#the document lists not only the individual/ small groups of trees but also some locations too that are under protection

[kalmeria]

man now i’m getting upset because of trees……

[anryuuepic]

Daryan Cities

This... took me longer than I wanted it to. >.> I’ve been working on this document since some point in January, but here we are! A compiled list of the major cities in the Daryan country, as well as a definitely-not-finished map of the entire continent. Info below the cut, because this got long. 

MAP

CITIES

CAPITAL

1. Argoson (550,000)

-The largest city in the Daryan country, and the one where the Palace and royal family reside. The center of the country, and possibly the most famous and esteemed city within. The city is almost directly in the center of the country-- just located slightly to the East. It sits in the midst of the plains, right on the verge of the small, hilly area that occupies the central-east of the country. The city itself rests mostly along the plains, spread out among the wide, flat land, but the very edge of it, along with the Palace itself, stretch up and out into the hills, with the Palace resting along the tallest one in the area.

GREAT CITIES

1. Inasphis (350,000)

-One of the great cities of the Daryan country. A wealthy city known for being home to some of the major noble households in the country. Located in the manufacturing center of the country, amongst such polluted areas as the White Slums. The city itself lies on the very edge of the plains, just barely crossing over into what should have been greener land. However, magic pollution has dulled the area, and the environment has become dull and gray. With a large lake and the great river nearby, the climate is rather wet, and heavy fogs and rain are common. Known for the manufacture of vital goods such as furniture, equipment, and weapons. 

2. Umbralweist (300,000)

-One of the great cities of the Daryan country. A city located amidst the trees. While thankfully not close to the highly-dangerous forests, this city is located on thickly wooded land. Dense, cold forests and a cool, dry climate make up the city’s atmosphere. Known for lumber production, something in the land keeps trees growing unusually quickly. The population is defined by the upper-class, with many skilled laborers and craftsmen-- but an equal number of regular workers reside there as well. The city itself is located towards the West of the country, nearing one of the major rivers, and approaching the hills along the coastline. 

3. Arcford (400,000)

-One of the great cities of the Daryan country. Arcford is located in the middle of the plains, surrounded on all sides by endless, open land. As such, agriculture is the defining feature of the city. The weather there is temperate-- not particularly cool or warm, and perfect for growing all manner of plants. The city is located on a tall, gently rising plateau where it’s possible to see for miles from the tallest buildings. The skies seem to go on forever. The people there aren’t the richest-- but the second-largest city in the country is made of a strong mix of agricultural workers and craftsmen. The city is considered a very good place to live in. 

4. Staewood (275,000)

-One of the great cities of the Daryan country. The southernmost city in the country, and one known for both livestock production and exotic animals. The city is located in open, slightly hilled land, nestled in what’s almost a valley between two of the hills. The land there is open, with thick, healthy grass and vegetation perfect for feeding omnivorous livestock on. The climate is warmer, by Daryan standards, and has a fair amount of thunderstorms, as is common for the South. The people there are mostly upper and middle class. The land is owned by a combination of the government and individual farmers and is kept well-maintained. The city is also famous for importing exotic animals. 

MAJOR CITIES

5. Windermere (100,000)

-One of the major cities in the Daryan country. A large city with a focus on military training and general education. This is the place where troops are taken to go through vital training, as well as where the Elite Force operates out of. The city itself is located in a hilly, near-mountainous part of the tundra, where the strong winds and harsh terrain make for a useful training ground. The city is harsh and stony, highly practical, and no one who isn’t approved is allowed to live there. High walls protect the city, and there are a variety of training grounds nearby. The climate is frigid and harsh, and is considered to toughen up the people who live there.  6. Cresa (175,000)

-One of the major cities in the Daryan country. Known informally as the White Slums, it’s a place where many lower-class people who have nowhere else to go have gathered together. Split between wealthy living and dangerous city life, Cresa is not a place to let your guard down. The city is located towards the North of the country, where the weather is colder and the land is rather desolate. It sits among slightly hilly, sparsely wooded land, and is built with tall, ever-expanding walls. The weather is cold there and thick, heavy fogs are common. Known for factories, metal-work, and the mass-manufacture of prosthetics and other such devices. 7. Hallow (100,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city formed around magic-based factories and the manufacture of many necessary goods. Located towards the North of the country, the weather in Hallow is cold and harsh. The air is polluted with magic runoff, and the landscape is almost barren. The climate is damp, chilly, and foggy, and many people consider it a very gloomy place to live. That said, there are endless stable jobs, and those who wish to make an honest living can easily find a place there. The crime rate is high, though, and there are a number of upper-ranked people looking to make money through standing on others.  8. Shasea (125,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. The city is located towards the northern edge of the plains, where the weather is just starting to turn cold. High winds and cold spells are common. The land there is flat and open, with only a few slight hills and sparse trees remaining, and much of it is used for agriculture alone. The city is spread out to make room for farms, and the area considered to be part of Shasea is great. The city isn’t particularly organized and is considered to be an eclectic, scattered place good for hiding in. The people there are of all classes, though few nobles find it a suitable environment to reside in. 

9. Mirstone (125,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city centered around the growth of non-food agricultural plants and a large degree of mining. An industrious place where much important business is conducted. Considered something of a political and educational hub, as well as one of the more bustling cities in the country. Located in the Northwest of the country, close to the coastline, and just North of the hills, this city has relatively temperate, if a bit cold weather, as well as high winds. The land there is fertile, there are large deposits of minerals and metals, and the city itself is located in a crater formed from an old quarry. 

10. Dreburn (100,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. Located near a large river, towards the West of the country, and near the long line of hills that occupies the West coast. The weather there is temperate, perhaps a tiny bit cold, and the high winds that are common in Mirstone also reach this city. The river nearby means that fishing is a large part of the city’s lifestyle, along with growing trees for lumber. The area nearby is wooded, not extremely so, but enough that there’s steady business as far as lumber goes. The nearby river means that there are plenty of water-based systems in the city, and the city itself is located right along the coast of the river. 

11. Ranbridge (125,000)

-One of the major cities in the Daryan country. Known with disdain as the Black Slums. Split between dying noble houses, the slowly failing wealthy, and the lowest of the low, this city is regarded as one of the worst in the country. Located towards the Northeast of the plains, the city is staggered within a large dip in the ground that resembles a crater. There’s a large underground area below it, home to a group of people known as the Sewer Rats. The weather is on the temperate side, but the city itself is dirty and unpleasant. Known for organized crime, factories producing general goods, and housing the remains of many dying noble households. 

12. Aerilon (125,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city located on the plains, not far from the hilly region that the Capital occupies. Close to the very East border of the country, with warmer weather, but also cold snaps and a fair amount of snow. The city is on the open plains, surrounded by farms and agricultural fields, and is used mainly to produce food and other resources. The city itself isn’t the largest, but it’s occupied with strong, stable people, and is considered a worthwhile place to live. With the flat land and many roads connecting to it, it’s an easy place to reach, especially for those in the Capital. There are also a few Guard bases there.  13. Doveport (175,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city located towards the very West of the plains, close to a large river stemming from the great river, as well as some of the more dangerous forested areas in the country. The area is one of rich land and stable agriculture, which is how the city developed. The city itself is centered around a large hill rising out of the plains, with the largest, most important buildings resting on its peak. There are massive farmlands surrounding the city, as well as a number of small villages circling it. Like many of the large cities, Doveport is regarded as a relatively safe and stable place to live.

14. Wheldrake (100,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city located in the middle of the plains, surrounded by open land and wide skies. A good area for agriculture, which is the main business done there. Processing of food items is commonly done in Wheldrake, as is the growing of crops in the surrounding areas. The city itself rests squarely in the open plains and has few remarkable features regarding its location. The population is relatively small, and the city is considered a slow, peaceful place to live-- that is, aside from the dangers posed by its close location to Ranbridge. There have been known to be some problems with criminals in Wheldrake.

15. Fastead (175,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city located near a large lake and amidst hilly land. The area is used for a wide variety of purposes; namely fishing, livestock production, and the manufacture of magical items. The city is a very bustling, intense place with a wide variety of jobs and duties to be done. It’s home to a wide variety of people, but it’s of note that there seems to be a high population of Bluescales. The city itself takes up space both on and between the hills that make up the land, and is known for having many steep roads and confusing pathways. It’s a rather technologically advanced area as well.

16. Redwick (125,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city located in the plains. Like many of its type, Redwick is primarily centered around agriculture. Dry-climate plants grow particularly well here. The city started out small, but quickly expanded during Galienne’s rule. The city itself is located on the open plains, surrounded by flat land and fields of grain. There are many extremely old historical locations there, and large parts of the city contain walls that are about a thousand years old. The city is considered to be rather busy and bustling, with a lot of trade and travel going on. However, it’s also well-maintained and known to be decently safe for living.  17. Kanniar (175,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. Another city located in the open plains. A sprawling city know for a massive amount of activity and a large population. The city is surrounded by plains, but over the years, has become extremely large and active. It’s an agricultural city that also specializes in manufacturing and magic. There are few things not going on in Kanniar, as people say. The city itself is fairly technologically advanced and stays highly up-to-date on the newest magical developments. This may be due in part to its proximity to Xalas and the Scarab tower.

18. Edophia (100,000)

-One of the major cities in the Daryan country. A relatively small city nestled between the plains and some of the thicker forest. It’s considered a fairly dangerous place to live because of its proximity to the forests, but because the land is decently wooded and good for growing plants, the city is also something of a hub for agriculture and lumber. For its size, Edophia is very productive and supplies many resources to the rest of the country, and is thus looked upon fondly. The city itself is in the middle of thickly wooded land (although nowhere near the extent of the forests), and is built in tiers through the woodlands and hilly ground.  19. Xalas (125,000)

-One of the major cities in the Daryan country, as well as home to the Scarab Tower-- the greatest hub of magic in the country. A place of study, development, and new technologies. Living there is coveted. Location-wise, the city is located towards the South of the country, just south of the plains, and North of some of the thinner forests. The city rests in open, lightly wooded land and among slight hills. The land is rich and livable, the air is clear, the climate is temperate, and overall, Xalas is considered to be one of the best places in the country. That said, the standards are high, and not just anyone can make it in the city without something to their name.  20. Halfmouth (125,000)

-One of the major cities of the Daryan country. A city located near some of the thickest, most dangerous forest on the continent. The city is situated in wooded land, and covers a massive amount of land. It consists of many spread-out farms connected by buildings and well-maintained roads, which are altogether arranged in a shape that resembles a crescent moon. Known for livestock production in particular, with many meat-production and trading centers within it. The city is a relatively unsafe location, as its spread-out nature means that it’s easy for people to seemingly disappear. There’s a high crime rate, especially regarding theft. 

[we-antivirusassistant]

McAfee total protection 2020 reviews

McAfee total protection 2020 reviews - McAfee has three consumer security products – but which is best, and how do they compare to rivals.

Where to seek out Mcafee Activation Code?

The Mcafee security package is simple to setup & install at www.mcafee.com/activate. Simply find a 25-character alpha-numeric code that is written on the backside of the retail card. Here may be a sample Product Key to let you understand:

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

McAfee 2020 Antivirus solutions review:

Installing McAfee Total Protection was a long nightmare during our last review, but this time, fortunately, it was very different. There were no error messages, no delays, no hassles of any kind: the setup tool just downloaded the full Total Protection package, installed it on our hard drive and let us know when it was done. Simple.

The installation did have one unusual aspect. We installed Total Protection on a system already equipped with Kaspersky Security Cloud installed, just to see what it would do. Most antivirus packages will ask you to remove competing for software to avoid conflicts, but McAfee's installer said nothing at all.

Does this matter?

It probably depends on the user. If McAfee might conflict with other security software, enabling newbies to run two antivirus apps side by side is likely to be a bad idea. But if you're an expert, confident you can reconfigure one antivirus to reduce the chance of problems, and sure you can cope with whatever issues arise, you might see this as an advantage.

After the installation was complete, Total Protection prompted us to reboot. We did, and again there were no hassles or unexpected events – no sign of change other than a shiny new McAfee icon in our system tray.

Interface :

The McAfee Total Protection interface grabs far more valuable screen real-estate than most, yet does almost nothing with it.

The expansive opening screen contains a big green tick to show your security status, for instance but has barely any other useful content.

The rest of the console is largely wasted with a button to help you protect other devices, pointless system information ('we are protecting 309 apps/connections/tasks'; is that good, bad? how are you supposed to know?), a button to view a security report, and a large panel recommending that you set up the password manager, or optimize your apps.

These might have some value, but we would much rather have a button to launch a Quick Scan, a line that tells us when our definitions were last updated, or something with real practical value.

Clicking a small icon that comprises three dots reveals a more detailed status report of Total Protection's various features, so, for instance, you can confirm that antivirus, the firewall, and the update system are all working correctly. That's the kind of information which should be visible at a glance, rather than hidden, but at least it's only a click away.

It's not obvious, but this status display also doubles as a menu, and for example, clicking the Virus Scan status loads the Scan dialog.

You can also click various tabs at the top of the screen – PC Security, PC Performance, My Privacy – to view separate panels with their own groups of features. These also waste plenty of space, so, for instance, the PC Performance area includes only three useful elements: a couple of buttons and an on/off status indicator. We've seen more features on desktop widgets.

This approach could have some appeal to casual users who might be overwhelmed by lots of buttons or technical information, but more experienced types might become frustrated.

Antivirus:

McAfee Total Protection keeps its antivirus scanning options to a minimum: just a Quick Scan, a Full System Scan and the ability to scan custom items directly from the Explorer right-click menu.

What you don't get is a specific removable drives scan, a custom scan you can define from the interface, or the ability to set up a new scan type or define how it works. For example, Avast's Windows products can be used to set up a scan that checks specific file types in the folders you need, using the scanning technologies and rules you define, and you can then run that scan whenever you like. There's nothing like that here.

Scan times were a little slower than average, although acceptable.

Scan reports are poor, and short on detail. Our first Quick Scan proudly displayed 'Issues: 0' at the top, while also stating 'All issues fixed', 'We wiped out all the threats on your PC' and listing cryptic names of three threats it had removed.

As Total Protection hadn't asked us if it could remove these 'threats', we clicked on the first, 'JTI/Suspect.19661214ca37a5b9d3b', in the hope of finding out exactly what the program had just deleted.

A browser window opened with a lengthy URL including multiple parameters, presumably intended to display a page with more details. But this immediately redirected to the front page of McAfee's Threat Center, with no more information at all.

A 'View Details' button was also less than helpful, telling us the engine had detected three dangerous files, but not what or where they were.

Eventually, we found the details we needed in the Quarantine section, but it really shouldn't take so much effort to locate such fundamental information.

We noticed another oddity in the Details screen suggesting McAfee's Quick Scan checks files only, ignoring processes, critical system files or boot records. If true, that's disappointing; we think checking running processes should be one of the key elements of a Quick Scan.

Protection:

AV-Comparatives' Real-World Protection Test is an intensive benchmark that pits 16 of the world's biggest antivirus engines against the very latest threats. The company runs 10 tests every year, making it a great way to monitor particular vendors over time.

McAfee's most recent test performance was average, with the July-October summary report placing the company in 8th place with a protection rate of 99.4%.

That's a long way behind the leaders – Avira and Symantec blocked 100% of threats – but it's ahead of some big-name competition, including Avast (99.3%), F-Secure (99.3%) and even Kaspersky (99.1%).

The AV-Test Home Windows report for October 2019 broadly matches this picture, with McAfee not at the top of the list, but performing well enough to earn it one of AV-Test's 'Top Product' awards.

We can't begin to compete with the time and resources the big testing labs put into their work, but what we can do is add to their findings with a small test of our own.

We have created a very, very simple ransomware simulator which spiders through a folder tree, reading and encrypting images, audio files, Office documents and more. By running this on a review system, we're aiming to see whether an antivirus can detect undiscovered ransomware by behavior alone, and discover how many files, if any, might be lost before an attack can be stopped.

The results were disappointing, as McAfee Total Protection left our simulator to run to completion and encrypt thousands of files. Other tools typically do much better, with, for instance, Kaspersky Security Cloud Free 2020 not only detecting and killing the simulator but also recovering the very few files our program had managed to encrypt.

