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iPhone 12 vs. Samsung Galaxy S20: Which phone wins?
By Mark Spoonauer 31 October 2020
The iPhone 12 and Galaxy S20 battle it out for the best phone title
The iPhone 12 is the shiny new phone on the block, but the Samsung Galaxy S20 is still very much a formidable rival, especially since a price drop has brought both of these phones under $800.
Apple's iPhone 12 brings a host of upgrades to the table, including a blazing A14 Bionic chip, 5G connectivity, improved cameras and a sleeker design with a tougher Ceramic Shield display. But don't count out the Galaxy S20.
iPhone 12 review: Our verdict is in
See our full Samsung Galaxy S20 review
Just in: Apple Event just confirmed for November 10
The Galaxy S20 has a lot of things going for it, including a more versatile camera system, a larger battery and a smooth 120Hz display. So which of these phones wins? Our iPhone 12 vs Galaxy S20 face-off will help you decide which device is the best phone for you.
iPhone 12 vs Galaxy S20: Specs compared
iPhone 12 iGalaxy S20
Price $799 $799
Display 6.1 inches OLED (2532 x 1170) 6.2 inches OLED (3200 x 1440) 120Hz
Colors Black, White, Red, Green and Blue Gray, Blue, Pink and White
CPU A14 Snapdragon 865
RAM 4GB 12GB
Storage 64GB, 128GB, 256GB 128GB
Rear camera 12MP wide (f/1.6), 12MP ultra-wide f/2.4) 12MP wide (f1.8), 12MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 64MP telephoto (f/2.0)
Zoom 5x digital 3x optical/30x digital
Front camera 12MP TrueDepth (f/2.2) 10MP (f/2.2)
Video 4K up to 60 fps (Dolby Vision) 8K up to 24 fps
5G sub-6Ghz, mmWave sub-6Ghz or mmWave (Verizon)
5G Battery life (Hrs:Mins) 8:25 9:31 (8:04 @ 120Hz)
Size 5.78 x 2.82 x 0.29 inches 5.9 x 3 x 0.31 inches
Weight 5.78 ounces 5.7 ounces
iPhone 12 vs Galaxy S20: Price and value
The iPhone 12 starts at $799 through carriers and $829 unlocked with 64GB of storage. You can upgrade to 128GB for $849 and 256GB for $949.
Samsung's Galaxy S20 has a list price of $999, but you'll often find it on sale at $799 through such retailers as Best Buy and Amazon. There's only one storage option of 128GB; all S20 models offer a microSD card slot except for Verizon.
Overall, the S20 has the edge on value provided you can find it on sale because you get double the storage for the same price. Check out our iPhone 12 deals and Galaxy S20 deals pages for the latest discounts.
Winner: Galaxy S20
iPhone 12 vs Galaxy S20: Design
The iPhone 12 brings a whole new look to this fight with its flat-edge design. The display is perfectly flat, too, unlike the Galaxy S20. Samsung's curved display can lead to accidental touches.
Another advantage for the iPhone 12 is its Ceramic Shield display, which promises 4x the drop performance compared to iPhone 11. Apple's handset has performed very well in iPhone 12 drop tests, so it seems to be living up to the hype.
The Galaxy S20 is a bit taller than the iPhone 12 and a bit lighter at 5.7 ounces vs 5.76 ounces for Apple's device.
The iPhone 12 has more color options. You can take your pick from black, white, red, green and blue, whereas the S20 is limited to gray, blue, pink and white. The only strike against the iPhone 12 is the prominent notch, which looks pretty big compared to the S20's front camera punch hole.
Winner: iPhone 12
iPhone 12 vs Galaxy S20: Display
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
The Galaxy S20 6.2-inch OLED display is more advanced than the iPhone 12's 6.1-inch panel, and that's because only Samsung's phone supports a 120Hz refresh rate. This enables smoother scrolling and animations, as well as more fluid gameplay in titles that support 120Hz.
