunt. Those Bosmer that go Wild, they not not return.""

The traveller is advised to avoid the lands of the Aldmeri Dominion. Though the Thalmor have representatives at the Imperial City, and the Cyrodiilic Grand Vizier Zurin Arctus is meeting with the King of Alinor, contact with the Bosmer and Altmer are often disagreeable to the common Imperial citizen. Avoid their books and magic. Wear the permitted weaponry when near their borders. If you are manly and able, apply for service in the Legions.

The Scarcity of Elven Writings

Much of the blame for this can be laid on the Alessian Order, which was tireless in ferreting out and destroying Elven writings during its long dominance. Today, we are left with the beautiful heresies of the Anuad, surviving only by virtue of their popularity and proliferation, and perhaps a dozen more works of lesser renown. This, though, does not explain fully the scarcity of Elven letters. We might turn to Dylxexes, an early human scholar, for another answer. After studying the financial records of the Direnni Hegemony, a High Elven merchant family that exploited the human kingdoms of its day, he had this to say: "These [records] may help to explain why so much of Aldmeri literature is forbidden, scorned, or untranslated, for I have seen [their] like before. The Direnni were either exceedingly paranoid or their system of economy so inextricably linked with dangerous theosophist numeral-symbolism that much of what is recorded here requires... sorcerous precautions on the part of the reader. [Hidden magic] is everywhere incorporated in their writings... signs and preternatural runes and [correspondences]... in expenditure columns, even, or margins [that] can be fatal to the uninitiated. Crucial pages were covered with the spittle of the previous translator, who had babbled idiotically over the text for days before catching fire."

The Great Apes of Valenwood

The Great Apes, or Imga, are native beastfolk of Valenwood. they see the High Elves as their lords and masters, and as a portrait of an ideal, civilised society. Great Apes go to desperate measures to emulate the High Elves: they wear capes, practice with the dueling sword, and attempt to speak with perfect enunciation and courtly manners despite their gravelly, baritone voices. Each Imga bears some kind of title, be it Baron, Duke, Earl, or the like, which they use when addressing the members of the Thalmor (needless to say, there are no landowning Great Apes). More extreme Great Apes shave their bodies and powder their skin white to seem more like the High Elves. They often cut themselves in the process, creating the truly pathetic picture of a naked white Ape, skin dotted pink with blood, strutting around the trading posts of Valenwood with mock nobility. The Imga feel that humans are beneath them as lesser beastfolk, and pretend to find their smell exceedingly offensive--a Great Ape holds a perfumed corner of his cape to his nose when Men are around.

Places of Note

Alinor

A forbidden city for nearly fifty years, Alinor is both capital of the Summerset Isles and the heart of the Aldmeri Dominion. Human traders were only allowed at its ports, and they described the city as "made from glass or insect wings." Less fantastic accounts come from the Imperial emissaries of the Reman Dynasty, which describe the city as straight and glimmering, "a hypnotic swirl of ramparts and impossibly high towers, designed to catch the light of the sun and break it to its component colours, which lies draped across its stones until you are thankful for nightfall."

Falinesti

The walking city of the Bosmer king, Falinesti is south in the summer and north come Hearth Fire. It is the largest of Valenwood graht-oaks, whose magic was invoked at the dawn of recorded history. The Camoran throne is somewhere in the highest branches, as are numerous other dwellings. Wood Elves climb about its surface like termites, or carefully swing from level to level by means of thorny vines. Humans have generally been too unsettled by the city to stay there long, though Great Apes and Orcs are common. The Thalmor has decided to change the campital of Valenwood from Falinesti to Elden Root for the duration of the Aldmeri Dominion.

Annotations

1. Of this pamphlet, this regime, this lunacy 2. I don't know where to begin pointing out the lies 3. !!! 4. My bones chill thinking of such rampant human trespass 5. Does Grandfather remember this fool? 6. Wood Elves of the Wild Hunt, 1e369, still about in Valenwood--Willy the Bitten returned to haunt Silvenar Grove, While King Dead Wolf-Deer stalks the Lynpar March.

~ Follow for more books, journals, and notes from the Elder Scrolls series ~ Updates daily ~

[andersonled]

COLOR THE NIGHT WITH YOUR CHOICE: ANDERSON LED HELPS YOU TO!