However, this result should be interpreted with care. McAfee may have missed our test program, unlike the best of the competition, but we can't be sure why or what that tells us about the security suite overall. What we do know from the lab tests is that McAfee can detect most real-world malware from behavior alone, and that's the most important result.

Firewall:

Total Protection includes a firewall that automatically makes intelligent choices about which programs on your system can access the internet. This is mostly tucked away within the interface, and most users won't ever have to know of its existence.

Experts get access to a wide range of firewall settings, including the ability to open or close specific ports or define custom rules for individual applications. These options are harder to find than we'd like, though, and it took us some time to begin to figure out what was possible.

Even then, we were often puzzled. The firewall has an Intrusion Detection system, for instance, but it's turned off by default, only has two settings (Basic or High) and even the web knowledgebase has no real information on what it does and the consequences of turning it on (or off).

More features:

Total Protection's spam filter wasn't installed by default in our previous review, but this time it set itself up correctly, added an extension to our Outlook setup and began filtering mail.

The performance was excellent, with the filter detecting most spam and not falsely flagging any legitimate emails. But if this doesn't work for you, a wide range of settings enable customizing the protection to suit your needs.

The True Key Password Manager allows for creating and syncing passwords across up to five devices. It's strong on multifactor authentication methods – email, fingerprint, the second device, Windows Hello, more – but not so good in other areas, with no general form-filling abilities and no secure password sharing.

A Vulnerability Scanner is supposed to check for and install missing application updates, but it did nothing for us. We tried two ways of launching it, and in each case, nothing happened; there was no new dialog box, no error message, nothing at all.

Other apparent features of the program are entirely separate tools which you must download and install separately. Clicking ‘Protect Me On The Web’ opens the website for McAfee WebAdvisor, for instance, a browser extension that defends you against malware, malicious sites and more. It's handy, but it's also available for free, and you don't have to buy Total Protection to use it.

The feature list continues in the PC Performance area, where you'll find a couple of speedup options.

App Boost optimizes CPU and me/O priorities for foreground applications to improve performance. This won't make much difference – sometimes it'll have no noticeable effect at all – but the company suggests you could see an 11-14% speed increase in the targeted apps, which, if true, is worth having.

A Web Boost feature sounds promising, but it's just a separate module that stops videos automatically playing on your choice of many popular websites (YouTube, Netflix, Twitch.tv, Skype.com, ClickMeeting.com and many more). It's a reasonable idea, and may well make web browsing a little less annoying (a worthwhile goal all on its own), but it's probably not going to deliver much of a speed boost.

There are multiple minor tools to explore. A QuickClean option removes tracking cookies and temporary files and can be scheduled to run automatically. A Shredder securely deletes confidential files so they can't be undeleted, and a Network Monitor looks for intruders connecting to your Wi-Fi. Experienced users will probably have more powerful freeware tools already, but these are easy to use and convenient to access and add a little extra value to the suite

Final verdict:

McAfee Total Protection has lots of features, but none are outstanding, and they're not always well implemented (the interface isn't great, the vulnerability scanner simply didn't work). It's hard to see why you would choose this package when others are faster, cheaper, more accurate or easier to use.

MCAFEE TOTAL PROTECTION MULTI-DEVICE: McAfee total protection 2020 reviews-

As you might guess from the name, McAfee Total Protection Multi-Device isn't just another Windows-based security tool; it has apps for Android, iOS, and Mac, too.

The standard license covers five devices, too, up from the miserly one you'll get with Total Security Individual.

Turn on auto-renewal for your subscription and US users also get access to McAfee's ID Theft Protection Essentials service, which monitors the web for signs of trouble and helps you recover from any problems it finds.

That's an unusual feature for a security suite, and it doesn't seem to have bumped up the price. Despite its premium functionality, McAfee Total Protection Multi-Device costs a very reasonable $40 for a five device, one-year license, $100 on renewal. Norton 360 with LifeLock Select, another major suite with identity theft protection, is priced at a relatively chunky $100 for year one, $150 after that.

Multi-platform :

McAfee's Android app is a capable product with all the essential technology you'll find in the Windows version, along with a bunch of more mobile-oriented tools.

The free edition of the app includes on-demand scanning, anti-theft (GPS blocking, remote cleaning, more), and useful reports highlighting which apps are using the most data. Of course, there are ads, too.

The paid version removes the ads and throws in browsing protection, device cleaning, an app locker and related Guest Mode (control the apps a guest can see on your device), a battery booster and extra protection from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. It's a quality set of tools, and the current 4.5-star rating on the Google Play store suggests most users are happy.

McAfee's iOS offering also has a free version with basic functions, including wireless scanning, anti-theft, and a media vault to securely store private photos and videos. The paid edition also blocks malicious links via McAfee's Safe Web and protects you from phishing sites and ARP Spoofing (that's low-level network trickery).

McAfee's Mac edition doesn't have as many extras, but still, more than covers the essentials, with antivirus, firewall, and browsing protection.

Identity Theft Protection:

Total Protection has a more interesting and unusual extra in a separate Identity Theft protection service for its US customers.

Cyber Monitoring is one of the service highlights, regularly checking the dark web for personal details including your social security number, email addresses, phone numbers, banking and credit card details, driver's license, passport and more. If any of your information shows up online in a data breach, you'll be alerted.

Other features include Social Media Monitoring which alerts you to risks with the content you're sharing, and an optional Social Security Number trace and Address Change Monitoring service which could warn you of scammers trying to steal and use your personal details.

This is still a relatively basic product. You won't get to see your credit report, for instance, or be warned when your score changes, and there's no monitoring of loan or credit card applications, court or criminal records.

If you've no plans to buy separate identity theft protection, anyway, this won't matter much. Whatever the McAfee service gives you, it'll be better than what you'd have otherwise.

But if you've very specific ideas on what you need, or maybe you're looking for the best possible protection, it's probably wise to go shopping for it separately. Check out McAfee's standalone Identity Theft Protection plans to get an idea of what's available, and what it might cost.

Overall value:

Thinking of buying McAfee Total Protection Individual? Then stop! Unless you're completely sure you'll only ever want to protect a single PC, signing up for McAfee Total Protection Multi-Device makes a lot more sense. It's only fractionally more expensive than Total Protection Individual ($40 in year one, $100 on renewal, as opposed to $35 and $80 respectively), yet covers up to five devices rather than one, and supports Android, iOS and Mac, as well as Windows.

Whether Total Protection Multi-Device is good enough to make you choose McAfee in the first place – well, that's more open to question. Probably not, although McAfee's identity protection service might just win you over.

MCAFEE TOTAL PROTECTION FAMILY: McAfee total protection 2020 reviews-

McAfee Total Protection Family doubles your device allowance to a generous 10, but the price stays much the same. You'll pay $45 in year one, and $120 on renewal.

The upgrade gets you another major benefit in McAfee's Safe Family, a parental controls package for Windows, Android and iOS (beware, it doesn't work on Mac). That's a big deal because this isn't the usual feeble security suite addition; McAfee sells it as a standalone app for $50 a year.

Safe Family's core features are much as you'd expect. You're able to block websites by content type, restrict access to specific apps, or limit device access to particular times of the day.

The package is easy to configure, too. Safe Family uses default settings based on the age of your child, getting you off to a quick start, then you can tweak them further to suit your needs.

Furthermore, it's flexible. You can add multiple schedules to decide exactly when your kids can and can't use their devices. If the content filter doesn't quite suit your needs, you're able to allow or block your chosen websites. And, unusually, Safe Family recognizes that absolute rules don't always work. If your kids need more screen time or want to access a specific site, a Requests messaging system allows them to ask you, and ��� if you approve – they can benefit right away.

Safe Family does a good job of keeping you up to date on what your kids are doing. As soon as it's set up, you're able to view the apps and websites they're accessing, along with any attempts to break the rules. You can even check the location of your kids' device on a map.

It's far from perfect – we'd like more content filtering categories, for instance, and there's no built-in protection to prevent anyone uninstalling the Windows edition – but Safe Family tramples all over the parental controls tools in most security suites.

If you need a decent parental controls system, and you have lots of devices to protect, McAfee Total Protection Family might be a sensible choice. Its $45 cost in year one is only $10 more than you'll pay for the basic Total Protection Individual, so there's minimal risk. Check out the trial, see how it works for you.

[uberclimb-blog]

60 Hurricane Safety Tips: Learn What To Do Before, During & After A Hurricane

Introduction

 A hurricane also known as a typhoon (in Indian / Pacific Ocean) is a large storm.  It typically is identified by a low-pressure center around which there is high speed storm system, high winds together with thunderstorms accompanied by heavy rains.  Countries with major coast lines are especially at rise of such storms. They tend to occur every year.

 At the focal point of hurricane, air sinks instead of rises. For a suitably strong storm, the air may sink over a layer deep enough to smother cloud formation, in this way making a clear region also called an "eye" of the storm.

 Hurricanes take time to develop, usually a few days or more. They typically begin as thunderstorms then become stronger and stronger and grow in size into large scale weather disturbances.

 Hurricanes are effectively followed and checked by climate satellites & weather aircraft due to their regularity and potential for destructive damage. In this way, weather agencies are constantly monitoring hurricane movements.  Hence if you are in an affected area, it’s wise to keep up to date with latest warnings.

 Hurricanes are defined by 5 categories

Category

Wind Speed (mph)

Damage

1

74-95

Very dangerous winds will produce some damage

2

96-110

Extremely dangerous winds will cause extensive damage

3

111-129

Devastating damage will occur

4

130-156

Catastrophic damage will occur

5

>157

Catastrophic damage will occur

 Or

Category 1: 74–95 mph . Very dangerous winds will produce some damage

Category 2: 96–110 mph . Very dangerous winds will produce some damage

Category 3: 111–129 mph . Devastating damage will occur

Category 4: 130–156 mph . Catastrophic damage will occur

Category 5: >157 mph . Catastrophic damage will occur

  Countries Affected

According to the US NOARA the main countries with most hurricane strikes since 1970 are:-

 ·       United States

·       China

·       Philippines

·       Japan

·       Mexico

·       Taiwan

·       Vietnam

·       Australia

·       Madagascar

·       Cuba

 Other Countries

·       Mexico – Western coast

·       New Zealand

 The main Caribbean islands that are struck by hurrianes on regular basis are:-

·       Island of Abaco

·       Saba, Netherland Antilles

·       Grand Bahama, Bahama

·       Habana, Cuba

·       Key West, USA

·       St. Eustatius, Netherland Antilles

·       Nevis, West Indies

·       Bimini, Bahamas

·       Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas

·       Tortola, British Virgin Islands

·       St. Maarten/St. Martin

 Hurricane Season

 Northern Hemisphere - May 1st to November 30th for the Atlantic and the Caribbean each year, and the Eastern Pacific hurricane season starts in mid-May.

 Southern Hemisphere - Seasons are the opposite of those in the northern, of course, and their hurricane season peaks in March and April.

 To help your preparation below are some tips. This is not meant to be exhaustive but more of a guide:-

 Before Hurricane Impact

 1.    Most importantly keep up to date with latest weather updates Useful to have a portable (battery/crank up) radio in case of power failure caused by the hurricane.

 2.    Check and ensure everyone is accounted for including pets. Also that they know what to do.

 3.    You could, if you have the funds/space consider purchasing a back up generator with full tank if fuel and a reserve fuel on hand.

 4.    Prepare for flooding with sandbags, and suitable stock of brooms, mops squeegees, and other absorbents to help remove water and other deposits.

 5.    If your have trees in your garden or grounds, consider trimming or remove large trees that could fall and damage your or your neighbouring properties.

 6.    Prior to a storm remove patio furniture, yard decorations and anything not securely fastened.

 7.    If your child’s school or child care center is in an area at risk from hurricanes, find out how its emergency plans address hurricanes.

 8.    Inside you home ensure you have enough supplies including spare batteries, first aid kit. Attach tape over windows to prevent any shattering.

You can find suitable types of first aid kits at https://www.uberclimb.com/gear/First-Aid

 9.    On the exterior of your home, remove/tie down any potential loose objects. Also, close all your home windows and doors.  

 10.Install permanent shutters to protect windows, doors and skylights from flying debris and wind. You could also, board up windows/doors if required.

 11.Strengthen your garage door by replacing it with a pressure-rated model or install a bracing system to prevent the door from failing.

 12.If you have to evacuate, ensure all members of your family are accounted for. Check you have full tank of fuel and familiarise with evacuation route & destination. Evacuate as soon as possible when you receive an evacuation notice or you feel in immediate danger.

 13.When moving outside avoid potential dangerous places. Especially avoid places where the riverbed is high or close to other waterways. Also, avoid areas likely to have landslides or flooding.

 14.Normally, it is advisable to stay indoors whenever possible. Try and avoid venturing outdoors if not necessary. There could be flying debris and other hazards caused by the hurricane.

 15.Try and avoid beaches where water can quickly flood in. Also best to avoid harbours areas/, river mouths. These will be venerable at at high tide/high water conditions such as caused by hurricanes.

 16.It also advisable to stay away from low lying coastal areas as tides will be much higher and waves much stronger at full tide. Levee breaks also cause serious disaster.

 If you are on or near alluvial areas be extra wary. These have increased risks of flooding. Exercise extreme caution because deltas (made of sediment carried by the river and deposited at the mouth of it) and floodplains (region made of accumulated sand carried by regular flooding) can easily be swamped.

 18.Also note that river basins and dry riverbeds can also present a serious/life threatening danger of flooding during storms, hence avoid venturing there or leave the area as soon as possible.

 Avoid developed land as this is normally made by breaking up hillsides and hence may contain unstable soil and terrain and therefore weaker ground. These areas may slide when downpours or water flooding loosen the ground.

 20.Torrential downpour caused by hurricane weather s may cause mountain landslides, and alluvial cones at the foot of a mountain may especially vulnerable.  Be especially wary of steep sloping lands of greater than 30° angles and heights of more than 5m may experience a landslide when there are heavy rains.

 If you live in mobile home it is safer to go to a shelter.

 22.     Be sure to fully charge all mobile phones and other battery powered devices. Also, print out emergency contact information in case you lose power.

 23.Stock up on groceries, water, medications, and any other necessities such as infant supplies to avoid the need for travel during the storm. You could storage water in a suitable container. One option can be found at

https://www.uberclimb.com/gear/hyrdration/naturehike-food-grade-water-container-large-capacity

 24.Ideally purchase appliances that come with built in surge protection or consider a surge protected sockets power strips to plug your electrical devices.

 25.Have some emergency cash in case you need to purchase items in areas where there is no power.

 26.Check and repair (if necessary) roof drains, gutters and gaps in walls.

 27.Remove TV and radio antennas as well satellite dishes from roof areas.

 28.Ensure that any storm drains, culverts and catch basins are cleared of debris.

 29.Prior to evacuation, bring identification, insurance papers, and other important documents for every family member in your family/group. Obey all special traffic signs and law enforcement orders. Bring adequate water, snacks, cash, and medications.

 30.Consider creating a family communications plan that can help ensure that everyone knows how to connect and where to meet during an emergency.

 31.Identify a family member or friend to serve as an out-of-state contact so all family members have a single point of contact. Write down or capture two contact methods for this individual such as telephone, cell phone, e-mail address, or social media. Determine safe places where your family can go for protection or to reconnect if separated.

 32.Consider signup with American Red Cross Safe and Well social media app.  Learn about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System.

 33.Remember, texting may work best before, during, and after a disaster as a text message may be more likely to reach the recipient as it requires far less bandwidth to send than making a phone call.

 34.Make sure that everyone, including children, knows how and when to call 9-1-1 for emergency help. Remember, only call 9-1-1 if there is a life-threatening emergency.

 35.Store at least one emergency contact under the names “In Case of Emergency” or “ICE” for all mobile phones and devices. This will help someone identify your emergency contact if needed.

 36.Those with special medical needs such as oxygen, dialysis etc should go to special needs shelters only. These typically only provide medical monitoring and limited medical care. Bring a caregiver if possible.

 It is good preparation to build a storm shelter or tornado safe room. The safest place may be a small, interior, windowless room such as a closet or bathroom on the lowest level of the structure.