The S20's screen has a resolution of 3200 x 1440, which is sharper than the 2532 x 1170 display on the iPhone 12. Samsung's panel also wins on brightness, as it was able to reach 857 nits in our testing, compared to 569 nits for the iPhone 12.
Samsung's display is also capable of producing more colors, as it registered 163% of the DCI-P3 color space, compared to 81% for the iPhone 12. However, the iPhone 12's colors proved more accurate, as it turned in a Delta-E score of 0.29 vs 0.37 for the Galaxy S20. In this case, a perfect score is zero.
iPhone 12 vs. Galaxy S20: Cameras
In terms of sheer versatility, the Galaxy S20 has the edge over the iPhone 12, as only Samsung's handset offers a telephoto zoom in addition to a wide and ultra-wide lens. However, the iPhone 12 simply took better looking photos overall in our side-by-side shots, making it one of the best camera phones overall.
In this photo of pumpkins, the iPhone 12 is able to capture more of them in the shadows, revealing more detail. The pumpkins are also sharper in the iPhone 12 shot, especially the white ones in the foreground. However, the straw looks a little more washed out on the iPhone than it does on the Galaxy S20.
I also snapped a close up of raspberries and blackberries, and the iPhone 12 delivered a lot more detail, right down to the nooks and crannies on each berry. The S20's shot looks out of focus by comparison.
While both the the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S20 offer a Night mode, I found the iPhone 12's Night mode to be faster in every instance. I also like that it turns on automatically; you don't have to hunt for the setting.
I took this shot between two trees with a street light in the background, and the Galaxy S20's coloring is too yellow, while the iPhone 12's looks more realistic. Both phones do a good job illuminating the scene, though.
The results in this portrait from the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S20 couldn't look more different, even though they were captured just seconds apart. I prefer the iPhone 12 shot in this case because it's brighter, which may be due to the cameras faster f/1.6 aperture. The S20's shot looks dreary by comparison.
In this case I slightly prefer the ultra-wide photo from the Galaxy S20 because the sky looks more blue. The iPhone 12 deserves credit for more accurately rendering the clouds in the sky but there's more of a yellow tinge to the image I find less pleasant.
This fountain photo is a good test of auto-focus, and the iPhone 12 is able to deliver more detail in the water as a result. You can also make out more gradations in the rock, while the S20 blurs things together.
Lastly, we compare the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S20 at 5x digital zoom, Unfortunately, this is the max zoom for the iPhone 12, while the S20 can go up to 30x. For this particular shot of mums and pumpkins, the iPhone 12 produces a brighter image, and I appreciate the shine on the pumpkins. But the S20's image is sharper, especially in the flowers.
iPhone 12 vs. Galaxy S20: Performance
This round is no contest, and that's because the iPhone 12's A14 Bionic chip is the fastest in any phone. The iPhone 12 benchmarks we've run tell the story, but here's the gist.
On Geekbench 5, which measures overall performance, the iPhone 12 hit 3,859 on the single-core test and 1,593 on the multi-core test. The Galaxy S20 mustered only 3,147 and 867, respectively.
We also ran a real-world video editing test, which involves transcoding a 4K video to 1080p. The iPhone 12 took just 26 seconds to complete the task, compared with 1 minute and 15 seconds for the S20.
The iPhone 12 also dominated on graphics performance, reaching 51 fps on the 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited test. The Galaxy S20 reached only 22 fps.
iPhone 12 vs. Galaxy S20: Battery life and charging
This is one round Samsung has locked down, as the Galaxy S20 offers longer battery life over 5G and faster charging out of the box. On our web surfing battery test, the Galaxy S20 lasted 9 hours and 31 minutes, compared to 8:25 for the iPhone 12. However, the S20 lasted a shorter 8:04 with the 120Hz display mode enabled.
Neither phone is good enough to make our best phone battery life list, as the longest-lasting handsets can go for 11 hours or more.