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Post World War II, during the fifties, the neon lights gained much popularity and as a symbol of the pop music age, it supplemented the experience. In 1927 a newer luminous source became a reality with Edmund Germer of Germany inventing the fluorescent tube. The luminosity of these tubes was higher, and they in addition, gave off less heat. Germer had actually finished the work done by Alexandre Edmond Becquerel and his father, in the field of study of fluorescent lighting. 

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LED Panels and Displays:

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[felicityzoid]

Technology- A Friend or a Foe?

Dependence on technology has made us forget about some of the traditional skills. Technology is wonderful but the increasing rate of dependency on technology is alarming. For example, the skills of reading maps have been forgotten as now people are using GPS for directions. Nowadays driving is also automatic, the car basically drives itself and after using automatic cars people have forgotten how to operate manual cars. Calculators have also become so popular in school that people can’t operate simple calculations without using a calculator. The dependence on the technology is too much that people are losing their ability to think and even read as people have all the information they need on the internet. Our grammar and spelling mistakes can also be corrected by the computer. We have also stopped producing our own food as production of packaged foods have been mechanized.

For a long time, computers have been all over the place and most households have them. Internet is the common activity on the computers and the internet is used to expand our knowledge, listen to music, play games, chat and watch videos. Most of the population is addicted to internet and spend much of their time on the internet other than spending their time on productive activities.

Technology makes our life simpler and easier but people's dependence on the technology is too much in that they are making people damn lazy as we have become sluggish, obese since our transportation has been mechanized.  The technology has made so lethargic in that we cannot even go to the shops to buy fast foods and all we need is just a phone call and the foods are delivered to us. So, in my opinion too much dependence and addiction to the technology is not good for humans.

There are many advantages that technological advances have brought. Technological dependence is clearly seen when we look around and realize that we are surrounded by technological advances ranging from mobile phones, computers, iPod, and television; that have become part of our common lives causing in us a certain dependence. Technological development has grown at considerable speed and the consequences on society, countries and individuals are enormous. Technological development has a unique course we cannot alter, nor stop; It defines our lives. In the present, technological change is determined by a few large multinational corporations that in turn influence the behaviour of consumers by advertising, so the consumer is directed to where they want. For example, for the people that must be continuously checking their e-mail; cell phones were invented, which already have mobile internet so that they can connect at anytime and anywhere. Another example of how consumerism is relating to new technologies is the company Apple who release every year a new iPhone. It is important to emphasize that the same consumerism perceived by the people today in everyday life; it is the same that induces to the purchase of new and improved artifacts focused more than anything else as a whim and not as a necessity. The gap between consumption and need becomes increasingly close and more difficult to discern.

“At first glance, one might have the tendency to dismiss such aberrant cell phone use as merely youthful nonsense a passing fad. But an emerging body of literature has given increasing credence to cell phone addiction and similar behavioural addictions.” Technology is a means that on one hand brings us many advantages, but in the other hand, we have to establish that the use of artifacts such as the Internet and mobile phones are becoming of excessive use in young people, for Roberts and Pirog it is definite that all these artifacts are becoming a way of life for each one of them, and they say that the same young people are at a stage where they will become addicts to this devices if they do not know how to control themselves. They argue further that technology isolates people because it is now very common to see how many hours devoted young are to be on the network, because humanity is involved in a technological world, that’s where people are starting to talk about the term “technophile” which is becoming more common every day. In addition, several people are starting to consider technology dependency as any unhealthy dependency such as alcoholism or drug addiction. Jane Demerica thinks the opposite to what is set out in the article of Roberts and Pirog she says that these new technologies are extremely beneficial for all and that it is difficult to speak of dependence in these technologies. New technologies in communication are optimal for better knowing people and expand the social circle. “Meeting new friends- Shy kids can make new friends on the internet.” She also claims to have solved the problems of introversion and even ensures that parents feel reassured that their children are talking to friends who already know and are under supervision to help lower the risk. Another point where she is in favour is the mobile phones because she mentions, “Cell phones make it easier for parents to keep track of their children.”