 38.If possible ensure you have appliance thermometers in your refrigerator and freezer.

 Where possible, store food on shelves that will be safely out of the way of (contaminated) water in case of flooding.

 Purchase flood insurance in advance of the storm.

 41.Create a disaster preparedness kit filled with critical supplies, including important documents and medications.  You can find a list here.

 42.It is advisable to keep your pets in a designated area in your home. Ensure to place enough water and food in that area. If your pet has special care needs, make sure to provide it. Animals, just like humans, can also feel scared.

  During The Hurricane

 43.Keep up-to-date on weather status especially in your area.

 44.Shut down all gas fired equipment and shut off main gas values.

 45.Conserve your cell phone battery by reducing the brightness of your screen, placing your phone in “airplane” mode, and closing unnecessary apps that you do not need.

 46.Shut down all non-critical and non-essential electrical equipment.

 47.Stay in a secure room and away from windows.

 48.If your power goes out, report your outage immediately to your local power company.

 Be aware, it typically takes about two feet of rushing water to carry away most vehicles including sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and trucks.

 After Hurricane

 Ensure that the storm has completely passed before venturing outside.

 Also, stay away from downed power lines, flooded areas, and debris. Treat all fallen wires and anything touching them as though they are energized/live. Immediately report downed lines to your power company.

 52.If your power is cut, listen to your local radio stations for information and instructions.

 If you are encountering hot weather, close drapes and blinds on the sunny side of your house, drink plenty of fluids, take your pets to a cool basement location, and go to an air-conditioned civic center, mall, or library if necessary to stay cool.

 54.Remain patient. Every electric company has a detailed plan for restoring electrical service after a power outage.

 If possible, try and turn your refrigerator and freezer to the coldest setting. Also, to help ensure your food will keep longer, try and minimise opening the fridge door as much as possible if the power goes out.

 56.Check if your local community has a hurricane response plan.

 57.Do not move seriously injured individuals. There may be falling debris even more likely if you have high rise buildings.

 58.Provide search and rescue personnel with last known location and descriptions of any missing victims.

 59.Clear out roof drains, and remove debris from roofs.

 60.Check refrigerated items from spoilage if there has been a power failure.

 On entering your home do an inspection of every room. However, be careful in entering every room. Keep a lookout for reptiles or other wild animals that may have been driven by floodwaters to higher ground. If you happen to find one, don’t try and handle the animal - instead contact local wildlife authority or agency.

 You can find other useful articles at

https://www.uberclimb.com/index.php?route=extension/d_blog_module/category&category_id=1

  Useful Sites

 North America

 The Hurricane Watch Net

https://www.hwn.org

 Red Cross

http://www.redcross.org/prepare/disaster/hurricane

 DHS Disaster & Emergancy Advice

http://www.ready.gov/hurricanes

 National Hurricane Center

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/prepare/ready.php

 Asia

Philippines

https://www.pgyc.org/weather.php

 Japan

https://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/

 Taiwan

https://www.cwb.gov.tw/V7e/prevent/typhoon/ty.htm

 Vietnam

http://www.nchmf.gov.vn/web/en-US/43/Default.aspx

 Australia

http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/

[myjourneytoux]

Insights Learned So Far...

I’ve been keeping a journal to log my thoughts, feelings and insights.  It also serves as my accountability partner to keep me on task.

Since January 24th, I’ve done a TON of work.  I didn’t realize how far I’ve come in such a short time. One of the things I’ve learned, is to celebrate the wins, however small. Itemizing these accomplishments just goes to show how far I’ve come, and how dedicated I am to reaching this goal of being a UX designer.

Here is my list of 16 accomplishments and insights in just 3 weeks’ time:

1) I finished the UX Research course on LinkedIn by Amanda Stockwell.  That course helped me outline the research for the project I’m doing for a group called “Teaching: The Path to Learning & Development.” (TPLD)

2) Conducted stakeholder interviews with the Founder and President, Sara Stevick, and Director of Marketing and Social Media, Erin Chancellor, to document their goals for the TPLD website

3) Continued networking by reaching out to 2 people at work; one who is working to help me find a mentor and the other who worked within design and can offer feedback about getting my foot in the door

4) Began reading “100 Things Every Designer Should Know About People” and finished it in 17 days. Already using insights from that to inform my design work (as you’ll see below in accomplishment #16!)

5) Completed two more LinkedIn Learning courses (Personas and Experience Mapping).

6) Created three personas after conducting a random assessment of 50 members in the Teaching: Path to Learning and Development group.  My assumptions of the group were changed, knowing that there’s a larger than realized group that’s internationally based (39%) and that not everyone is a teacher (only 40%), the next majority of occupations are education-related but are not teachers. 

7) Created a volunteer interest sign-up form and used the opportunity to ask a few questions. Thankfully, I realized I didn’t need a true screener questionnaire since I’m working with the members associated with the TPLD group, but I did want to validate a few key items within my personas.  Questions within the volunteer sign up form reflect just the basics.

8) Found a UX Design Learning Path within LinkedIn Learning; I’m already 3 hours into an 11 hour path and hope to complete that by mid-March.

9) I decided to use a tree test research study and compiled an outline of tasks associated with that research. 

10) Upon further reading, found an article within Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) that discusses the advantages of conducting concurrent research obtaining both quantitative research (via tree testing) and qualitative research (via usability study).  Both will then point to either the Information Architecture (IA) or the Usability Interface (UI) when looking at the overall website design and use of ease.

11) Realized from another article with NN/g that both research studies would also benefit from post-task questionnaire as well as post-research questionnaires. I evaluated the and decided upon Single Ease Questionnaire (SEQ) for the tree test and System Usability Scale (SUS) for the usability research. 

12) I evaluated different software for each study and concluded that Optimal Workshop would be best for the tree test and Try My UI would be best for the usability study.  Uploaded content within and also created pre-research study demographic questionnaires.

13) I updated my Google Slides deck that I had been using as my rough draft for my portfolio while I work on finding a site that works best for me. This slide deck has been shared with people at work, to show I have more than just a passing interest in UX - that I’ve been diligently looking at design since November of 2019. Through feedback from my colleague Stacey,  I created more graphics and used iconography to help share more of my design work in a clean, digestible way.  I’ve since shared this with three others for their input, knowing that constant iteration is always a part of the design process.

14) This past weekend I created one portfolio and though it was ok, I realized the functionality wasn’t there that I desired so recreated my portfolio on UX folio.  Just finding the right site to host my work was key.  I didn’t want to opt for anything less than the best!

15) This past weekend I also created a new Tumblr blog and linked it to my new portfolio site as a way to document my findings throughout this experience.

16) Used this snowy, chilly day in Texas to snuggle up and create an outline of my case study.  In doing so, I noticed I only had 4 individuals complete the unmoderated research.  Out of 13 participants, that’s a meek 31%.  Even though I’m asking for just 10 minutes of their time, I reflected on this while writing out my case study and realized time is a huge commodity.  While finishing up my book (100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People), there was a chapter called “People May Care About Time More than They Care About Money.”  In it, she says people are motivated when they have a personal connection and will offer their time. Me being a random member doesn’t garner any personal connection beyond basic affiliation. 

Since my study is wrapping up this Friday, and I don’t have the benefit of time to get to know people, the suggestion was to “err on the side of time and experiences and delay the mention of money as long as possible.” I had called out yesterday the low cost of time involved and still have no new research collected.  I reached out to the Director for this group and mentioned offering a small incentive ($5 gift card for each completed survey). She responded saying the cost could be too high and recommended we offer a raffle.  We’ve decided to randomly select two individuals to receive a $25 gift cards to the location of their choosing. Will be interesting to see if this boosts results.  I’ll share more findings in my next update!

17) And finally, because if this past weekend’s work wasn’t enough, I started a new book today, Creative Confidence. When I initially began looking at UX, I thought I’d have to be more of a visually creative designer. I realize that’s on the second diamond of the double diamond of design.  I’m more comfortable, now, in the first diamond  - discovery and defining through research and strategy, and am looking forward to entering the second diamond of developing by putting wireframes together this upcoming weekend.  But I need to get comfortable with the visually creative - the final delivery, which is why I’m being really conscious of the look and feel of my portfolio.  But to be a utility player, I know it helps to play both sides of the diamond. 

These next few weeks of putting some polish on my portfolio and moving into the developing aspect of the TPLD project will challenge me to do just that.  And I’m so freaking excited. :)

[mmyproperdeets]

Homeowners Association

Some hate them, some love them; we’re here to talk about the facts about them so that you can form your own opinions on homeowners associations. Homeowner associations (HOA for short) are formed with the purpose of keeping residential communities clean and running smoothly. Though most people think HOAs are just for co-ops or condominiums, some townhouse and single family homes can be part of a planned development and therefore have the HOA structure as well. Homeowner associations relieve the owners in these communities from some responsibilities which would fall on the homeowner were they not a part of a HOA, but owners do still have responsibilities and rules to adhere to.

To start this quick overview section, it is important to understand who forms part of the homeowners association and how they get there. Most of the time, HOA boards are comprised of residents of the same community they serve; these individuals get voted in by the other homeowners that are part of the HOA. Each individual has a different role within the group such as treasurer, secretary, and president. Collectively, their primary responsibility is to maintain cleanliness, stay up to date with the master insurance, ensure utilities for the shared areas are paid, and overall manage the finances for the community. Though these individuals do not get a salary, they establish a monthly fee every homeowner must pay in order to cover the community’s expenses. Each HOA will have bylaws which define the responsibilities that fall under the association and which ones are the owner’s responsibility.

Please note that when buying property in a building, community, or development with HOA you automatically join the homeowners association once you purchase the property, this is not an optional. By purchasing the property and consequently joining the HOA, you also agree to pay the dues, including any special assessments, and adhere to the rules (for example, if the bylaws say everyone has to have red window entrance rugs, then your entrance rugs must remain red). 

According to data from 2017, one in every five homeowners will be living in a home that is part of an HOA. With the increase in this sort of developments, the numbers can now be higher. Deciding whether to purchase a home that would come with an HOA, homeowners should figure out what their personal needs are. Often owning a home is appealing due to the independence that comes from it which can be limited by an HOA, but on the flipside, home maintenance can be a huge responsibility which the HOA helps out with. Nevertheless, some important points to understand for homeowner associations properties are laid out below.

Pricing is not a one size fits all

Within the last 5 years the national averages for HOA dues came in at about $331. However, in places like New York City the average was $571 which can be way higher depending on the amenities that are offered as well as the number of units in the building.

HOA dues don’t just vary by state and city, they will also vary by area within the same city and even by year within the same development. The size of each community also determines the cost of the HOA as large developments will likely be gated with security staff to pay, these homeowners would pay more than owners in a small development with no gate and no full-time staff.  Even within the same development one three bedroom home will likely pay more than the two bedroom homes – other factors such as the square footage of each home, the location, and proximity to common areas can change the HOA dues as well.

When buyers are searching for their next purchase, making note of HOA dues trends should be a top item to mark off of the to do list. Prospective buyers should look at the homeowner association fees for the past 10 years, and request for projections for the next 5 years. Though fees are typically only adjusted once a year, if needed, seeing these trends will enable buyers to understand the past and future costs of utilities, staff, maintenance, renovations, and more. The homeowners association bylaws will also state how much the fees are permitted to increase year over year. There have been instances where developments have reduced the HOA dues to show prospective buyers a more attractive offer; overtime these fees are increased as maintaining them at the low price is not sustainable for the development to cover the necessary costs. The opposite can also happen where the fees are reduced over time as more homes are added to the development and therefore can share the costs.

There are also differences in what is covered

The bylaws for structures that fall under an “HOA property management” determine all of the legal obligations you are agreeing to as part of the homeowner association. It is best to get as familiar with the bylaws as possible to prevent any issues in your home-ownership tenure. 

There will be some communities where your financial situation may be impacted in a different way than what you were projecting for. For example, some HOAs have utilities included or even taxes, where others do not. Some HOAs cover the cost of garbage pick up where others do not. Having a clear understanding of exactly what gets covered is essential to deciding whether that is a property you want to purchase. Along those lines, you will also have amenities that you otherwise wouldn’t have the space or resources to invest in privately.  For example, a homeowners association development can offer a golf course for the residents only.  There are also many developments with community space you can use for large get-together and even pools for the residents and their guests.  Again, the use of these spaces will be determined by the bylaws (i.e. community space rental fees, if applicable, and guest hours or guest limits for the pools) so reading through these and understanding what is within your rights as a HOA member is crucial.

Master insurance is also covered in some or all areas of the development while the owners are individually responsible for the others. Many times, these requirements are mandated by state law – for example, a condo in a high-rise building will have a master insurance policy which covers the common areas up until an individual unit’s unfinished wall. Everything inside the walls including appliances, flooring, and cabinetry are part of the individual homeowner’s insurance policy. You can check your state laws and cross reference with the homeowners association to ensure they are following local requirements.

Compare the fees (current, past, and future, if possible) as well as what is included as part of the community against the other residences with HOAs in the area to understand the pros and cons of the HOA in each potential buy.

And more about the dues

Now that you understand that HOA dues can vary greatly depending on the development, the home within the same development, or the year within the same home, there can also be additional fees that are added on to the monthly HOA dues to cover capital improvements.  While some homeowners association boards decide to charge higher fees from the start and have a large amount of reserves ready for when significant improvements/renovations need to be done or legal expenses arise, others prefer to keep the fees low and roll out special assessments as needed.  In other words, when there is a large expense coming up (for example an elevator replacement) some buildings will have the reserves to cover it therefore the homeowners will have no changes in their monthly expenses.  For the HOAs that prefer the latter route, the monthly costs will increase, likely for a certain amount of time, to make up for the expense that is not covered by the reserves in the HOA account. 

The reserve account balance required will be established by the HOA board and will be dependent on the age of the community, the condition, and the amenities offered. The projected fee plans that are established will layout the upcoming planned expenses and back out into what is required to be paid for by each owner.  You can request those documents and see how the financial planning and reserve funds look like for the community as well as ask for information on any planned special assessments in the future.

Experienced buyers may be familiar with the mortgage process, but for first time home-buyers, remember that the HOA dues will be looked at by the mortgage lender to establish your financial position. Keep these factors in mind when looking at properties to purchase as higher HOA dues would leave you with a smaller loan amount from the bank. That being said, the fees associated with the property do not reduce the property’s value. Your lender will be able to provide you with the figures you can work with depending on your loan qualifications.

Really want to emphasize the rules

The bylaws and the covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&R) are the governing power in the homeowners association, so you really want to drill in the importance of understanding these. What applies to one development won’t apply to the other.  You need to figure out if you can personally live with these rules for your specific community. 

CC&Rs cover the “what” and bylaws cover the “how”. You can try to search online for the association’s CC&Rs at the HOA property management website or ask your realtor to request them from the homeowners association directly. Before reading through these or getting too far down the home purchase process, make sure they are up to date. There are some CC&Rs which can really limit the way you enjoy your home; while a good amount cover the rules and regulations you would expect including how the exterior of the homes may look and must be maintained, others will go as far as establishing how many trees you are allowed to have, how many cars can be parked in your driveway, how high fences can go, and even what you can put on the windows that face the street. So if you are interested in having a garden in your backyard, you may want to check the CC&Rs to see what kind of vegetation is allowed to be grown inside the development as well as which fertilizers, pesticides, or sprinkler systems are permitted.

Another important aspect of the CC&Rs is the ability to rent out your property. Even if you are buying the home as your primary residence, down the line you may want to buy another place and rent your HOA home out. Short term rentals and vacation home rentals can also be limited for your development. Make sure to get familiar with what those provisions are.

Homeowners association conduct

As you would expect, there are issues that will arise within communities; this is to be expected. However, how the conflicts are resolved says a lot about the community you will be joining. Being well informed of how the homeowners association handles conflict resolution as well as what their reputation is, is a great guiding force in understanding the development.