For environmental reasons, Apple doesn't include an iPhone 12 in the box. So if you want fast charging you'll have to spring for a $19 20W USB-C power adapter. If you want to go the MagSafe wireless charging route (which is 15W), that costs $39. The 20W charger brought the iPhone 12 to 57% in 30 minutes, while the MagSafe charger got to only 32%.
The 25W charger that comes with the Galaxy S20 got that phone to 53% in 30 minutes.
iPhone 12 vs. Galaxy S20: Overall winner
This iPhone 12 vs Galaxy S20 face-off is super close, and the iPhone 12 wins by just a single point. It really comes down to what you value most. The iPhone 12 offers a tougher display, faster performance and considerably better cameras.
iPhone 12 Galaxy S20
Value (20) 16 18
Design (10) 9 8
Display (15) 12 14
Cameras (20) 18 14
Performance (15) 15 12
Battery life and charging (20) 14 17
Overall score 84 83
The Samsung Galaxy S20 is a fantastic phone, however, especially now that you can get it for the same price or less than the iPhone 12 with double the storage of Apple's phone. The Galaxy S20 also wins on battery life and charging and its smoother 120Hz display.
I like the fact that the S20 offers a telephoto lens and better zoom, but the cameras on the iPhone 12 put Apple over the top here, as you simply get better image quality.
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This pack has the GeniEd, ModInstaller,ModEditor,DRSViewer,ResHacker,and I think some other stuff. This is for newbies like me. Hope it helps. If its missing something you may have to download it seprately.
Perfect! Just what I need to start building a modpack that will allow the creation of the Millenium Falcon in a single game. Good Job Dude! The Force is Strong with this one.
yeah yeah great...But how do you install it?
How can I use/open a RAR file? I first thought it was great already!
Ah ok I'll try downloading one thru Google.com so I can use that RAR File. I first thought my WinXP already has it!?
also, might wanna try '7zip' it unzips most different kinds of compacted files, and its absolutely free.
Thank you for sharing these files. But I'm on trouble.
One question- Can these files be available for Japanese version of SWGB? I have this one, which I've been playin it for years.
I extracted them and tried to installed one mod. a window showed me success. With my joy of being able to installing, I click the icon and ''start bar''.
Apprication or DLL C:\Program Files\LucasArts\StarWars Galactic Battlegrounds\Game\language_x1.dll is not correct windows image. Compare this file with the file of installing disc.
Is this error by rewriting the file?


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Pryor-Trusty- African-American Entertainment in Baltimore
Home / Pryor-Trusty- African-American Entertainment in Baltimore
African-American Entertainment in Baltimore captures the brilliance of the city's musical heritage from 1930 to 1980. This educational and entertaining volume invites readers to take a visual trip down memory lane to the days when Pennsylvania Avenue, the heart of the city's African-American community, vibrated with life. Celebrated within these pages are entertainers such as The Ink Spots, Sonny Til & the Orioles, Illinois Jacquet, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Sammy Davis Jr., Slappy White, Pearl Bailey, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald; The Avenue's hottest nightspots and theaters including the legendary Royal Theater, The Regent Theater, the Sphinx, and Club Casino; and the DJs and promoters who helped cultivate the city's musical talents.
2003, Rose Pryor-Trusty and Tonya Taliaferro, 128 pages, 200 images, paperback
African American History / Baltimore City / Music / Women's History /
African American Leaders of Maryland
Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth
Johns Hopkins University Press Musical Maryland
Musical Maryland

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


One of my biggest hopes after Jeremy Corbyn's leadership victory was that his election would enable a clearer view of the left/right political spectrum. Slavish adherence to free markets would no longer be the default mainstream ideology, the Conservatives' pretence of centrism would be debunked, and rafts of alternatives would finally be aired.
100 days later, to what extent has this occurred? Many of Corbyn's greatest challenges - a hostile media, opposition from within Labour - persist, but has he in some way re-awakened a sleeping giant of British socialism, presumed dead and buried since 1979?