The technologies have a great potential to enhance and change the education system, which can break the prevailing cultural patterns so that technology does not bring so many prejudices and steers away from becoming a dependency. “When schools in different parts of the state, country or world connect, students can “meet” their counterparts through video conferencing without leaving the classroom.” According to him, there is no abuse of technology rather this is the current key of teaching so children and youth should be therefore more exposed to the media. As a source of information, the Internet provides immediate access to almost all knowledge collected by mankind in the history of civilization. In times where knowledge is power, access to the Internet puts a person in complete advantage over those who do not. With the internet a person can read the latest news on different topics, obtain information on employment opportunities, find out the latest fashion trends, and learn from the written responses of millions of people in specialized forums and blogs. The downside is that many people infringe copyright because they are tempted by so much information and end up copying and pasting text and then present them as their own. This promotes laziness and dishonesty. Also, many people take advantage of the vast amount of personal information available on the Internet to blackmail or steal identities. Psychologist Patricia Greenfield indicates that technology is causing the loss of critical thinking in students. She states that because of the incredible boom that technologies have on societies can begin to talk about the concept of dependence on technology, estimates that there are already hundreds of incidents of Internet dependency. Although she is not totally disagreeing with the new technologies, she indicates to use both “As students spend more time with visual media and less time with print, evaluation methods that include visual media will give a better picture of what they actually know.” Addiction is increasing, it is giving following alteration in social and physical habits of young people and identifies these as other addictions, producing anxiety about being in touch with a computer and the need to be using it every minute, so that has made huge gap between use and abuse. Another person who is in favour with the views of Roberts and Pirog about the mobile phones is Josip Ivanovic who says, “Teens’ natural tendency to follow trends may result in an emotional attachment to a cell phone that is out of scale with its actual value.” It can be said that many people, especially young people tend to use this device in a manner disproportionate, making it an addiction. Most people overuse the cell, nowadays users cannot leave it off for minutes, and if so, they tend to turn it on after a short time to check for text messages or voice mails. People who are dependent of cell phones need to feel their devices in their hands, otherwise they will not feel good, and this will generate anxiety, stress or despair. This new addiction attack to hundreds of people, and the worst thing of all is that they do not realize that they are addicted because they see it as something normal. “The overuse of cell phones has become a social problem for tens of thousands of Americans not much different than other harmful addictions.” In addition, cell phone addiction can cause serious damage to the home environment; because it causes alienation when a member moves away to make a call or send a text message this generates a detachment of the family environment.

We live in times where the use of technology is applied in every aspect of the society, which explains the technological dependence in which we live. Nowadays society applies new technology almost anywhere such as scientifically, socially and financially, “But as a foundation for an important economic pillar in our country, I suspect we’re pushing the envelope of sane thinking. There is no such thing as an unhackable computer system. There is no such thing as a 24/7/365 computer system.” For example, if we go to the bank and the system goes down, we cannot do anything because all the information about the clients is stored online; If a person wants to be served in any unit of government health, he has to make an appointment, but if it is rush hour in which all users want to make an appointment, the system will flood, and they won’t be able to handle the appointment. Other problem could be if a system fails “Because hospital systems are so complex, and require the careful integration of disparate, specialized software and hardware systems, single component downtime can greatly interrupt workflow.” New technologies have entirely changed the way of life of young people. In some respects, very much improved. For example, in order to perform the schoolwork children have to use a computer to do some research. In the last few years there has been a considerable advance in the technology, each time improving more what we already have, which is beneficial to our quality of life. The problem is that goes awry and creates addiction among children and adolescents, and presently technology can be considered as a drug.

At first, results from the ease of communications appear valuable because it helps people to communicate with others who are far away, but if this trend persists, people who use this technology often will isolate. “Young adults who use Facebook more frequently show more signs of psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviour, mania and aggressiveness.” An example of this is Facebook where more and more people spend hours attached to this virtual community, and thus ignore their interpersonal relationships in the real world. For young people, I believe that new technologies have become a property of first need that gives them independence with respect to the outside world. Some of the things that stand out are the media such as television, social networks, the consoles such as the video games, mobile phones, the Internet, and photos and videos from digital cameras. This has caused a radical change in the socialization and how they relate. The presence and contact now have become a thing of the past. Friendships are now not visible using technologies. For example, with the use of Facebook many people can meet new friends. The advantages that young people see in the new technologies are many and varied. For example, in social networks allows them to have a continuous communication. They can choose a person to talk or keep hidden until they feel confident most of the time, they use it at home where they feel safe and uninhibited, which causes parents to lose and control of their children. These technologies also have an impact on family relations, creating privacy for the children, which is hardly controllable by the parents, because most of the population now has a computer at home with internet access. The computer is a useful tool in everyday life as it helps us to make academic work and non-academic work. Although it is a very important tool in our daily lives today we have also become very dependent on it because we cannot do anything if we do not have a computer, this mainly happens because our environment demands the use of this tool each day at work or school, and nobody denies that it is a very useful tool for everyday tasks, but when a person rely on something that is what we dread to think what will happen when this technology is not around us. From a computer with internet connection a person can buy anything, from books to a house. There is no need that could not be met with the Internet and a credit card with funds. Someone with Internet connection could live his entire live without having to leave his home. This also means that the Internet offers an endless variety of business opportunities, from basic Web page creation, sales of traditional products, to even sales of stranger things. The negative side of these are of course spam, phishing, and other forms of fraud; through which unscrupulous people look for to get rich quick. Fraud can also come from the buyer’s side, because many thieves of credit cards use the Internet to make purchases under the name of their victims, emptying their bank accounts and ruining their reputation.