When homeowners violate the rules, others will likely voice their opinion. There may also be disagreement between the HOA property management board and the other residents which is not part of the board, or there can be issues within the HOA board members themselves. Homeowners are likely fined when a rule is broken, but in extreme cases the homeowner can be sued, and a lien can be placed on the home. Nonpayment of HOA dues can of course cause a foreclosure, but what some buyers don’t realize is that a large amount of unpaid fines due to rule violations can call for a foreclosure as well. Ask what the conflict resolution process is, for the cases of past conflict and the outcome, as well as specifically requesting any pending lawsuits and results from past cases. Lastly, getting information on how the HOA goes about adding, removing, or changing the rules would be beneficial.

There will also be situations where there are issues within the HOA itself, as these individuals are volunteers more or less serving as the government for the community; knowing who they are and how well they work together will be a good indicator of the residence.  However, there are also HOAs that are run by private HOA management companies who do not live in the building.  Research the HOA management company reputation, the employees, and the companies which it contracts out tasks to before you buy.  In either case, it would be helpful to connect with some of the buildings current owners, if possible (and not any members of the actual board) to get a better sense of how the board functions, how are differences in opinions handled, is there frequent drama, and questions of the like. You can also schedule time to speak with the HOA president directly to gauge what their motivation in being the board is – are they motivated by their responsibilities or are they indifferent?

Final remarks

Take time to really see what you are buying into. If the seller for the home you are interested in is showing obvious signs of non-compliance with the homeowners association such as different paint color than the surrounding properties, overgrown landscaping, etc, then you may be signing up to inherit a preexisting CC&R violation which may not be properly highlighted to you.  If you learn of any current violations you can work with the seller to fix these before you acquire the property as part of the contract or get a cash refund at closing.

All that said, having a home as part of an HOA has huge upsides. Oftentimes there is a higher level of security, cleanliness and maintenance which is required of your neighbors and therefore provides a pleasant experience for your family, as well as an increase in private amenities you wouldn’t otherwise be able to enjoy. Weighing out whether the restrictions set forth by the HOA are within your field of tolerance is the number one way you can decide if being part of these developments is the right next step for you. If you part of or looking to buy a property that is part of an HOA? Share your experience below!

[cladeymoore]

Optimizing React Native

by Nick Cherry, Staff Software Engineer

Over the past eight months, Coinbase has been rewriting its Android app from scratch with React Native. Read about some of the performance challenges we encountered and overcame along the way.

If you’re interested in technical challenges like this, please check out our open roles and apply for a position.

Over the past eight months, Coinbase has been rewriting its Android app from scratch using React Native. As of last week, the new and redesigned app has been rolled out to 100% of users. We’re proud of what our small team has been able to accomplish in a short amount of time, and we continue to be very optimistic about React Native as a technology, expecting it to pay continued dividends with regard to both engineering velocity and product quality.

That being said, it hasn’t all been easy. One area where we’ve faced notable challenges has been performance, particularly on Android devices. Over the next few months, we plan to publish a series of blog posts documenting various issues we’ve run into and how we’ve mitigated them. Today we’ll be focusing on the one that affected us the most: unnecessary renders.

Things Were Great Until They Weren’t

Early in the project, the app’s performance felt fine. It was nearly indistinguishable from a fully native product, even though we hadn’t spent any time optimizing our code. We were aware of other teams facing (and overcoming) performance challenges with React Native, but none of our preliminary benchmarks gave us reason to be alarmed. After all, the app we were planning to build was mostly read-only, didn’t need to display any massive lists, and didn’t require animations that couldn’t be offloaded to the native driver.

However, as more features were added, we started noticing a decline in performance. At first the degradations were subtle. For example, even with our production build, navigating to new screens could feel sluggish and UI updates would be slightly delayed. But soon it was taking over a second to switch between tabs, and after landing on a new screen, the UI might become unresponsive for a long period of time. The user experience had deteriorated to a point that was launch-blocking.

Identifying the Problem

It didn’t take us long to recognize the correlation between UI jank and JavaScript frame rate. After a user interaction, we would commonly observe the JS FPS dropping to low (or negative!) single digits for multiple seconds. What wasn’t so obvious to us was why. Only a month earlier the app’s performance was relatively good, and none of the features we’d added seemed to be particularly burdensome on their own. We used React’s Profiler to benchmark large components that we hypothesized might be slow and found that many were rendering more than they needed to be. We managed to reduce re-renders for these larger components with memoization, but our improvements didn’t move the needle. We also looked at the render durations for a few atomic and molecular components, none of which seemed unreasonably expensive.

To get a more holistic view of where re-rendering was most costly, we wrote a custom Babel plugin that wrapped every JSX element in the app with a Profiler. Each Profiler was assigned an onRender function that reported to a context provider at the top of the React tree. This top-level context provider would aggregate render counts and durations — grouping by component type — then log the worst offenders every few seconds. Below is a screenshot of output from our initial implementation:

As we observed in our previous benchmarks, the average render times for most of our atomic/molecular components were adequate. For example, our PortfolioListCell component took about 2ms to render. But when there are 11 instances of PortfolioListCell and each renders 17 times, those 2ms renders add up. Our problem wasn’t that individual components were that slow, it was that we were re-rendering everything far too much.

We Did This To Ourselves

To explain why this was happening, we need to take a step back and talk about our stack. The app relies heavily on a data-fetching library called rest-hooks, which the Coinbase Web team has been happily using for over a year now. Adopting rest-hooks allowed us to share a significant amount of our data layer code with Web, including auto-generated types for API endpoints. One notable characteristic of the library is that it uses a global context to store its cache. One notable characteristic of context, as described by the React docs, is that:

All consumers that are descendants of a Provider will re-render whenever the Provider’s value prop changes.

For us, this meant that any time data was written to the cache (e.g. when the app receives an API response), every component accessing the store would re-render, regardless of whether the component was memoized or referencing the changed data. Exacerbating the re-rendering was the fact that we embraced a pattern of co-locating data hooks with components. For example, we frequently made use of data-consuming hooks like useLocale() and useNativeCurrency() within lower-level components that formatted information according to the user’s preferences. This was great for developer experience, but it also meant that every component using these hooks — directly or indirectly — would re-render on writes to the cache, even if they were memoized.

Another part of our stack worth mentioning here is react-navigation, which is currently the most widely used navigation solution in the React Native ecosystem. Engineers coming from a web background might be surprised to learn that its default behavior is for every screen in the Navigator to stay mounted, even if the user isn’t actively viewing it. This allows unfocused screens to retain their local state and scroll position for “free”. It’s also practical in the mobile context, where we commonly want to show multiple screens to the user during transitions, e.g. when pushing onto / popping from stacks. Unfortunately for us, this also means that our already-problematic re-rendering could become exponentially worse as the user navigates through the app. For example, if we have four tab stacks and the user has navigated one screen deep on each stack, we would be re-rendering the greater part of eight screens every time an API response came back!

Container Components

Once we understood the root cause of our most pressing performance issues, we needed to figure out how to fix it. Our first line of defense against re-rendering was aggressive memoization. As we mentioned earlier, when a component consumes a context, it will re-render when that context’s value changes, regardless of whether the component is memoized. This led us to adopt a functional container pattern, where we would hoist data-consuming hooks to a thin wrapper component, then pass the return values of those hooks down to presentational components that could benefit from memoization. Consider the gist below. Whenever the useWatchList() hook triggers a re-render (i.e. any time the data store is updated), we also need to re-render our Card and AssetSummaryCell components, even if the value of watchList didn’t change.

https://medium.com/media/c2ae5f4f5b5a8bb8fd6b4fa563d3d246/href

When applying the container pattern, we move the useWatchList() call to its own component, then memoize the presentational part of our view. We’ll still re-render WatchListContainer every time the data store updates, but this will be comparatively cheap because the component does so little.

https://medium.com/media/363287c1a1d57d694b7ffe056a2798e2/href

Stabilizing Props

The container pattern was a good start, but there were a few pitfalls we needed to be careful to avoid. Take a look at the example below:

https://medium.com/media/32e5d59fba456f6e4fc011b3cbdfd0e0/href

It may appear that we’re protecting the memoized Asset from data-related re-renders by hoisting both useAsset(assetId) and useWatchListToggler() to a container component. However, the memoization will never actually work, because we’re passing an unstable value for toggleWatchList. In other words, every time AssetContainer re-renders, toggleWatchList will be a new anonymous function. When memo performs a shallow equality comparison between the previous props and the current props, the values will never be equal and Asset will always re-render.

In order to get any benefit from memoizing Asset, we need to stabilize our toggleWatchList function using useCallback. With the updated code below, Asset will only re-render if asset actually changes:

https://medium.com/media/ad42c990241d0c5b6ca9a9b17ee20791/href

Callbacks aren’t the only way we can inadvertently break memoization, though. The same principles apply to objects as well. Consider another example:

https://medium.com/media/e198535efb18f344cfb9fd4533136c87/href

With the above code, even if the Search component was memoized, it would always re-render when PricesSearch renders. This happens because spacing and icon will be different objects with every render.

To fix this, we’ll rely on useMemo to memoize our icon element. Remember, each JSX tag compiles to a React.createElement invocation, which returns a new object every time it’s called. We need to memoize that object to maintain referential integrity across renders. Since spacing is truly constant, we can simply define the value outside of our functional component to stabilize it.

After the following changes, our Search component can effectively be memoized:

https://medium.com/media/42aa61dba9ca41ff91e087fbb55fd6b1/href

Short-Circuiting Renders on Unfocused Screens

Memoization significantly reduced render counts / durations for each screen. However, because react-navigation keeps unfocused screens mounted, we were still wasting valuable resources re-rendering a great deal of content that wasn’t visible to the user. This led us to start digging through react-navigation’s documentation in search of an option that might alleviate this problem. We were hopeful when we discovered unmountOnBlur. Toggling the flag to true did reduce our renders considerably, but it only applied to unfocused tabs’ screens, keeping all of the current tab stack’s screen mounted. More damningly, it resulted in a flicker when switching between tabs and would lose the screen’s scroll position and local state when the user navigated away.

Our second attempt involved putting screens into suspense (falling back to a fullscreen loading spinner) by throwing a promise when the user navigated away, then resolving the promise when the user returned, allowing the screen to be presented again. With this approach, we could eliminate unnecessary renders and retain local state for all unfocused screens. Unfortunately, the experience was awkward because users would briefly see a loading indicator when returning to an already visited screen. Furthermore, without some gnarly hacks, their scroll position would be lost.

Eventually we landed on a generalized solution that prevented re-rendering on all unfocused screens without any negative side effects. We achieve this by wrapping each screen in a component that overrides the specified context (rest-hooks’ StateContext in this case) with a “frozen” value when the screen is unfocused. Because this frozen value (which is consumed by all components/hooks within the child screen) remains stable even when the “real” context updates, we can short-circuit all renders relating to the given context. When the user returns to a screen, the frozen value is nullified and the real context value gets passed through, triggering an initial re-render to synchronize all the subscribed components. While the screen is focused, it will receive all context updates as it normally would. The gist below shows how we accomplish this with DeactivateContextOnBlur:

https://medium.com/media/9936dceff26615278ed01c25f8c1af06/href

And here is a demonstration of how DeactivateContextOnBlur can be used:

https://medium.com/media/3fa33dd2b4aee447efd079ad50f68dd6/href

Reducing Network Requests

With DeactivateContextOnBlur and all of our memoization in place, we had dramatically reduced the cost of unnecessary re-renders in our app. However, there were a few key screens (i.e. Home and Asset) that were still overwhelming the JavaScript thread when they first mounted. Part of the reason this was happening was because each of these screens needed to make nearly a dozen network requests. This was due to limitations of our existing API, which in some cases required n+1 queries to fetch the asset data our UI required. Not only did these requests introduce computational overhead and latency, but whenever the app received an API response, it would need to update the data store, triggering more re-renders, reducing our JavaScript FPS, and ultimately making the UI less responsive.

In the spirit of delivering value quickly, we opted for the low-cost solution of adding two new endpoints — one to return watchlist assets for the Home screen and another to return correlated assets for the Asset screen. Now that we were embedding all the data relevant to these UI components in a single response, it was no longer necessary to perform an additional request for each asset in the list. This change noticeably improved the TTI and frame rate for both relevant screens.

While the ad hoc endpoints benefited two of our most important screens, there are still several areas in the app that suffer from inefficient data access patterns. Our team is currently exploring more foundational solutions that can solve the problem generally, allowing our app to retrieve the information it needs with far fewer API requests.

Summary

With all the changes described in this post, we were able to reduce our render count and total time spent rendering over 90% (as measured by our custom Babel plugin) before releasing the app. We also see far fewer dropped frames, as observed via the React performance monitor. One key takeaway from this work is that building a performant React Native app is in many ways the same as building a performant React web app. Given the comparatively limited power of mobile devices and the fact that native mobile apps often need to do more (e.g. maintain a complex navigation state that keeps multiple screens in memory), following performance best practices is critical to building a high-quality app. We’ve come a long way in the past few months, but still have plenty of work ahead of us.

This website contains links to third-party websites or other content for information purposes only (“Third-Party Sites”). The Third-Party Sites are not under the control of Coinbase, Inc., and its affiliates (“Coinbase”), and Coinbase is not responsible for the content of any Third-Party Site, including without limitation any link contained in a Third-Party Site, or any changes or updates to a Third-Party Site. Coinbase is not responsible for webcasting or any other form of transmission received from any Third-Party Site. Coinbase is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by Coinbase of the site or any association with its operators.

All images provided herein are by Coinbase.

Optimizing React Native was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from Money 101 https://blog.coinbase.com/optimizing-react-native-7e7bf7ac3a34?source=rss----c114225aeaf7---4 via http://www.rssmix.com/

[nomadiiccc]

modern verse: now the world

so i had some sudden inspiration to really dig into my modern verse for loki and just...give it some more depth and detail. keep in mind some of these things could change, but i think it’ll be mostly small things that occur to me as i write a little more in this verse and headcanon more in this verse and whatnot. the overarching plot & concepts are pretty set. i’m taking inspo from his canon storyline and just adapting it, as well as adding my own flair.

trigger / content warnings;;

these may be mentioned or explored more in depth in the course of RP ( unless requested or indicated in your rules ), but for sure are listed in the below backstory.

adoption / discovering you’re adopted, strained family dynamics, peer pressure & bullying typical of high school, depression, anxiety, and potentially other mental health issues / disordered thinking, homelessness / couch-surfing, prior drug use & distribution ( prescriptions & ‘party drugs’, not so much IV drugs, but possibly marijuana ), homophobia, drowning / hydrophobia

plot points;;

loki is the second and youngest son of odin and frigga, second-generation icelandic immigrants.

throughout childhood, he remains very close with his brother, thor, only a year older than him, and thor encourages him to hang out with his friends, too, even though thor’s crowd is more the athletic, “popular” group whereas loki is drawn to more of the artsy, “nerdy” group.

in high school, loki participates in both athletic activities ( track: javelin & long-distance, & is on the fencing team ) as well as theatre where he snags a few promising roles leading up to the male lead in the fall play senior year. he also maintains a high GPA, not quite a 4.0, however, because his sharp tongue rubs more than a few teachers the wrong way.

after high school he attends university close to home, allowing him the financial freedom to apply for & be accepted into a Study Abroad program.