While it was the House of Lords that ultimately blocked Cameron's tax credit cuts, Corbyn was instrumental in mobilising opposition, arguing against austerity with a vigour rarely seen from Labour prior to his election. However, something that penalised workers was never popular anyway and might still have floundered without Corbyn.
Likewise, success in the Oldham by-election wasn't a necessarily a victory for Corbyn himself. Having backed Liz Kendall for leader, Jim McMahon was hardly a typical Corbynite candidate, and it was positive work as a local councillor that truly cemented his win. Nevertheless, that voters felt confident electing a Labour MP with Corbyn at the helm speaks positively about shifting public perceptions of the party.
The vote on air strikes may seem a more straightforward loss. That said, it was far from a straightforward debate, and Corbyn was again crucial in providing a firm, rational face for pacifism just when it was beginning to become a dirty word. It wouldn't be presumptuous for him to claim some responsibility for ever-rising anti-war and anti-nuclear sentiments in Britain.
The Conservatives' illusion of centrism is fading, too. Cuts and inequality are under intensified scrutiny at PMQs, and their attacks on Corbyn (after the Tory Soundbite Factory deemed he would forever be referred to as a 'threat to national security') often appear desperate, unfounded and - in the case of Cameron's 'terrorist sympathisers' jibe - wildly ill-judged.
The world hasn't shifted on its axis quite yet. That doesn't mean, though, that the discussion and wider recognition of leftist values enabled by Corbyn's leadership have been without effect. The past 100 days give little solid indication of his future prospects, and it will take much longer than that to determine which way the British political winds are blowing. Labour supporters of all strands could find themselves bruised, elated, vindicated or humiliated. One thing's certain, though - they'll rarely be bored.
If Jeremy Corbyn and his shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have done nothing else, they have injected excitement into the dismal science of economics.
Since Labour decided to seek a return to power in the early 1990s under Tony Blair it realised that to win over voters, the motto should be "to beat the Tories, you need to join them".
Both parties embraced orthodox monetary policy, rejected hikes in income or corporation tax, approved of privatisation and foreswore direct government intervention in markets in favour of independent regulation.
On economics, at least it was hard to fit a Rizla paper between their manifestos.
However the Corbynistas have rejected that rush to conformity. Instead they have adopted policies that will put clear red water between them — assuming they are still in charge — and the Conservatives at the 2020 general election.
Corbyn is a fierce critic of the austerity adopted by George Osborne in the current and last parliament. He plans to balance the "current budget" that excludes investment but has not set a timetable. More importantly he would make tax rises rather than spending cuts to do the work.
With the tax arena, he would make the system more progressive, so the wealthiest pay a higher proportion of tax than they currently do. Here he is an agreement with Oxford Professor Sir Tony Atkinson. He also wants "modest" rises in business tax.
He would redirect quantitative easing away from helping banks by insisting the Bank of England buys bonds from a proposed National Investment Bank. And he wants to nationalise the railways, the utilities and the part state-owned banks.
Many of Corbyn's ideas have been enacted before and they only look radical compared with the last two decades. The big question is whether they are vote winners.
Political commentators have allowed a great lie to take root: that the polls got it wrong in May. While it was not the pollsters greatest moment, the fine print consistently showed that David Cameron was a more popular prime ministerial candidate, and Labour not trusted on the economy. That exit poll was not a shock.
As Jeremy Corbyn marks his first 100 days as leader his supporters will take comfort not only from a warm Question Time audience in Tory Bath, but also victory in the Oldham by-election. The latter certainly stopped the flow of blood from the mess surrounding the Syria vote. Yet the first by-election of the 1997-2001 parliament saw the Tories retain a safe seat with an increased vote share of a similar amount. They crowed but at the next election they gained one seat. The first three by-elections in the last parliament (all in comfortable Labour seats) saw Labour increase its vote by 10-14%. We know what happened next.