In conclusion, technology is a phenomenon that surrounds us all with artifacts and technical devices daily, is an element that is maintained for the length of time, and we remain equally or more wrapped up in a technological world that teaches us a new way of learning, and adaptation. Technological dependence is part of our lives because nowadays no one is free of this phenomenon on the global level. An example of this are the universities which indirectly involve students in this system, the same applies to jobs or simply with the Chat, which is limiting personal relations, replacing them with virtual communication. All this becomes dependence when individuals cannot perform their daily activities without the use of some device, or better said function in society without occupying any technological tool. Historically, technology has been used to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing. But also, for other negative purposes such as, create weapons to persuade and dominate people. Technological activity affects the social and economic progress, but also produced the deterioration of our environment. Technologies can be used to protect the environment and prevent the growing needs cause depletion or degradation of material and energy resources of our planet. Avoiding these negative aspects is the task not only of governments, but of all the people living on the planet. Although technology has several disadvantages, I think the advantages of these are more favourable to mankind. In fact, one could say that without sustainable development of the technology, the humans would not be more than an ordinary living being on this planet. The inventions of man are indicators of the cognitive evolution of the same, and in their eagerness to learn, can overcome evolutionary barriers such as adaptability to certain climates, and defence against diseases. Unfortunately, it is man who decides how to use it. Certain types of men see technology as weapons for war, others as tools that help us improve the quality of life of the species.

[michelleleisureblogs]

Historical Facts About Two African Countries

Hidden Truth Behind Madagascar

If you’ve watched any kind of documentary, or show, or incredibly accurate cartoon depiction of “Madagascar” I’m sure you are fully aware of how unique and distinct the country is when it comes to nature. The Malagasy have quite a unique story too when it comes to the history of the people. The people of Madagascar had trade agreements with the rest of the continent of Africa during the pre-colonial times, most of their trade was with people in modern-day Mozambique, this marina rulers of Madagascar welcomed the English missionaries and soon the island had converted to the Christian faith. 

This conversion to Christianity led to the modernization of Madagascar society which led to the development of schools, medical center, and industries, the Malagasy people believed that their embrace of Christianity and modernity would save them from colonialism but unfortunately, these Africans did not understand that this arm of Christianity was into empire building and not in the sole business. Fast-forward to 1884 the French army launched their attack on the Malagasy people to expand the French empire but the Malagasy people fought a good fight and the war ended in a stalemate. However, in 1895 the French came back twice as tall to burn the country down which utterly destroyed the nearest marina rulership and the wolf of French colonialism was established in place across the island. The French war brought devastation as they mutated the resources and they did not invest in infrastructural development and only split resources out to France. The Malagasy who had strived to stay independent were now French citizens or French subjects until the 1960s when they eventually won their political independence.

Evil Queen of Madagascar

Queen Ranavalona, the Mad Queen of Madagascar was responsible for the killing of 75 percent of her subjects. Whenever she questioned the loyalty of her members of the Madagascar military, she arranged a “fair” and “just” way to allow them to prove their loyalty, by simply telling them to eat three raw chicken skins, no trial, no evidence, no jury, they just have to eat three raw chicken skins to prove their loyalty to the Queen and they will be free to go. After wolfing down the first skin, followed by the second, and finally after a few nauseous gulps, the last, the raw skins slide down their throat covered in slime and they get the urge to vomit. They can’t help it and vomit two of the chicken skins and fail her test and are then pronounced guilty and sentenced to death by the Queen. A strict traditionalist, Queen Ranavalona believed in the old ways of her people and for her accession ceremony had her naked body anointed with the blood of a freshly slain bull, which was fitting for a woman who would spill the blood of millions. After which, she put the royal family to death in a variety of ways. She was responsible for the murder of several Christians, who were sometimes hung over a ravine or cliff’s edge with ropes, and left there without food and water, while their friends and family would be forced to watch until at last the ropes frayed and sent the condemned to their quick death on the rocks below.