...that he doesn’t end up taking because while searching for documents necessary for said program, he finds his adoption certificate in his father’s office. he didn’t know he was adopted until then.

the ensuing fight causes a health scare for odin, and after the immediate danger is over and he’s released from the hospital, loki packs a bag and disappears. he drops out of college, too.

he stays with a friend for awhile until an argument leads to him being asked to leave in no uncertain terms. so begins the several year cycle of couch surfing, often with less than ideal roommates.

one of these living situations is what ultimately leads to the darkest period of his life. in need of money and still too raw to be thinking clearly, he agrees to help with a friend of a friend’s drug operation. it’s mostly prescription meds, but the deeper he gets into it, the more he uncovers: molly, acid, and so on.

at first loki doesn’t touch the drugs -- he just helps with some distribution, recruits some muscle to squeeze some of their delinquent customers, “white collar” stuff. that changes when thor finds him one day. he says it’s to get out of his head for the night, and he’s right about that for awhile. until he’s not. and it escalates until at his highest point he’s using uppers daily to get out of bed and downers to get back into it in a vicious cycle.

it takes six years after discovering his adoption before he’s scared enough to stop. one of their street dealers is arrested, but he doesn’t snitch on anyone else and the cops never get any further with investigating, diverting their limited resources elsewhere.

the next year loki spends weaning himself off the pills and getting his life back in order, eventually finding a surprisingly well-paid job doing marketing and social media for a local chain of bookstores. he’s not crazy about interacting with people, but he’s actually damn good at it.

prompted by a program through his company, he decides to go back to school, this time declaring a major in comparative literature, along with a minor in marketing. ( this is probably where i’ll put the bulk of his interactions in this verse, as he’s in school the second time. it could be anywhere from just after he goes back clear up to graduation. )

while in school he moves down to more of a part time schedule at work while remaining a salaried employee as long as the work he does continues to meet their standards. it can get dicey during exams, but loki juggles it well.

important info / headcanons;;

despite his drug use, loki does not consider himself an addict, and does not follow a program to stay clean. it’s purely by his own volition, meaning he could use again, but he wouldn’t call it a ‘relapse’ or necessarily see anything wrong with it.

his relationship with thor is still pretty fractured, but he does keep in touch on social media and calls for holidays and birthdays. he DOES NOT speak to his parents. he does not attend family gatherings, especially not during the holidays..

as a show of good faith towards thor, he’s planning on attending his wedding coming up soon. ( to jane? to sif? to another as-of-yet unspecified woman? idk, we can coordinate if you have a preference. )

not important, really, but he has several tattoos and a few piercings, listed in more detail here. the more obvious ones are the green tree python that covers most of his left arm almost to his wrist, a raven tattoo on his right arm down his elbow, and the wings on his ankles. he usually wears a small black or gold ring in his right nostril, and has small gauges in both ears.

he was actually on a swim team in middle school, but after some ‘gentle bullying’ ended in him almost drowning, he very rarely gets into a swimming pool at all, and won’t go further than he can still touch the bottom. he won’t swim anywhere where he can’t see the bottom, either.

loki may not use pills anymore, but he does occasionally smoke pot to wind down after a long day, or to help him sleep when his brain won’t shut up. i guess i’ll have to research exactly where all it’s legal, because i’m thinking it’s legalized where he’s at, but i plan to keep the exact location flexible and dependent on the muse we’re interacting with. he also drinks, but not super regularly and not typically to excess.

loki’s age will most likely be late twenties/early thirties for this verse. i’ll specify in individual threads if it feels relevant or noteworthy.

[afraidof-thedark]

Item #: SCP-1000

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: All media reports related to SCP-1000 are to be examined for potential verifiability. All organizations and individuals investigating SCP-1000's existence are to be kept under surveillance by Mobile Task Force Zeta-1000 and discredited or administered amnestics. All physical signs of SCP-1000's existence must be retrieved and kept in Foundation custody, and replaced with decoy items if necessary. Alleged sightings of SCP-1000 must always be investigated by MTF Zeta-1000, however trivial the claim.

Absolutely no contact with wild or captive instances of SCP-1000 is allowed without prior approval by Director Jones. Any interaction between SCP-1000 and humans, including Foundation personnel, must be reported to Director Jones immediately.

Description: SCP-1000 is a nocturnal, omnivorous ape, classified in the Hominini branch along with genera Pan and Homo. Adults range in size from 1.5 to 3 m (5 to 10 ft) in height, and weigh between 90 and 270 kg (200 - 600 lbs). They have grey, brown, black, red, and occasionally white fur. They possess large eyes with good vision, a pronounced brow ridge, and a sagittal crest on the forehead similar to that of the gorilla, but present in both sexes. Their intelligence is on par with that of Pan troglodytes (the common chimpanzee).

SCP-1000 evolved alongside Homo sapiens, existing contemporaneously with proto-humans and humans in large numbers until 10,000-15,000 years ago, when an extinction event eliminated all but 1-5% of their population. This event was triggered by SCP-1000 contracting an anomalous "pseudo-disease" classified as SCP-1000-f1. This disease is passed on at the genetic level and affects every present-day instance of SCP-1000. The majority of SCP-1000 instances are born immune to the effect; those who are not born immune quickly die.

The effect of SCP-1000-f1 is as follows: Any hominid (including humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and non-immune instances of SCP-1000) that directly or indirectly observes any instance of SCP-1000 has a minimum 2% chance of being instantly killed through anomalous means via permanent cessation of brain function. This percentage is cumulative, and the longer a human views SCP-1000, the higher the chance of instantaneous death increases, at a rate of +1% chance per 20 minutes of viewing. This effect varies between individual members of SCP-1000's species, with some individuals carrying a 'death chance' of 90%. The effect is also produced by dead individuals, though small fur samples do not exhibit the effect.

Known means of preventing this effect are small-scale only and include [REDACTED] (see attached documentation; Level 3 clearance required).

Because of SCP-1000's close relation to humanity, it is considered likely that SCP-1000-f1 could eventually transfer to human carriers. Any instance of SCP-1000 finding its way to a major population center could constitute an ██-class end of the world scenario with a minimum death toll of [REDACTED] and possible extinction of humanity. Fortunately, SCP-1000 appears to instinctively avoid human contact.

It is not currently feasible to exterminate SCP-1000 entirely.

The highest known population concentrations of SCP-1000 are at present located in the Pacific Northwest region of North America and the Himalayan Mountain range in Asia. As of ██/██/████, these populations remain extant. SCP-1000's presence and [DATA EXPUNGED] have also been documented within the past 5 years on every continent. All known significant populations of SCP-1000 located near human population centers have been eliminated.

SCP-1000 came to the attention of the Foundation via contact by Doctor Franz M███████ in 14██ with the Children of the Sun, who identified themselves as outcast members of the Serpent's Hand. This group has since been completely destroyed by the Foundation, due to their reluctance to surrender information about SCP-1000, SCP-███, and SCP-███ (since reclassified as SCP-1000-███ and SCP-1000-███). Remaining members have either joined the Foundation, or have gone into hiding, presumably as members of the Serpent's Hand. Weapons, tools, and other unique pseudo-technological resources in possession of the organization have been classified as SCP-1000-001 through SCP-1000-████. These resources have been made use of by the Foundation in multiple instances; for a full list, see Document 1000-3534-Y (Level 3 clearance required). Access to surviving ex-members of the Children of the Sun is restricted to personnel with clearance level 4/1000 unless given direct authorization for contact by Director Jones.

Further information is available to personnel with clearance level 3/1000 or above. Personnel with clearance level 3/1000 or above are required to read Document Alpha-1596-1000.

Addendum 1000-466-X: Update to Special Containment Procedures: As of ██/██/████, SCP-1000's Special Containment Procedures no longer include Procedure 516-Lumina. [DATA EXPUNGED] indicates that SCP-1000 may be developing a resistance to the sonic element [DATA EXPUNGED] will not develop further, so that Procedure 516-Lumina can still be used in emergency situations. Investigation into alternate means of reliably keeping SCP-1000 away from human population centers is underway. Whether SCP-1000 resistance to Procedure 516-Lumina was calculated (and as such may be a sign of SCP-1000 [REDACTED]) or coincidental (by chance of natural species variation) is not known at this time.

== LEVEL 3 CLEARANCE REQUIRED ==

Document Alpha-1596-1000: Missive from Director Jones

You've probably heard the rumors before now. Everyone without the clearance level to know better wants to get their dig in. "Did you hear Sasquatch is an SCP? Are we gonna capture and contain Batboy next?"

Yes. SCP-1000 is Bigfoot.

I'm sure you've snickered. Don't worry. Contrary to rumors, we don't actually assign you to "Keter duty" for finding something humorous.

You think Bigfoot is funny because we want you to think Bigfoot is funny. We've bankrolled Hollywood comedies and farcical documentaries, paid off men in gorilla suits, perpetrated hoaxes with bear prints and goat fur, bribed and brainwashed cartoonists to get especially silly depictions on children's television. Even the term "Bigfoot" comes from us, planted in the media in 1958, a term people would find even harder to take seriously than "Sasquatch".

Why? We'll get to that.

The information in the article that you've already read isn't entirely true. There are two direct lies, and plenty of lies of omission.

There is no such thing as the "anomalous pseudo-disease" referred to as SCP-1000-f1. SCP-1000 does not possess a magical death aura. In fact, SCP-1000 does not directly exhibit any anomalous effect whatsoever.

We also lied about SCP-1000's intelligence level. SCP-1000 aren't chimp-level smart. They're smarter - to be precise, they are exactly as smart as us.

That brings us to the lies of omission. That's what this letter is for. The lies came from me, so I figure the truth should come from me as well.

This is the story we got from the Children of the Sun who defected to us. It's a story we didn't believe - refused to believe, at first.

As you've already read, the apes we call SCP-1000 evolved alongside us. We walked in the daytime, they walked in the nighttime, our nocturnal siblings in the shadows.

But while we were still wandering hunter-gatherers, they… changed. Like we would, a few thousand years later. Tools. Weapons. Agriculture. Domesticated animals. Stable settlements. As humanity blinked in the Pleistocene sun, SCP-1000's population exploded across the night. They blanketed the planet in the tens of billions.

They made things that we still can't comprehend, even though we've thoroughly studied the surviving pieces. Organic technology. They made trees and birds of prey grow into fast-moving ships, herds of animals that became trains, bushes that became flying vehicles. From insects and pigeons they made things equivalent to cell phones, televisions, computers. Atomic bombs. The Children describe vast shining cities, stretching across glaciers and penetrating the deepest caverns, grown skyships of ivory and spider-silk, creatures tending them with hundreds of blinking eyes.

We were rare, like gorillas now, a few hundred thousand left at best. We avoided their settlements just like wild animals today avoid ours. SCP-1000 understood we were intelligent like them, but avoided us just as we avoided them, saw us as fairies, as gnomes, ascribed us supernatural powers, said we ate bad children while they slept in daylight. They fenced off our dwindling wild populations in conservatories, outlawed poaching but in the underground consumed our bones as aphrodisiacs.

Then their civilization fell. And we did it. By 'we' I don't mean the Foundation. By 'we', I mean humanity.

The story is muddy. Supposedly a trickster forest god showed humanity favor, showed us the master's tools and how to use them. Why we did it, we don't know. Perhaps they hunted us, perhaps we were simply afraid. Perhaps it was just that they fenced us in, unintentionally or not. We simply don't know what the truth is. Somehow we acquired SCP-1000's own technology, and with it, we instigated an SK-class dominance shift in which humanity became the dominant species of Earth.

We wiped out 70% of SCP-1000's population in a single day. The Day of Flowers, the Children called it. Supposedly every flower bloomed that day, while our enemies died in their sleep. Then we hunted the rest down. But we went further than just killing them. With a few of the more twisted of SCP-1000's devices, we drove the survivors mad, even those hiding beyond our reach. We trapped them in their own minds, blocking higher functions and leaving their bodies to fend for themselves like any ordinary ape. We slaughtered their living machines and burned their vast shining cities with SCP-1000's bioweapons that reduced everything to slurry and dust that washed or blew away in spring rain and wind.

We left no traces. Not even our own memory. We turned one of the weapons on ourselves, wiped out any knowledge of SCP-1000 and the greatest civilization the planet had ever seen. Only a few humans protected themselves from the effect, kept the forbidden knowledge, just in case. The rest of us went back to being hunter-gatherers, none the wiser.

Which brings us to today.

You're going to read all about this in the level 3 documentation, but I'll give you the short version here: SCP-1000 are somehow regaining their forgotten intelligence and knowledge. Maybe they never truly lost it. We don't know.

This is why the ever-increasing number of "Bigfoot sightings" is so worrying. Why the attempts at contact, however indecipherable, are even more worrying.

Yes. SCP-1000 are just like us. That's what makes them so dangerous. We wiped them from history and memory. We dissolved their civilization and we slaughtered most of their species. Just ask yourselves: If they got the chance, what more would they do to us?

Addendum 1000-056-D: Instances of SCP-1000 have tried to make contact with Foundation personnel on multiple occasions. Most of these attempts at contact have [DATA EXPUNGED] untranslated, though recent attempts show that some instances of SCP-1000 are capable of communicating in English.

Display Ancillary Anomaly Reports

Log 1000-ad065-x1: The following is a rough translation of recent SCP-1000 attempt at communication with Foundation personnel on ██/██/███ (see attached documentation).

[hsfcfoundation2018-blog]

PATHWAY BRIEF - UNFAMILIAR

BTEC Assignment Brief Qualification BTEC Foundation Diploma in Art and Design

Unit number and title

Unit 4 – Information and Interpretation in Art and Design Unit 5 – Personal Experimental Studies in Art and Design Unit 6 – Extended Media Development in Art and Design e Learning aim(s) (For NQF only) QCF Assignment title RESPONDING TO THE UNFAMILIAR Assessor Viv Higgins Issue date 19/11/18 Hand in deadline   3/12/18

Vocational Scenario or Context Having completed and passed the Exploratory phase of the course, in which you focused on aspects of the research required to create of a body of work by considering starting work through ‘Responding through Media’, ‘Responding to Artists’ and ‘Responding to Place’ developing this into an exploratory, experimental body of work, you are now moving on to phase 2- the Pathway section. You will begin by choosing 2 of the briefs offered and producing work that helps you to explore your interests in a more personal way. There are options to choose art, design, film or photography as a Pathway that will guide you towards the eventual choices for next year. Within the work you will need to fulfil the assessment criteria for Units 4,5 and 6. Further details of requirements are outlined within each brief.

Artists generate ideas using a variety of approaches. For example, working directly with materials can provide the original stimulus for making work or a theme might provide a starting point. Studying the work of other artists can also be the motivation for new work.

This project requires you to explore a new way of gaining inspiration and generating ideas. You are encouraged to challenge any existing preconceptions you have about what you decide to make work about. Look upon the brief as an opportunity to test out new techniques, combine disciplines and rethink the approaches and skills you have.

You are required to identify and individually research new themes and ideas in order to develop a body of work and present a final outcome, or outcomes in your chosen specialist Pathway area.

Assessment of the project will be based on a display of your work in your studio space. Being able to contextualise your work alongside contemporary themes is encouraged by the vast majority of creative employers and universities.

You are encouraged to keep an open mind as to how different techniques and materials could influence your work.

Task 1

Initial Concept / Ideas / Research

You will begin by looking outside the discipline of Art to find your inspiration through experiencing the unfamiliar. The first part of this project is not about producing finished work, it is about immersing yourself, researching / discovering things you know little or nothing about and gathering some material to work with. The possibilities are endless.

Use at least 2 of the following methods to experience unfamiliar things. Record your experiences / research / ideas in your journal. 1. Research a subject you know nothing about. Choose from the list or find your own subject: Horses  /  Judaism  /  French culture  /  Astrophysics /   Classical Architecture /  Pagan rituals   /   Communism  /    Poetry         Japanese cinema     /      Securities trading    /      Geriatric care     The Cosmological argument    /  Greek tragedy      /      Punk   /    Tea dances  /  Scandals    /    Tree reproduction   /    Hurling   /   Audio cassettes     /    Antique dealing     /     Veganism   / The Big Bang Theory  /   Japanese packaging design  /    Gender dysphoria   2. Visit a new environment. Choose from the list or find your own place: Southall    /    Highgate   /   Canvey Island   /     Tilbury docks Brixton   /   Primrose Hill     /     Billingsgate Fish market     /   ��A golf course  / 3. Explore a museum. Choose one of the following or find your own: The Jewish museum - The Wellcome Collection - The Horniman Museum -  The Huntarian Museum - John Soane Museum  -  Dennis severs House  -  The Geffrye Museum -  Freud museum - Museum of brands packaging and advertising  - Grants Museum - Sir John Soane’s Museum - The Foundling Museum - The Museum of London - Leighton House Museum - The Museum of Childhood http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/londons-most-unusual-museums/ 4. Attend an event. Some ideas below or find one of your own: Attend a talk (check for  free talks): https://interestingtalks.in/London/ Go to a free classical  music concert  (check for free lunchtime concerts) https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on/ Watch a foreign or  independent film: https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/whats-on/ https://www.ica.art/films 5. Try a new experience. Choose one of the following or think of your own idea: Take on the role of somebody else /  Adopt a persona.             Read a newspaper article Listen to a radio  programme. https://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4 Use this online resource: http://www.openculture.com/ Try a new practical activity. Learn how to……cook  something, dismantle something etc. Form an opinion on an issue – produce a reasoned argument to back it up (research). Attend a religious ceremony / service etc. Meet somebody (be careful!) Ask somebody to teach you a  new skill eg fishing. Attend a class in college, eg Politics,  Geology, Spanish etc.