The sky has not fallen in but in contrast to 2010 Labour languishes in the polls. Comparisons with past leaders three months in do not look good either: he is viewed more favourable than Miliband by voters (17% to 25%), but already viewed more negatively. Even IDS and Michael Howard scored positively. Only Michael Foot had worse ratings. When voters see Corbyn they swing into the negative column. Just 17% trust him with national security. The only silver lining is that people think he will have a positive impact on politics.
Without credibility Corbyn cannot shift politics his way or hold this government to account. Based on past trends Labour's vote will decrease in 2020. History does not always repeat but no modern political leader has defied such a crushing first impression and none of his supporters can show how this will be turned around except by talking in vague generalities.
Then again, the polls might be wrong. Things might actually be worse for Labour. They were last time.


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By Rob Tenery, MD on October 4, 2019
President Trump's collusion with the Russians has been the cry of most Democrats in Washington before he even held office. That was until Mueller's Special Council report, costing over $30 million, concluded that he didn't. In fact, the report concluded that no one associated with the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians before or after his election. Additionally, the report did not feel there was enough evidence for Mueller's council to bring charges of obstruction of justice either. So, Mueller turned his report over to the Congress for further deliberation.
It is interesting that no mention was given in the report of possible collusion by the Democrat Party. How then did the Steele dossier come into existence? As it turns out, the Steele Dossier evolved out of opposition research by the Republicans, but was taken over and financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Since money changed hands to create the unverified document, there had to be substantial connections with the DNC and the Clinton Campaign for the specific purpose of hurting the chances of a Trump win.
By definition, this is collusion by Clinton and the DNC. Where was this mentioned in the report by Mueller? Wasn't obtaining this dossier collusion with, at the very least, a representative from England, and possibly others from Russia, the strict definition collusion? Wasn't this a juxtaposition, where the charges were raised by the Party that was the questionable culprit of collusion and not Donald Trump?
The most recent charges thrown at Trump is that he created an impeachable offence when he asked the President of the Ukraine to look into the involvement of Hunter Biden, son of former Vice-President and current candidate for president, Joe Biden into his son's involvement with the Ukrainian oil company. The quote of Trump's exact remarks released to the public are listed below.
"…The other thing. There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. So what ever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me."
The claimed reason for this uproar was by as yet to be named whistle blower who is a CIA agent working in the White House. Reportedly the whistle blower did not have first hand knowledge of Trump's phone call, but information pieced together from others with second and third hand knowledge of Trump's call.
The outcry by the Democrats in Washington for impeachment of Trump is that he has overstepped his authority by asking a foreign power to investigate the actions of a candidate for the presidency that is running against him. There are arguments that can be made for this charge, but there are also certain faults too.
First, there was no quid pro quo offered by Trump if the released letter by him is accurate. In most whistleblower cases, the informant gives only first-hand information, witnessed directly. Not so far in this allegation.
Does this recent salacious allegation have a familiar ring to the unsubstantiated charges by the Democrat representatives on the House Intelligence Committee about Christine Blasey Ford's unsubstantiated charges of sexual assault by Judge Brett Kavanaugh?
Compare this to Democrat legislator Adam Schiff from California who openly asked for any information from two unknown Russian informers claiming to have salacious information about Trump on a visit to Moscow that turned out to be false. Add to that his opening statement when he, as thechairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made up his own fictional version of a transcript between President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart to fit the false narrative being peddled by Democrats and many in the media to frame the president for a crime that never happened.
"Well it reads like a classic organized crime shake down. In essence, what the President Trump communicates is this: We've been very good to your country. Very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what, I don't see much reciprocity here. You know what I mean? I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you though. And I'm going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of dirt, on to this and on that. I'm going to put you in touch with people, and not just any people. I'm going to put you in touch with the Attorney General of the United States — my Attorney General, Bill Barr — he's got the whole weight of American law enforcement behind him. And I'm going to put you in touch with Rudy, you're going to love him. Trust me. You know what I'm asking, so I'm only going to say this a few more times, in a few more ways. And don't call me again. I'll call you when you've done what I asked," Schiff quoted.