Incredible Facts about Madagascar

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, almost one in ten Malagasies smoke weed, which’s a higher percentage than they do in the Netherlands, making it an ideal place (to avoid) when looking for a good vacation.

The North-Eastern part of Madagascar is known to produce close to 80% of the world’s vanilla, which is one of the most expensive flavours. A kind of large wrap made of various kinds of fabrics in patterns and colours usually worn by the Malagasy people.

The behaviour of the Malagasy people is seriously governed by thousands of cultural taboos, or fady, many of which include no funerals or farming on Tuesdays, no use of shovels with firm handles to bury the dead, or no eating of eels and goats.

It has become one of the most recent countries to abolish capital punishment but surprisingly is still the 14th least happy country according to the World Happiness Report.

Despite the poverty, Madagascar is home to some top-notch luxurious tourist sites and spas. Start saving up though, doubles cost from £3,220 a night.

Lamba is a traditional garment worn by Malagasies, both men and women. 

Bare-knuckle fighting, called moraingy, is a very popular sport throughout the island, as well as in Reunion, 300 miles to the east.

 TANZANIA; BEYOND TANGA IN THE LAND OF THE BLACKS

Tanzania, a well-known East African country, home to the tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, was formed in 1964 as Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, then after 6 months, it was changed to Tanzania. But before we take a journey about Tanzania let’s talk a bit about Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Tanganyika, a geographical entity that comprises a large part of the mainland of Tanzania was a sovereign state from 1961 to 1964. During the 1880s, the German colonists took over the area and in 1891 was declared a protectorate as part of German East Africa. After World-War I, Britain took over the protectorate and gave it the name Tanganyika under the league-of nations mandate in 1922 which means “what is beyond Tanga”, later it was turned into a United Nations Trust Territory after World War II due to its wonderful qualities in its geography, topography, climate, geopolitics, etc. Interesting to note, Tanganyika was instrumental in World war II as 100, 000 People joined the Allied Forces (Countries that opposed the Axis powers during world war II) and also were part of the 375,000 British colonial troops who fought against Germany and Japan. In 1957, there only 15 towns with over 5000 inhabitants with the former capital of Tanzania having the highest population at the time of more than 125,000 people. During this time, the British had a problem which was the Tanganyika’s ethnic and economic makeup which created issues for them in as much they had a policy which was focused on the continuation of the European presence but they still had to be responsive to the political demands of the Africans there. On route to independence, five UN missions visited the country and received hundreds of written petitions as well as oral presentations made in New York City. All these as the Africans who used the UN to achieve their purposes were key in driving the country towards independence. And in 1961, Tanganyika became an independent state. Now to our neighbor, Zanzibar

Zanzibar, an island located in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa. Interesting to note Zanzibar means land of the blacks. Going as far back as the 16th century, the island was under the domination of the Portuguese but was taken over by Omani Arabs in the 18th century. After taking over, Sultan Seyyid decided to move his capital from Muscat (which is the most populated and popular city in Oman) to Zanzibar. This decision made the island to be at the center of trade for spices. Did you know that in the early 20th century, the island produced nearly 90% of the world’s supply of Spices. Also, the island became a major transit point for the slave trade in the Indian Ocean. But as you know, “When men have ambition, with no limit, they fall”, this is exactly what happened to the Oman Empire, in 1890, the island became a British protectorate. Although it was a British Protectorate, the British ruled through the sultan. Zanzibar, on the path to independence, got theirs from the United Kingdom in 1963, making the nation to be a Constitutional monarchy ruled by its Sultan. Then in 1964, there was a revolt against the sultan, and a new government was formed with Abeid Karume, who was the president and chairman of the Revolutionary Council. During the few days of revolt known as the Zanzibar Revolution, thousands of people lost their lives, comprising mostly Arabs and Indians. Also during this time, the Tanganyika army took part in the revolt then Julius Kambarage Nyerere who was a Tanzanian anti-colonial activist asked Britain to send troops. The troops came ashore from aircraft carriers. The troops’ operations were successful in the disbanding of the military, after the whole operation, the Britain troops left and were replaced with Canadian troops. After some time, on 26th April 1964 Zanzibar united with Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar which is also Tanzania.