Checklist of evidence required Documentation of your investigations and discoveries from completing 2 of the above research tasks into the unfamiliar. This should be clearly recorded in your journal in appropriate forms – written / visual eg sketches, film clips, photographs etc.

Reflective comments on your research / experiences in journal. Criteria covered by this task: Unit/Criteria reference To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to: Unit 4 P4 Use appropriate information to support the creative development of personal work. Unit 5 P5 Prioritise own work and meet deadlines

Task 2

Contextual Research, Material Experimentation and Idea Development Researching and referencing the work of artists should play a key part in helping you to develop your own ideas for this project. Research the work of at least 3 artists to help generate ideas for your work. These artists should connect in some way with your own work. This can be through ideas, techniques, materials / media they use or the subjects they explore. These are all artists that work with the idea of unfamiliarity. You might find these useful but you should also source your own artists. Nikki  S Lee: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/kwgwdn/who-is-v8n9 James  Bridle: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/james-bridle-seamless-transitions CindySherman: https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/cindysherman/ Martin  Parr: https://www.martinparr.com/ Gillian  Wearing: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/13779 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36WUgFMDY-M Pipilotti  Rist: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2011/oct/05/artist-pipilotti-rist-eyeball-massage-video Louis  Theroux: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x27lyko_louis-theroux-s-weird-weekends-gangsta-rap_lifestyle

Research the work of your 3 chosen artists and record / respond to these in your journals. You should analyse their work and reflect upon how their ideas or use of materials / techniques influences your own idea development

Checklist of evidence required Documentation of research into relevant artists in journal to include analysis and personal response to artists’ work. Criteria covered by this task: Unit/Criteria reference To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to: Unit 4 P1 Research historical, cultural and contemporary practice. Unit 4 P2 Review diverse approaches in contemporary practice.

Task 3

. Material Experimentation and Idea Development

Produce practical experiments in response to your findings / unfamiliar experiences. These responses can take any form depending on your chosen Pathway discipline eg Moving Image, Photography, Graphics,  Print, Sculpture, Performance etc. Your creative experimentation should  consist of at least 3 - 4 test pieces, ongoing experimentation and alternative  solutions. The expectation is a full body of work that really reflects 2 weeks working full time on the project. Your findings, thoughts, creative processes and reflections on your own practice and influences should be recorded at every stage in your journal. Record your own work and places you visit to gather ideas. Record  film work with stills or links to storage sites e.g. youtube. Collect  items from locations if appropriate. Obtain feedback on your work regularly from tutors and attend the small group critiques as well as organising your own critiques with peers. Record this feedback and dialogue in your journals. . Jot down your thoughts / ideas as they come to you. Have your journal on you all the time.  Continuously reflect on the work you produce and how this develops.

Your work should take influence from the artists you have studied in task 2 and you should articulate these links clearly in your journal.

As your work progresses, you should do further research into relevant artists and sources to support the development of your ideas and use of materials / processes.

Checklist of evidence required Journals A body of work that includes items such as maquettes, test pieces, models, samples etc…that reflects the range of media, processes and techniques you have been interested in.  

Criteria covered by this task: Unit/Criteria reference To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to: Unit 4 P3 Make reference to historical, cultural and contemporary practice when developing own work. Unit 4 P4 Use appropriate information to support the creative development of personal work. Unit 4 P5 Produce targeted research in the development of personal work.

Unit 5 P1 Unit 5 P2 Unit 5 P4 Unit 6 P1 Unit 6 P2 Unit 6 P4 Unit 6 P5

Explore materials, processes and techniques safely. Record experimental outcomes. Research materials, techniques and processes. Research and select appropriate media. Utilise selected media development of own work. Use selected media to explore and express a creative intention Use an extended range of media, techniques and processes safely

Task 4

Produce and Present Final Outcome(s) Professionally.  

Present a final outcome in a display environment and give a short presentation to the group. Consider all relevant installation, framing, mounting and hanging techniques.

Prepare a short script to accompany a short presentation to your peers. Rehearse your presentation, correcting timings and grammar. You could record your presentation in advance or have it displayed in a video or power point should you feel this is appropriate.

Evaluate and reflect upon your work regularly as you progress through the stages of development and also at the end of the project.

Checklist of evidence required A body of work that includes items such as maquettes, test pieces, models, samples etc…that reflects the range of media, processes and techniques you have been interested in.

Work appropriately displayed and documented in an exhibition environment

Presentation observed by tutor. Criteria covered by this task: Unit/Criteria reference To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to: Unit 5 P3 Evaluate creative intentions Unit 6 P3 Produce outcomes which confirm and extend own ideas. Unit 6 P6 Use media, techniques and processes to a professional level Unit 6 P7 Analyse and reflect on progress of ideas, experimental work and technical processes.

Sources of information to support you with this Assignment Relevant websites to begin your research https://www.lensculture.com/ http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/ http://flavorwire.com/399191/50-great-works-of-video-art-that-you-can-watch-online/view-all   http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06pyw3w/storyville-20152016-8-orion-the-man-who-would-be-king http://www.timeout.com/london/art/top-10-photography-exhibitions-in-london http://www.timeout.com/london/art http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/ http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/exhibition (not all in London but  still useful for artists).

Other assessment materials attached to this Assignment Brief Pathway stage criteria marksheet.

Notes

Tips on researching

Good use of Primary and secondary research are vital in this stage. Explore a range of ideas before you pursue one in particular.

Research and collect imagery from as many sources as possible, books, newspapers, magazines, television, podcasts, internet, exhibitions visits in order to get your ideas going. Don’t accept or agree with all that you read, try to form a broad ‘overall’ view

Record initial ideas by sketching, taking photos – document everything!

Record / bookmark / save to favourites websites you visit.

Photocopy sections of articles and keep an ongoing bibliography of books / periodicals you have looked at in a word document.

Use your studio wall and sketchbook to display this research.

Use other people are a resource!  Discussing your research and ideas with peers, family, friends and tutors may help you to develop ideas or point you towards other resources.

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Cacti 101: How to Grow A Hardy Cactus

Learn how to grow and take care of cacti in any climate.

It used to be that when I heard the word “cactus,” one thing came to mind: a hot, dry desert. Cacti were fascinating plants, but aside from the occasional potted novelty from the discount store, I only expected to see them in picture books or botanical centers.

But I found out later that I was wrong. Most cactus species are sensitive to cold. But hardier ones grow well into Canada. It’s not difficult to grow cacti outdoors year round in your own garden. 

With the right soil conditions, certain cacti are cold-hardy in at least USDA zones 6 to 9, and some to USDA zone 4. They’re all heat-tolerant in AHS zones 12 to 1.

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Not all species in the groups that follow are cold hardy. If you see one in a nursery or catalog I don’t mention here, be sure to verify its hardiness zones from a reliable source. 

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See also Gardening 101: Plant Your Own Gourmet Garden

Here are a few of the more easily grown, cold-hardy cacti:

Prickly Pear Cacti

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Prickly Pears

With some species native to as far north as Minnesota, these are usually the hardiest cacti. They make excellent rock-garden plants and can even grow in well-drained, grassy areas.

With the approach of winter, the fat, succulent “pads” of prickly pears begin to dry out and shrink. This is a way of dealing with freezing weather. They may even flop onto the ground, but will revive in spring.

The ‘Pink Parfait’ prickly pear is a good example of the medium-sized prickly pears. It will grow about 7 inches tall, with a spread of up to 3 feet. The spiny “pads” of these cacti grow in suc- cession, one coming out on the tip of another, with new ones sprouting from the bases. The flowers open from the tops of these pads in mid- to late spring, followed by oval fruit. Creamy-flowered ‘Crystal Tide’ and yellow-flowered Opuntia cymochila are shown in the insets above. All three of these prickly pears are cold- hardy in USDA zones 4 to 9.

See also Home Gardening: How to Grow Your Own Tea

Cholla 

The shrublike cactus is a tree cholla. The various cholla cacti belong to the same genus as the prickly pears, but they have cylindrical stems instead of flattened pads. They range in size and habit from small, ground-hugging creepers like devil cholla to shrubs or small trees that can reach up to 15 feet in their native habitats. Flowers are usually rose-pink to red. The tree, devil, Whipple and Klein’s chollas are cold-hardy in USDA zones 5 to 9. Although parts of the tops may die back in extremely cold winters, they’ll regrow from the roots.

Rainbow Cactus

Hedgehog Cacti

All of these cacti have a globe or barrel shape, making them look a little like their namesake animal burrowing into the ground. There are about 45 species; the ones you see here are cold-hardy in USDA zones 5 to 9.

The color and shape of the late-spring blooms on the hedgehog cactus also earn it the name claret- cup cactus. Each flower stays open for several days. Plants slowly reach 12 inches tall with a 6-inch spread.

Because of the alternating bands of color, the clumping plant is also called rainbow cactus. There are a number of regional variations throughout its native range in the West and Southwest. Its flowers bloom in varying shades of yellow to near-white in midspring. Stems will eventually reach up to 12 inches tall with a 6-inch spread.

Pincushion Cacti

These are low- growing plants that form clustering colonies of rounded stems. Sometimes the stems are partly below the soil line, leaving only a small hump exposed.

The tiny pincushion cactus is Lee’s dwarf snowball. With a mature size of only a couple of inches across, it’s a good choice for a rock garden. It’s cold-hardy in USDA zones 5 to 9.

Clustering pincushion grows as far north as southern Canada. Different cultivars range in bloom color from deep purple to salmon pink. It eventually forms large clusters of stems up to 12 inches tall and wide and has a long bloom season lasting from late spring through early summer. It’s cold-hardy in USDA zones 4 to 9.

See also 5 Creative Upcycled Planter Ideas

The Missouri pincushion, is another prairie native. It can be found in many grasslands throughout the Great Plains and Upper Midwest. Occasionally, it will poke its head up through an established lawn. It can even survive being whacked with a lawnmower because there is enough of the plant left underground to grow new shoots.

Individual plants grow up to 4 inches tall and wide. The green-yellow flowers bloom in late spring. Missouri pincushion is cold-hardy in USDA zones 4 to 9.

Learn the best place to plant a cactus.

Where to Plant Cacti

Although many species of cactus can be extremely cold hardy, they absolutely must have excellent drainage. They can’t stand to have wet feet, especially in winter when they’re not actively growing and taking up water. In cold, wet climates with frequent freezing and thawing, heavy soils can get soggy. That makes the ground vulnerable to frost heaving that can dislodge the shallow roots of cacti.

One good place to use cacti is in a gravelly rock garden, especially one built on a slope. Hillsides generally have better drainage than flat areas. The soil should be lean—a mixture of half coarse builder’s sand and half 3⁄4-inch pea gravel with only two percent organic material like compost will suit them fine.

See also The Best Herbs for Your Dosha

Even though cacti need careful placement to thrive, that doesn’t mean that they have to be kept away from other plants. The cacti have a lot of other companions. For example, pussy toes fill out the front and center of the bed, growing behind a large, flat rock. Their tiny, furry, silver-leafed base foliage, towering, slender stems and fluffy heads of pink flowers provide an interesting texture contrast to the cacti. Grasses and other plants help shelter the cacti in winter and also take up excess water in rainy spells.

You may want to have a bed with just cacti and other succulents. That’s OK, too. One good place for that is in a raised bed. White walls on the north and west sides give protection from desiccating winter winds and reflect sunlight onto the bed. The roof overhang shields the cacti from heavy rains.

Although it’s a cacti-and-succulent-only bed, there’s a lot of interest and variety in it. Using many different cactus species gives this planting plenty of variation in textures, heights, colors and shapes. Colorful rocks add to the show.

Many dry-plains, alpine and desert plants, such as penstemon, anise hyssop and basket-of-gold, grow naturally in the same habitat and have flower colors that go well with those of the cacti. The perky Sue makes a nice color and texture contrast to the Bailey’s lace cactus and likes the same arid, well-drained soil. Look in catalogs for plants that are listed as xeric, or low-water use, and that match your hardiness zones.

See also Find the Right Houseplant for You

Care and Culture of Cacti

I’ve already mentioned the high-mineral, sand-gravel soil “recipe” cacti like. If you have heavy soil, you’ll need to amend it. You can trench down to replace the existing soil with 18 inches of the amended mixture, but an easier way is to build up from the soil surface into a raised bed.

Larger rocks added to the bed are both ornamental and practical. You can place them to direct water away from some spots and toward plants that might want more. Rocks also absorb the rays of the sun in the winter, radiating heat on cold nights to create warm pockets for the cacti. Use larger rocks as windbreaks for plants that might suffer from cold winds. Plant cacti in as sunny a location as possible.

If you don’t have a natural area meeting all these criteria, you can still create a small one. I’ll show you how in “Building a hillside cactus bed” at far left.

If you want more cactus plants, they are generally easy to propagate. One method, which results in a clone, or exact replica of the parent plant, is by cuttings. I’ll show you how to do this in “Cactus propagation,” below. You can also start cactus from seed. This is an inexpensive way to get lots of plants but they’ll take several years to bloom. New, hardier cultivars are sometimes found among seedlings.

Cactus lovers are continually looking for more species and new cultivars that will grow in cold climates, and testing new methods for helping them survive. They also like to share what they find out with each other. You may not see the towering, many-branched saguaro of Western-movie fame jutting out of a Northern snowbank anytime soon, but it’s easy to experiment with the ones I’ve talked about. If you try just a couple of hardy cacti out of curiosity, you may find yourself “hooked” on these spiny characters.

See also The Essential Guide to Essential Oils

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North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation - The Power is on the President

The Canadian Wildlife Federation states that human activities are the leading cause of death amongst North Atlantic right whales. Even though the IUCN has had this creature on their watch-list for decades, and the fishing and distribution of right whale products has been outlawed worldwide, so far, this has not been enough to preserve the species. Since 2017, 30 right whale fatalities have been caused by people. There were 17 deaths in 2017, three in 2018, and 10 in 2019. With no calves born in 2018, the population number is becoming dangerously low. With an estimated 400 individuals left in the wild, the pressure is on for Atlantic countries to start taking action (CWF, 2019). Canada has started, but the United States is working backwards. Let’s take a look at what has been done so far: 

In March of 2020, the Trudeau Administration released enhanced conservation measures effective immediately. The plans were created in response to the high levels of deaths of the North Atlantic right whale in Canadian waters in the last 5 years. The highest risks for right whale deaths are ship strikes, net entanglement and strangulation, and habitat pollution or loss due to oil drilling. To address these concerns, the bill includes reducing the speed limit in the Gulf of St Lawrence to 10 knots (about 18km/hr), as well as monitoring speeds throughout other Atlantic channels. The Bay of Fundy will be temporarily closed to fishing, and several trials of net and rope free fishing are being set up throughout the coast and high-traffic areas for the North Atlantic right whale (Monga Bay, 2020). 

However, the United States has chosen to ignore warnings from conservationists, especially recently, in favour of oil drilling. In fact, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was forced to change their findings of threats made to the right whale by seismic air guns used for oil location by the Trump Administration. This, of course, is an act of blatant eco-malpractice by the American government, ignoring wildlife federations pleas to reduce their drilling and air gun usage. When political agendas interlace with the lives of severely endangered species, nobody wins. The NOAA was essentially ordered to lie on official documents about their research, so that the Trump Administration would be allowed to continue the use of seismic air guns to find more oil deposits (Holzman, 2020). These guns are extremely loud, one of the loudest man made sounds possible, and damaging to the water and sediment in the ocean, not to mention the effects on wildlife. If air guns are blasted in migratory and/or birthing areas for the North Atlantic right whale, it can lead to the end of the species altogether. No government should be able to strong-arm global organizations that are trying to protect vital species to our planet. 