Now that we have a clearer view of Tanzania, we can have a touch of its history. After the union of the two states, the two ruling parties in each state merged to form the Chama cha Mapinduzi Revolutionary Party in 1977. The merge occurred due to the belief of Nyerere which was that, multiple political parties, in a nation with diverse or multiple ethnic groups won’t support national unity but will jeopardize it. Also, to promote unity he established Kiswahili as the national language. As time went by, every sector of the state expanded rapidly and nationalizations transformed the government into the largest employer in the country as it was involved in all aspects from retailing to trade to banking thereby making the stage set for corruption. As more complex bureaucratic procedures evolved and a huge increase in tax rates set by officials caused harm to the economy, enormous amounts of public funds were misappropriated and put to ineffective use and the purchasing power continued to decline at a fast rate which all lead to a decline in the economy.

On 19th March 2021, following the sudden death of John Magufuli, Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan became the new president. Still, being the Unitary Presidential Democratic Republic, Tanzania hopes to progress in the oneness of people, in heart and mind.

References

Anon., 2020. Most Evil Queen - Killed 75% Of Her  Subjects. [Online]  Available at: https://www.voicetube.com/v3/videos/141662  [Accessed 17 March 2021].

Chiteji, F.  M. ,. B. D. F. ,. M. A. C. a. I. K., 2021. "Tanzania".  Encyclopedia Britannica. [Online]  Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Tanzania  [Accessed 19 March 2021].

GONCHAR, M.,  2019. The New York Times. [Online]  Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/25/learning/25MadagascarGeographyQuiz.html  [Accessed 19 March 2021].

 Authors:

Moronkeji AgbaraOluwa

Nemieboka Boma

Ilechukwu Michelle

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

GANGBUSTERS

This is the era of the police. If I were chief, I'd ask for as many as I could. Councilmember Richard Alatorre 

“Since the days of the legendary Chief William Parker in the early 1950s, the LAPD has been regarded by L.A.'s Black community as a redneck army of occupation. On the eve of Daryl Gates's appointment as chief in 1978, the so-called 'Masked Marvel', a white ex-cop who had served five years in 77th Street's 'Fort Apache', appeared in disguise on a series of local television shows to luridly chronicle the pathological racism and trigger-happiness of the 'blue knights' towards ordinary Blacks. II Gates, the third Parker protege in a row to command the LAPD, ridiculed these charges and the 'liberals' who listened to them. Soon afterwards came the police killing of Eulia Love, a 39-year-old Black widow in default of her gas bill. Community outrage was so great that Watts Assembly-member Maxine Waters demanded, 'Chief Gates, we want you out!' As Gates defended the twelve 38-caliber holes in Mrs Love's body before a cowed Police Commission, several hundred Black clergy members petitioned the Carter administration to intervene. They asked the Justice Department to probe a pattern of systematic abuse of non-whites, including 'more than 300 police shootings of minority citizens in the last decade'. Meanwhile, the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) collected tens of thousands of signatures calling for the establishment of a civilian police review board.  

The LAPD rode out this storm in alliance with a silent Mayor Bradley, whose gubernatorial ambitions seemed to preclude any stance that could be interpreted by white voters as 'anti-police'. Thus insulated from political accountability, Chief Gates was only emboldened to taunt the Black community with increasingly contemptuous or absurd excuses for police brutality. In 1982, for example, following a rash of LAPD 'chokehold' killings of young Black men in custody , he advanced the extraordinary theory that the deaths were the fault of the victims' racial anatomy, not excessive police force: 'We may be finding that in some Blacks when [the carotid chokehold] is applied the veins or arteries do not open up as fast as they do on normal [sic] people.'

By 1987, however, after the crack blizzard had hit Southcentral in full force, some Black leaders began to weigh police misconduct as a 'lesser evil' compared to drug-dealing gangs. Groups like the Urban League and SCLC redefined the community's problem as 'too little policing' instead of 'too much', and repudiated attempts to restrain the LAPD. The 'equal policing' furor after the Westwood shooting gave Gates an unexpected opportunity to convert some of these former critics into born-again fans of his aggressive policing. While politicians merely worked their jaws, he was seen to respond dramatically to Southcentral's urgent outcry for police protection. With a typical eye for media exposure, the Chief launched the first of his heavily hyped anti-gang sweeps. (The LAPD already conducted regular sweeps to drive homeless people off the streets of Downtown.) This so-called Gang Related Active Trafficker Suppression program (GRATS) targeted 'drug neighborhoods' for raids by 200-300 police under orders to 'stop and interrogate anyone who they suspect is a gang member, basing their assumptions on their dress or their use of gang hand signals'. 

Thus, on the flimsy 'probable cause' of red shoelaces or high-five handshakes, the taskforces in February and March mounted nine sweeps, impounded five hundred cars and made nearly fifteen hundred arrests. By Good Friday, Gates was gloating over the success of GRATS in drastically curtailing street violence. A few hours after his self-congratulatory speech, however, some rogue Crips mowed down a crowd on a Southcentral street corner, killing a 19-year-old woman. Hysteria again took command in the Civic Center. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn called for the mobilization of the National Guard, while Yaroslavsky claimed that the city was 'fighting a war on gang violence ... that's worse than Beirut'.  

Gates, frantic to keep the LAPD in command of events, announced that the full manpower reserves of the Department would be thrown into the super-sweeps called the HAMMER. Although one high-ranking LAPD veteran would later admit that the catch-as-catch-can strategy was just 'a hokey publicity deal', it was billed as L.A. law enforcement's 'D-Day'. And like the Marines hitting the beach at Danang in the beginning of LBJ's escalations in Vietnam, the first of the thousand cop blitzkriegs made the war in Southcentral L.A. look deceptively easy. 

Black politicians generally applauded Gates, even if that put some 'civil rights leaders' in the awkward position of undermining the civil rights of Black youth. But as state Senator Diane Watson's press secretary rationalized it, 'when you have a state of war, civil rights are suspended for the duration of the conflict'. The local peasantry, on the other hand, were wary and even belligerent. As an LAPD spokesperson complained: 'People in the neighborhood instead of being on our side, make all kinds of accusations.' Indeed the NAACP reported an unprecedented number of complaints, in the hundreds, about unlawful police conduct.  Community members also claimed that the police were deliberately fueling gang violence by leaving suspects on enemy turfs, writing over Crip graffiti with Blood colors (or vice versa) and spreading incendiary rumors.  

Given an open season to terrorize gang members and crack dealers, the LAPD predictably began to exceed the call of duty. On 5 April they shot down an unarmed teenager cowering behind a small palm tree on Adams Boulevard. He was alleged to be reaching suspiciously into his pants; more importantly, he was a 'suspected gang member' - a category that now seemed to justify abuse or even execution. A few weeks later, HAMMER forces, storming one of the nearly five hundred 'rock houses' that they claim to have put out of business in 1988, poured double-ought buckshot into an 81-year-old retired construction worker. No drugs were actually found, there was strong suspicion that the police had an incorrect address, and the victim's niece, a witness, testified that he was killed with his hands held up. The LAPD merely replied that gangs were now paying off elderly people to use their homes as sales points. No disciplinary action was taken. In a year when every gang murder had become a peadline atrocity, these two police homicides caused barely a blip. 

With most of the Black political family arrayed behind the LAPD, civil libertarians spoke in tiny voices. Looking back on the beginning of the HAMMER, journalist Joe Domanick would later ask: 'Where was L.A.'s liberal community? A community that boasts the largest American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter in the nation ... ?' In fact the Southern California chapter of the ACLU, an organization that in past decades had been frequently spied on and victimized by the LAPD, did condemn the HAMMER. ACLU attorney Joan Howarth, who specializes in defending youth civil liberties ('an endangered species'), was eloquent in exposing the hypocrisy of Chief Gates's Rambo-style gimmicks. But Howarth was soon transferred to other responsibilities, while the ACLU shifted the bulk of its energies to confront the right-to-life movement. Meanwhile another group of prominent liberal attorneys, who had been carefully preparing a class action suit against the police based on affidavits taken from victims of the HAMMER, suddenly dropped the project. It was later revealed that they had been hectored and even red-baited by one of the city's most notable 'civil rights' leaders, now a crusader for police saturation of the streets. 

With legal opposition thus chilled out, the gangbusters had little reason to look over their shoulders as they started ronsoning hootches and boosting body counts in the rice paddies of Southcentral. The raid on Dalton Street in August 1988, if not quite the My Lai of the war against the underclass (an infamy that better attaches to the 1985 MOVE holocaust in Philadelphia so much admired by Chief Gates), was nonetheless a grim portent of what 'unleashing the police' really means. A company-sized detachment of eighty-eight police from the Southwest Division - an outpost wracked internally by charges of racial abuse against Black officers - swooped down on a group of apartments in the 3900 block of Dalton Avenue, near Exposition Park and not far from the infamous 'Black Dahlia' murder site of 1946. Wielding shotguns and sledgehammers, as well as racist epithets and a search warrant, the. assault force, as Chief Gates would later admit, 'got out of hand'.