Canada has proven that economic concerns can be adjusted and adapted, so as to not destroy and lose an endangered species, and it is time for the United States to follow suit. Skeptics might suggest that oil as a resource is far more important than the lives of ‘just some whales.’ However, this is an ignorant stance to take. Whales of all types are incredibly important in multiple ways. North Atlantic right whales are baleen whales, meaning they filter and eat microscopic phytoplankton and other small organisms through a set of thousands of hair-like bones in their mouths. Since phytoplankton use carbon as an energy source, whales help to offset the amount of atmospheric carbon, creating better quality breathing air on land. Whales are even more valuable to carbon neutrality than trees are. In a lifetime, whales can absorb and ‘lock’ around 30,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This number can be even larger for the Great whales- of which the North Atlantic right whale is a part of. To compare, 1 tree can only absorb about 21 kilograms of carbon dioxide per year (Horton, 2019). Naturally, this means that preserving whale species is absolutely crucial to carbon offsetting and trying to achieve overall carbon neutrality. 

Culturally, the North Atlantic right whale used to be a staple source of blubber, meat, skin, oil and bones for several Northeastern Indigenous groups. A Mi’kmaq legend states that the right whale was the master of life in the ocean, and a close ally to Glooscap, the Mi’kmaq Creator (NOTLA, 2015). In becoming protected, North Atlantic right whale capture is much more strongly regulated (downright outlawed in most places), and also nearly impossible. Due to their dangerously small population, catching a whale of any size is a treacherous task that often comes up unfruitful. This impacts the cultural and economic standing of Indigenous communities in both Canada and the United States Eastern coasts. 

Tourism surrounding the North Atlantic right whale is also a great source of income for the economy, as whale watching trips are huge tourist selling points along both the East coast of Canada, as well as the United States, Greenland and the United Kingdom. Since regulations are now being put in place to reduce human traffic in well-known North Atlantic right whale areas, taking negative actions against these whales will absolutely hurt the economy, not just in Canada, but globally. 

The Trump Administration and the United States government showing no concern for the importance of the North Atlantic right whale’s conservation proves a clear lack of understanding of just how much a species like this can impact the cultural, economic and environmental sectors of our world today. It is time that the USA follows its neighbours from the North’s lead, and heed the warnings of conservationists in order to make sure that this vital species stays alive, and hopefully begins to grow.

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12 Emergency House Repair Product You Should Supply

Official Website: 12 Emergency House Repair Product You Should Supply

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There are lots of listings around of what you must accumulate to be ready in case of an emergency situation. Most of those focus on the food that you ought to have on hand, along with some standard survival products. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that said, yet group is frequently missed: repair materials.

Much of the most likely catastrophes which we are planning for are natural disasters. These generally trigger modest to extreme damage to people’s houses– the same houses that they have whatever stockpiled in and also are attempting to make it through in. With damage to the house, it’s hard to use it as a survival shelter.

Moderate damage to a home, or perhaps serious damage that is local to only part of a house, doesn’t necessarily make it unliveable. The government might choose to declare that the residence is harmed beyond repair, but does not suggest it can not be a sanctuary for survival, a minimum of up until a much better option becomes available. Staying put might require some small fixings, such as covering windows that were smashed as well as taking care of an opening in the roof covering.

With the ideal products, you can do a lot of repair work to a home. The home won’ be returned to like-new condition, however it can be repaired to protect you from the elements. It does not need to be rather, simply practical.

The Information

1) 2″ x 4″ Studs.

You can build anything from wall surfaces to roofing systems with plywood and studs. You can even build a smokehouse out of them, if you need one for smoking a guide you happen to shoot.

2) Caulking.

Great for fixing all kinds of leaks. You might need it along with your various other repair materials to make sure that the rainfall can not make it through that repair in your roof.

3) Clear Plastic Sheeting.

While you can cover damaged windows with tarpaulins, you’re far better off using clear plastic bed linen. Not just will it let a lot more light into the house, yet it will certainly likewise make it possible for you to see what’s going on exterior.

4) Duct Tape.

It’s no secret how helpful air duct tape is. With it, you can repair lots of different things, even if you don’t have the best repair materials to use. Make sure you have plenty as you’ll locate lots of uses for it.

5) Extension Cables.

You will need extension cords to get the power to your devices and also other electric tools if you end up making use of a generator or any type of alternative electric power system. There’s no such point as having too many expansion cables.

6) Hardware.

All types of equipment are most likely to be needed, particularly an array of screws and also nails. You may need braces, hinges as well as latches also to close your temporary repairs.

7) Lath or Furring Strips.

The wind will tear them out if you simply nail or staple the tarps or plastic bed linen in area. You’re better off toenailing them via lath or furring strips. These slices of timber will spread the stress out, protecting against tearing in the tarps.

8) Plumbing Fittings.

It’s possible that the part of your home that obtains harmed is the part with pipes running through it. In that situation, you may need to splice plumbing pipes and even cover them off in order to utilize the water in the remainder of the home. Make certain to have the sticky as well as guide to choose the fittings.

9) Plywood.

Plywood is one more easy way to repair holes in wall surfaces as well as roofs. It’s additionally stronger than making use of a tarp alone. While a tarpaulin might work great for a typical leaking roofing system that has hail damage or shingles that have actually blown off, if there’s an opening in the roofing from a tree branch, you’ll probably need something with a bit extra compound. That’s where the plywood can be found in convenient.

10) Tarps.

These can be used to cover a leaky roof covering, a hole in the wall or a home window that has had the glass damaged. Tarps are possibly the easiest as well as most versatile home repair product there is to work with.

11) Cord Nuts.

For attaching electric cables with each other. You may need to separate component of your home’s electrical system if component of your electrical wiring is damaged. In that case, cable nuts will permit you to reconnect the components that are functioning, as well as cap hot wires that aren’t affixed to anything.

12) Cable Ties.

Practically as valuable as air duct tape, these plastic ties are typically used for bundling wires. They can be found in a selection of sizes as well as are great for connecting almost anything with each other, also offenders’ hands. As soon as made a shelter in the woods by connecting the branches together with wire ties,

All-time Low Line

A couple of simple products can make all the distinction between maintaining your residence useful and resting out under a tree. While you won’t have the ability to return your home to its pre-disaster problem with this short list, you will certainly be able to dry it in to make sure that your residence can protect you from the weather condition. Safety makes any repair worth doing. In addition to these materials, ensure that you have the required tools, specifically manual tools that do not require electricity. We are so used to utilizing electric power tools these days that many individuals do not have their manual equivalents. If the power heads out, as generally occurs in any kind of disaster, power tools won’t do anyone any type of great, despite the products to deal with.

These typically cause modest to extreme damages to people’s homes– the exact same homes that they have everything accumulated in and are trying to endure in. Moderate damage to a home, or also severe damages that is localized to only part of a house, doesn’t necessarily make it uninhabitable. The government might make a decision to proclaim that the residence is harmed past repair, yet does not suggest it can’t be a shelter for survival, at least until a far better choice comes to be readily available. With the ideal materials, you can do a whole lot of repair work to a home. While you will not be able to return your house to its pre-disaster condition with this short list, you will be able to dry it in so that your home can protect you from the weather.

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[equitiesstocks]

12 Emergency House Repair Product You Should Supply

Official Website: 12 Emergency House Repair Product You Should Supply

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There are lots of listings around of what you must accumulate to be ready in case of an emergency situation. Most of those focus on the food that you ought to have on hand, along with some standard survival products. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that said, yet group is frequently missed: repair materials.

Much of the most likely catastrophes which we are planning for are natural disasters. These generally trigger modest to extreme damage to people’s houses– the same houses that they have whatever stockpiled in and also are attempting to make it through in. With damage to the house, it’s hard to use it as a survival shelter.

Moderate damage to a home, or perhaps serious damage that is local to only part of a house, doesn’t necessarily make it unliveable. The government might choose to declare that the residence is harmed beyond repair, but does not suggest it can not be a sanctuary for survival, a minimum of up until a much better option becomes available. Staying put might require some small fixings, such as covering windows that were smashed as well as taking care of an opening in the roof covering.

With the ideal products, you can do a lot of repair work to a home. The home won’ be returned to like-new condition, however it can be repaired to protect you from the elements. It does not need to be rather, simply practical.

The Information

1) 2″ x 4″ Studs.

You can build anything from wall surfaces to roofing systems with plywood and studs. You can even build a smokehouse out of them, if you need one for smoking a guide you happen to shoot.

2) Caulking.

Great for fixing all kinds of leaks. You might need it along with your various other repair materials to make sure that the rainfall can not make it through that repair in your roof.

3) Clear Plastic Sheeting.

While you can cover damaged windows with tarpaulins, you’re far better off using clear plastic bed linen. Not just will it let a lot more light into the house, yet it will certainly likewise make it possible for you to see what’s going on exterior.

4) Duct Tape.

It’s no secret how helpful air duct tape is. With it, you can repair lots of different things, even if you don’t have the best repair materials to use. Make sure you have plenty as you’ll locate lots of uses for it.

5) Extension Cables.

You will need extension cords to get the power to your devices and also other electric tools if you end up making use of a generator or any type of alternative electric power system. There’s no such point as having too many expansion cables.

6) Hardware.

All types of equipment are most likely to be needed, particularly an array of screws and also nails. You may need braces, hinges as well as latches also to close your temporary repairs.

7) Lath or Furring Strips.

The wind will tear them out if you simply nail or staple the tarps or plastic bed linen in area. You’re better off toenailing them via lath or furring strips. These slices of timber will spread the stress out, protecting against tearing in the tarps.

8) Plumbing Fittings.

It’s possible that the part of your home that obtains harmed is the part with pipes running through it. In that situation, you may need to splice plumbing pipes and even cover them off in order to utilize the water in the remainder of the home. Make certain to have the sticky as well as guide to choose the fittings.

9) Plywood.

Plywood is one more easy way to repair holes in wall surfaces as well as roofs. It’s additionally stronger than making use of a tarp alone. While a tarpaulin might work great for a typical leaking roofing system that has hail damage or shingles that have actually blown off, if there’s an opening in the roofing from a tree branch, you’ll probably need something with a bit extra compound. That’s where the plywood can be found in convenient.

10) Tarps.

These can be used to cover a leaky roof covering, a hole in the wall or a home window that has had the glass damaged. Tarps are possibly the easiest as well as most versatile home repair product there is to work with.

11) Cord Nuts.

For attaching electric cables with each other. You may need to separate component of your home’s electrical system if component of your electrical wiring is damaged. In that case, cable nuts will permit you to reconnect the components that are functioning, as well as cap hot wires that aren’t affixed to anything.

12) Cable Ties.

Practically as valuable as air duct tape, these plastic ties are typically used for bundling wires. They can be found in a selection of sizes as well as are great for connecting almost anything with each other, also offenders’ hands. As soon as made a shelter in the woods by connecting the branches together with wire ties,

All-time Low Line

A couple of simple products can make all the distinction between maintaining your residence useful and resting out under a tree. While you won’t have the ability to return your home to its pre-disaster problem with this short list, you will certainly be able to dry it in to make sure that your residence can protect you from the weather condition. Safety makes any repair worth doing. In addition to these materials, ensure that you have the required tools, specifically manual tools that do not require electricity. We are so used to utilizing electric power tools these days that many individuals do not have their manual equivalents. If the power heads out, as generally occurs in any kind of disaster, power tools won’t do anyone any type of great, despite the products to deal with.

These typically cause modest to extreme damages to people’s homes– the exact same homes that they have everything accumulated in and are trying to endure in. Moderate damage to a home, or also severe damages that is localized to only part of a house, doesn’t necessarily make it uninhabitable. The government might make a decision to proclaim that the residence is harmed past repair, yet does not suggest it can’t be a shelter for survival, at least until a far better choice comes to be readily available. With the ideal materials, you can do a whole lot of repair work to a home. While you will not be able to return your house to its pre-disaster condition with this short list, you will be able to dry it in so that your home can protect you from the weather.

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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[thecoroutfitters]

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[chanoyu-to-wa]

Nampō Roku, Book 2 (23):  (1587) Second Month, Fifth Day, Morning.

23) Second Month, Fifth Day; Morning¹.

    Snow lingered here and there:  it remained in the treetops; but underneath there was none because it had been removed².

◦ Two mat room³.

◦ [Guests:]  Oshō [和尚]⁴, Nambō [南坊]⁵, Sōkei [宗惠]⁶.

[Sho [初].]⁷

﹆ Yoku-ryō-an [欲了庵]⁸.

◦ Unryū [雲龍]⁹.

◦ On the tana:     ◦ kōgō ・ habōki [香合 ・ 羽帚]¹⁰.

Su [ス]¹¹.

▵ Shiru saku-saku ・ ko-buki [汁 サク〰 ・ 小ブキ]¹².

▵ Mushi kabura [ムシカブラ]¹³.

▵ Ae-mono tsukuzukushi ・ seri [アヘモノ ツク〲シ ・ せリ]¹⁴.

Go [後]¹⁵.

◦ The toko remained as it was¹⁶.

﹆ On the tana:     ◦ Rinzai futaoki [臨濟蓋置]¹⁷.

◦ Mizusashi Shigaraki [水指 シカラキ], with the hishaku [ヒシヤク] [placed] on top of it¹⁸.

◦ Chaire kuro [茶入 黒]¹⁹.

◦ Chawan Nagatabi [茶碗 長旅]²⁰.

Su [ス].

◦ Koboshi Bizen [コホシ 備前]²¹.

_________________________

¹Nigatsu itsuka, asa [二月五日、朝].

    This chakai took place on the 13th of February, 1587, according to the Gregorian calendar.

²Yuki tokoro-dokoro nokoru, konure bakari nokoshite shita wa fu-zan kesu [雪所〻殘ル、木末ハカリ殘シテ下ハ不殘ケス].

    Perhaps a light snowfall had occurred overnight, since the following morning (the day of this chakai) snow was seen lingering in the treetops*, while below it seems to have melted away:  kesu [消す], however, usually means things like “putting out” a fire, and “causing” something “to disappear” -- generally implying things that happend as the result of human intervention. 

    Kumakura Isao argues that the snow on the ground had been melted away by throwing water onto it (i.e., the uchi-mizu [打ち水]):  his interpretation suggests that he takes these chakai† to be a series of teaching examples intended to illustrate, in practice, ideas discussed elsewhere in the Nampō Roku (rather than as consecutive entries in a tea-diary), and contrasts this “zan-setsu” gathering with the previous one (where Rikyū clearly states that water was not splashed).  In fact, if Book Two of the Nampō Roku really was one of Rikyū’s actual kaiki (as it is certainly purported to be) -- rather than a series of records artificially collected from various sources by Tachibana Jitsuzan and arranged to form “a (fictitious) year,” as Kumakura asserts‡ -- there is no reason to look at these gatherings in this way.  If Book Two simply is a (more or less) day by day record of what actually happened, Rikyū was just responding to things as they were on each individual occasion (with no necessary connection between one gathering and the ones that bracket it in the series):  on the previous occasion, the lingering snow under the trees and between the rocks had its own special charm (this snow may have melted away by the time of this chakai), while here the (new) snow lying on the ground (and turning into slush as the day warmed) may have made the garden look spotty or old; and, of course, if the snow lingering on the branches of the trees was actually the result of a light snowfall overnight, the snow may not have penetrated to the ground beneath (so that its absence would make the area below look dark and forbidding -- or simply muddy), hence the possible removal of the snow from the more exposed parts of the roji where a dusting of snow did accumulate (leaving the snow on the treetops to melt and drip onto the roji with a charming patter as the sun rose higher in the sky).

    And again, it must be remembered that Rikyū‘s roji was, for the most part, covered with turf grass, and the people walked from the koshi-kake to the entrance of the tearoom on the grass:  and while they usually wore geta [下駄] or setta [雪駄], walking through wet, melting snow on grass is never pleasant, and could potentially be dangerous.  Thus, given the absence of snow lingering underneath the trees (and the places where it would naturally -- poetically -- be expected to be found**), its removal from those parts of the roji where it would only serve to inconvenience the guests (without adding to the charm of the scenery) seems well advised. ___________ *Two days before, the “lingering snow” had been on the ground.