Residents . . . said they were punched and kicked by officers during what those arrested called 'an orgy of violence'. 

Residents reported the officers spraypainted walls with slogans, such as 'LAPD Rules'. They also accused the officers of throwing washing machines into bathtubs, pouring bleach over clothes, smashing walls and furniture with sledgehammers and axes, and ripping an outside stairwell away from one building. 

Damage to the apartments was so extensive that the Red Cross offered disaster assistance and temporary shelter to displaced residents - a service normally provided in the wake of major fires, floods, earthquakes or other natural disasters.

At Southwest Division the thirty-two terrified captives of the raid were forced to whistle the theme from the 1960s Andy Griffith TV show (apparently the Horst Wessel song of the LAPD) while they ran a gauntlet of cops beating them with fists and long steel flashlights. (At least they did not have to meet Nancy Reagan.) When it was all over, lives and homes were devastated, and the LAPD had two minor drug arrests. Despite allegations in the search warrant, the police found neither wanted gang members nor weapons, just a small quantity of dope belonging to two non-resident teenagers. Moreover for the first time in memory the LAPD blew the cover-up. The cyclone-like destruction at Dalton Street was too extreme to tally with initial police accounts of the incident; the many victims all told the same horror story; and the Dalton Raiders stumbled over their alibi that the damage had been gang-inflicted. With its dirty linen waving in the breeze and the FBI investigating possible civil rights violations, the LAPD initiated disciplinary or criminal action against thirty-eight officers. These included former Southwest Division Captain Thomas Elfmont - the Lt. Calley of this incident.:.... who was accused of ordering his raiders 'to "level" and "make uninhabitable" the targeted apartments', and Sgt. Charles Spicer who reiterated Elfmont's orders in the field ('This is a Class-A search - that means carpets up, drywall down').

But 'physician heal thyseIf’ is not Chief Gates's favorite motto. Within months of the Dalton Street raid, the Chief was again blustering away in apparent defense of police brutality. After being called to testify in the case of the Larezes - a Chicano family beaten by other police raiders - he told reporters that 'Mr Larez was lucky to have only his nose broken'. The jurors in the Larez suit were so outraged by this remark that they raised the victims' damages by $200,000, which they ordered Gates to payout of his own pocket - an unprecedented attempt to hold the Chief liable for his incitements. (At Mayor Bradley's urging, the City Council paid the fine - as , it will the $3 million in damages for the Dalton Street outrage.)

In the meantime, as the HAMMER mercilessly pounded away at Southcentral's mean streets, it became increasingly apparent that its principal catch consisted of drunks, delinquent motorists and teenage curfew violators (offenders only by virtue of the selective application of curfews to non-Anglo neighborhoods). By 1990 the combined forces of the LAPD and the Sheriffs (implementing their own street saturation strategy) had picked up as many as 50,000 suspects. Even allowing for a percentage of Latino detainees, this remains an astonishing figure considering there are only 100,000 Black youths in Los Angeles. In some highly touted sweeps, moreover, as many as 90 per cent of detained suspects have been released without charges - an innocent victim rate that belies LAPD demonology as well as evoking an analogy with inflated VC bodycounts in Vietnam.

...Chief Gates's response to the declining shock value of the HAMMER was to institutionalize the sweeps as semi-permanent community occupations, 'narcotic enforcement zones' acting as the urban equivalents of strategic hamlets. (Actually what the Chief really wanted was to intern gang members in 'abandoned military bases with landmines planted behind barbed wire fences'.) Claiming that the Pico-Union neighborhood had become 'a veritable flea market for drug dealers', the Chief ordered a 27-square-block area sealed off with barricades and police checkpoints in October 1989. The next month, while the Berlin Wall was being spontaneously dismantled, the LAPD extended the barricades ('Operation CuI-de-Sac') to a barrio in the Valley and then to a huge stretch of Central Avenue in Southcentral. But the real bite in this new escalation came less from LAPD's visible barriers than from the invisible legal partitioning of the city instigated by Los Angeles's aggressive young city attorney, James Hahn.” - Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. Photographs by Robert Morrow. New York: Vintage, 1992. pp. 271-277.