†This mirrors Urasenke’s understanding of the “purpose” of the Nampō Roku more generally -- as can be seen in Tanaka Senshō‘s commentary.  (While Tanaka Senshō was ultimately the founder of the Dai-nihon Sadō Gakkai [大日本茶道學會], he was initiated into the practice of chanoyu by Urasenke’s 12th Iemoto, Yūmyōsai Genshitsu [又玅齋玄室; 1852 ~ 1917] --  and his commentary on the Nampō Roku bears the indelible stamp of Urasenke’s interpretation of this collection of writings.)

‡Part of his argument seems to be that, in light of the rigid and inflexible way in which Urasenke insists that chaji have to be conducted, it would have been impossible for any individual to host anywhere near as many gatherings over the course of a single year as this document suggests.  (And this contention is supported by noting that none of the kaiki set down by Rikyū's contemporaries list anywhere near as many chakai as this  -- indeed, as Rikyū himself is quoted as saying, while Tsuda Sōkyū was renowned as one of the three greatest tea masters of the day, “he usually host[ed] only two or three chakai during the ro season, and one or two gatherings with the furo each year.”)  But what Kumakura apparently fails to recognize is that Rikyū was not a “private” chajin at the time when this document was set down.  Rather, he was one of Hideyoshi's official tea masters, and a majority of these chakai were clearly being staged on Hideyoshi's behalf.  Thus, hosting chakai was a large part of Rikyū's full-time job -- hence, we should never be surprised by their frequency.

    While the Sen family likes to make Rikyū out to be Hideyoshi's personal adviser, in fact they ignore Rikyū’s actual place and function within Hideyoshi's organization.  Yes, he was a trusted adviser.  But his purpose was to serve tea, and during that period serving tea, more often than not, meant hosting private chakai for those people Hideyoshi wanted entertained.  Sometimes Rikyū was charged with passing on to them Hideyoshi's private instructions (or acquiring intelligence about them and their thoughts that would be communicated back to Hideyoshi); but, it seems more often that these gatherings were just ways to keep the guests occupied (while they waited for their turn to have an audience with Hideyoshi), or amused or impressed (by flaunting pieces from Hideyoshi's collection of tea utensils before their astonished eyes).  And these “purposes” are generally either overlooked, or downplayed, by the people who want to cast Rikyū in a more influential role in Hideyoshi's political enterprise.

**Zan-setsu [殘雪], as an expression, implies that the snow is lingering in places where it is protected from the sun -- rather than out in the open (because it simply did not melt yet).

    This idea can be understood by looking at the famous viewing stone (bonseki [盆石]) that was given the name “Zan-setsu” by Ashikaga Yoshimasa (above).  The white areas are located within the cracks in the black surface, rather than on the surface of the stone itself.

    In situations where the effect is reversed -- as seems to have been the case in Rikyū's roji on this occasion -- it may even be disturbing or repellent.  Hence Rikyū's removal of the snow from the open ground.

³Nijō shiki [二疊敷].

    This was the two-mat room in Rikyū's Sakai residence.

⁴Oshō [和尚].

    While both Tanaka Senshō and Kumakura Isao state that this refers to Shōrei Sōkin [笑嶺宗訢; 1505 ~ 1583], that would have been impossible -- since he could not have attended a gathering given in 1587 when he died in 1583 -- unless the record of this gathering was added to the kaiki from some other source*.

    In fact, it would have been much more natural for Rikyū to use the simple title “oshō” when referring to his own Zen master, Kokei Sōchin [古溪宗陳; 1532 ~ 1597]; and it was this monk who likely was the shōkyaku at this chakai. ___________ *Which Tanaka uses as “proof” that the chakai are actually listed out of any historical sequence.

⁵Nambō [南坊].

    The ji-kyaku was Nambō Sōkei [南坊宗啓; ? ~ 1594], about whom nothing more needs to be said.

    His name is sometimes written Sōkei [宗慶] in contemporary documents; and he also appears there under the moniker Kei shuso [慶首座].

⁶Sōkei [宗惠].

    This was Mizuochi Sōkei [水落宗惠; his dates of birth and death are unknown], a respected machi-shū chajin from Sakai*.  He is also said to have been the father of Rikyū's son-in-law, the man usually known as Sen no Jōji [千紹二]†.

    Sōkei is mentioned in a number of other documents that have survived from this period‡. __________ *Some suggest that he was also one of Rikyū's disciples (though it is more likely that he was a member of the group that formed around Rikyū in the years after Jōō’s death -- given Sōkei’s contemporary reputation as a chajin).

†He is usually known as Sen no Jōji because Rikyū adopted him into the Sen family upon his marriage to his daughter (a common enough practice at that time when a man had fathered few or no sons).

‡Including the Tennōji-ya Kaiki [天王寺屋會記] and the Sōtan Nikki [宗湛日記].

   A letter written to Sōkei by Tsuda Sōkyū also survives.

⁷Sho [初].

    Though this word is not written in the Enkaku-ji version of the text*, it is implied that the entries that follow refer to the shoza.

    With respect to the kane-wari:

- the kakemono was displayed in the toko, making it han [半];

- the small unryū-gama was suspended in the ro, so the room was han [半] as well;

- and the go-sun-hane and kōgō were placed on the tana, arranged side by side, making the tana chō [調].

    Han + han + chō is chō.  This is appropriate for the shoza of a gathering that is held during the daytime. __________ *It was, however, present in the manuscripts used by both Shibayama Fugen (this was a copy made by one of the members of the original discussion group that formed to study the text after it had been presented to the Enkaku-ji), and Tanaka Senshō (who had access to Tachibana Jitsuzan's original notes that were taken directly from the Shū-un-an documents).

⁸Yoku-ryō-an [欲了庵].

    Yoku-ryō-an [欲了庵] is the name by which Rikyū referred to this kakemono -- which was one of his most prized possessions.  The scroll had been written by the Yuan period Chán monk Liǎo-ān Qīng-yù [了庵清欲; 1288 ~ 1363].

    In the Enkaku-ji version of the text, this entry is marked with a red dot, indicating that this was one of the featured utensils used during this gathering.

⁹Unryū [雲龍].

    This was the second small unryū-gama, with an iron lid (that imitated the shape of the beaten-copper lid of the original kama) and matsu-kasa kan-tsuki [松笠鐶付].

    It was suspended over the ro on Rikyū’s bamboo jizai, using his bronze kan and tsuru.

¹⁰Tana ni kōgō ・ habōki [棚ニ 香合 ・ 羽帚].

    The habōki was a go-sun-hane [五寸羽], and the kōgō was probably Rikyū's ruri-suzume [瑠璃雀] -- his “ordinary” kōgō -- as shown below.

¹¹Su [ス].

    This word seems to be out of place.  It* is usually used by Rikyū to suggest additional utensils that were carried in by the host at the beginning of the temae (which, in this case, would have been the sumi-tori and haiki†).  That this notation is followed by the menu for the kaiseki suggests that the original document may have been damaged by the time that Jitsuzan inspected it -- or possibly Jitsuzan simply made a mistake when recopying the text into the notebook that would be presented to the Enkaku-ji. __________ *In fact, Rikyū seems to have actually intended the kanji mata [又] -- this is how the character is generally written in Tachibana Jitsuzan's original notes.  Precisely why Jitsuzan changed all instances to the katakana su [ス] cannot be explained -- other than, perhaps, that he wished to make the text seem more “mysterious” than it actually was.

†Though this exclusively utilitarian implement is never mentioned by him in his kaiki.

¹²Shiru saku-saku ・ ko-buki [汁 サク〰 ・ 小ブキ].

    This was miso-shiru.

    Saku-saku [さくさく] refers to assorted greens from the kitchen garden, coarsely chopped, and then added to the soup immediately before it was served (so the greens would still be crisp and crunchy).

    Ko-buki [小蕗] means the early leaves* of the Japanese butterbur† (Petasites japonicus) -- the availability of which means that spring really has arrived. __________ *It is the petioles (leaf-stems) of this plant that are eaten as a vegetable.

†Also known as burdock, coltsfoot, and sometimes simply as “fuki,” in English.  The petioles of the plant (which are the parts that are eaten) have a harsh (astringent) taste that is traditionally removed by rubbing the longitudinally halved leaf-stems with wood-ash or salt, after which they are blanched in boiling water, followed by a soak in cold water.  After this treatment, they are pealed (that is, the long fibers found on the outer side of the stems are removed by hand) and then sliced into appropriate lengths.

    The alkaloids found in fuki have been linked to cumulative liver damage, and are also carcinogenic.  Apparently these are removed (or reduced below the levels that can be detected) by the traditional method of preparation with wood ash.

¹³Mushi kabura [ムシカブラ].

    Kabura-mushi [蕪 蒸し] (to use the modern equivalent) means steamed turnip.

    Turnip root (usually from small -- that is, immature -- plants) is grated, and then strained (to remove the excess water).  This is mixed with beaten, salted egg-whites*, and steamed in individual bowls (used as molds) until set.  The kabura-mushi was then turned out into the larger (individual) bowl in which it would be served, and dashi was added to the bow.  The kabura-mushi was topped with a dab of wasabi just before being served. __________ *Sometimes things like small cubes of tōfu, the smaller varieties of seasonal mushrooms (such as shimeji [占地]), and even seafood like shrimp and kai-gashira, are arranged in the bowls before the egg-white and turnip mixture is poured in, after which they are steamed.  This results in these special additives “floating on a cloud” of kabura-mushi (as it has been described by one food editor).

    That said, Rikyū does not indicate that anything of the sort was done:  and, given the guests, simple mushi kabura would have been sufficient.

¹⁴Ae-mono tsukuzukushi ・ seri [アヘモノ ツク〲シ ・ せリ].

    Ae-mono [和え物] is a sort of salad.

    Here the ae-mono consisted of tsuku-zukushi [つくづくし = 土筆]* and seri [芹] (Japanese parsley or water celery, Oenanthe javanica), that had been cut into pieces about 1-sun in length.  Dressed with some sort of sauce†, the two would have been mixed together before being placed onto individual serving dishes. __________ *The pronunciation of the kanji is usually simplified to tsukushi [つくし = 土筆] today.  This is the edible field horsetail (Equisetum arvense), the fertile stems (which lack foliage) of which are used as a vegetable.

†Often based on soy sauce (or, in this period, iri-zake), or sometimes thinned-down miso.  But this is often augmented with various other ingredients, so it is not possible to state what sort of flavor it might have had on this particular occasion.

◎ Rikyū does not mention serving any kashi, perhaps because monks traditionally abjured such things (though, in fact, many of the things that Rikyū served as kashi -- especially during this period -- would not strike us as being any different from the things included on the menu as parts of the other courses).

    Perhaps the reason was because the monks had already taken their morning meal in the temple, and so -- at their request -- Rikyū decided to keep the food service as simple as possible.

¹⁵Go [後].

    In other words, the goza.

    The disposition of the objects in the room was as shown in the following sketch.

    Analyzing the arrangement in terms of kane-wari:

- the toko, which remained unchanged, held the kakemono, and so was han [半];

- the room had the kama in the ro, and the mizusashi (with the hishaku resting on top of it), with the chaire placed in front of it, and the chawan on the left side of the mat, and so was chō [調]*;

- while the Rinzai futaoki was displayed in the exact center of the tsuri-dana, this removed it from contact with the kane, making the tana chō [調] as well.

    Han + chō + chō is han, as is proper for the goza of a chakai held during the daytime. __________ *The kama is han, and the mizusashi is han (because both rest on one or more yang-kane).  The chaire, being placed in front of the mizusashi, is counted together with it; while the chawan, resting on the left side of the utensil mat, is chō (because it does not contact any of the yang-kane).  Han + han + chō gives a total of chō for the room.

¹⁶Toko sono mama [床其儘].

    In other words, the scroll remained hanging in the toko, and nothing else was added -- there was no chabana displayed during this gathering.

¹⁷Tana ni Rinzai futaoki [棚ニ 臨濟蓋置].

    This was the bronze name-seal that had been made for the great Chán monk Línjì Yìxuán [臨濟 義玄; ? ~ 866], on the orders of the Emperor of China.

    It had formerly been in the possession of the dōbō [同朋] Nōami [能阿弥; 1397 ~ 1471], who had established the precedent of using it as a futaoki.

    As in the kaiki for the previous gathering, Rikyū (according to the way Tachibana Jitsuzan formatted his version of the manuscript) has marked this entry with a red dot, indicating that the futaoki was one of the specially featured objects employed during this chakai.  Most certainly this was done for the benefit of the two monks, since Línjì‘s own name-seal (as something used by him and touched with his own hands) would have had great significance for them.

¹⁸Mizusashi Shigaraki, ue ni hishaku [水指 シカラキ、上ニヒシヤク].

    This was Rikyū's Shigaraki mizusashi.

    When the hishaku is placed on top of a mizusashi, the butt end of its handle indicates the exact location of the kane with which the chaire will be associated when it is moved onto the temae-za. (The chaire is moved from the left side of the handle to the right side -- albeit on the near side of the yū-yo [有余], and immediately to the right of the me indicated by the end of the handle -- when viewed from the host’s seat in the middle of the mat.  The handle of the hishaku usually extends to the near side of the yū-yo, though by how much is related to the diameter of the mizusashi.)

¹⁹Chaire kuro [茶入 黒].

    This was a chaire that had been made for Rikyū by Furuta Sōshitsu.

    Perhaps Rikyū had asked Oribe to make a chaire for him.

²⁰Chawan Nagatabi [茶碗 長旅].

    This chawan -- which has been lost -- is described (in the writings of other people who saw it) as being a “kuro” chawan.  However, it first appears in Rikyū's kaiki at a time before Chōjirō had started making his black bowls.  Therefore, Nagatabi must have been one of Oribe‘s hiki-dashi-kuro [引き出し黒] chawan*.

    The bowl show above is only representative of the type, since Nagatabi seems to have vanished around the time of Rikyū's seppuku (it may have been the bowl that, according to certain legends that have been passed down among chajin since that time, he broke† in the aftermath of his final chakai, on the morning of his death).

    And, though Rikyū does not mention this, the chakin, chasen, and chashaku (this last being an ori-tame [折撓], such as that shown above) would have been arranged in the chawan when it was displayed on the utensil mat. __________ *The fact that both the chaire and the chawan were made by Furuta Sōshitsu should be touched on briefly.  Oribe was, of course, very well known to all of those present (he had studied Zen with Kokei oshō, and knew Nambō Sōkei and Mizuochi Sōkei through chanoyu), and they would have all enjoyed seeing his pieces.  But more, using newly-made things removes these two (usually important) utensils from possibly drawing the guests’ attention away from Liǎo-ān Qīng-yù’s bokuseki and Línjì Yìxuán‘s bronze in-kan -- things which Rikyū wishes to show to the monks who were the shōkyaku and jikyaku.

     As black-glazed pieces, furthermore, there was nothing about them that would make either the chaire or the chawan stand out or catch the eye.  And, indeed, the entire tori-awase is composed of things that are as natural and unobtrusive as possible, thereby focusing the guests’ attention on the scroll and the futaoki.

†Because Hideyoshi, who is said to have suddenly appeared at his home to remonstrate with Rikyū (and try to extract an apology for his criticisms of his lord over the planned invasion of the continent, and for going against Hideyoshi’s orders with respect to the assassination of Tokugawa Ieyasu), had drunk usucha from it while they talked.

²¹Koboshi Bizen [コホシ 備前].

    This was probably the Bizen koboshi that was excavated at the site formerly occupied by the mizuya of the detached small room in Rikyu's Imaichi-machi residence*.  Apparently the koboshi was broken during the preparations for the move, and so was left behind*.

    After Rikyū moved to Mozuno, the site was occupied by a commercial warehouse (rather than being used for a new residence), which probably accounts for the unique degree of preservation seen in a number of other tea things that were excavated there. ___________ *In that period, new pieces were never repaired; and even antiques gave many of Rikyu’s contemporaries a bad feeling (as being ill-omened) if they were repaired and then used for chanoyu.

    The chawan now known as the Tsutsu-i-zutsu [筒井筒] being a good example of this attitude:  while Hideyoshi had the bowl repaired (with same-colored lacquer) after it was broken, so that it looked like it had not been broken, he never again drank tea from it, or used it when personally serving tea to others.