Why does Adam Schiff get away with his flagrant plagiarism? Because we have two legal systems… one that makes judgments on Trump and his supporters and one that judges the Democrats differently, which seems to include the Clintons, Comey, Lynch, McCabe and on down this country's once most highly-respected agencies!
The Democrats may have worked themselves into two difficult dilemmas. Fight to impeach Trump in the House where they hold the majority, knowing that a trial in the Republican controlled Senate will not pass. Or drag these charges out until the election just over a year from now. Either way two possible results are likely to occur--- Trump wins a second term and Biden looses to another Democratic candidate, even before the election takes place next November.


If you read the usenet group rec.games.pinball or visit american pinball repair websites you've probably read about a 'tumbler' or 'vibrating polisher'. Here's a bit of explanation about them and my experience with it.
A tumbler or vibrating polisher is a machine to clean and polish metal parts. Both words are used, or used for the wrong type of machine.
- A tumbler is a closed round box that rotates. The box rolls around the whole time.
- A vibrating polisher is a bowl that sits on top of a vibrating block/motor. The parts don't roll around but vibrate up and down all the time.
Usually people say tumbler to both kinds of machines. It seems that the second type of machine is easier to find. Both types work as well.
Using a tumbler is easy: put the metal you want to polish in a box with tumbling media, switch it on, and let it rotate/vibrate for hours or days. The media rubs against the metal, removes dirt and polishes.
Everyone will already have a way to clean metal, using steel wool, or automated by using a brush on a drilling machine, but the advantage of a tumbler is the ease of use. Throw the parts in there and let it do the work. And it's very good on small and irregular shaped parts like screws, something which is very dangerous or time-consuming to do otherwise.
For large parts (metal ramps, ball guides) it's less suited as the bowl isn't always large enough, but for small parts a tumbler is ideal.
In Europe tumblers are available in better gun stores. Gun-owners use them to clean shells so they can reload them. In the USA they're easier to find and other versions like rock tumblers (for cleaning rocks) are also available.
On rec.games.pinball the Berry's tumbler is most widely known, especially because it only costs around $50 in the USA and is of good quality. In Belgium or the Netherlands this type is not available, I only found a dealer in Germany, and a friend in the UK also was able to buy them but needed to order a dozen at once.
Some people now also use a Dillon tumbler, as it has a much larger top so you can tumbler larger parts and more at once.
Gun stores in Belgium do sell Lyman tumblers. These are of excellent quality. Prices are (much) higher then in the USA, the cheapest I found (depending on the US$ was between 100 and 130 euro ($120 to $150). More expensive dealers even asked up to 170 euro !
I bought a Lyman Turbo Twin tumbler a the end of 2003. The engine base is the same for all Lyman models, only the bowl is different. The twin version comes with 2 bowls of a different size (but I've only used the larger one).
If you buy a tumbler, you also need the 'media' for it. I paid 10 euro for a small box (1 kg, just enough to fill the large bowl halfway), or 25 euro for a large box of 3 kilogram Lyman corn cob media.
The prices are just as an indication, they are different between stores and also depend on the US$ value, but at least you have an idea about costs in Belgium.
There are different kinds of media. Most used are corn cob and walnut shell, treated and untreated.
Walnut shell is very hard and good to clean metal, and can even remove scratches. It's however less suited to polish and is maybe too aggressive to use on 'soft' metal.
Lyman sells Tuffnut media. This is media to which 'rouge' has been added, which makes it even more aggressive against rust and corrosion. Disadvantage is that it leaves red dust. So only use it on heavy rusted parts, and tumble the parts later with corn cob to polish them.
Corn cob is more soft. It's suited for not too dirty metal and polishes very well.
The treated corn cob by Lyman is green. Don't buy untreated media in a gun store, as the price difference with treated media is small but it works not that good.
Normally treated corn cob is good enough to clean and polish all metal parts.
There are however people that only use walnut shell media and mix it with Novus 3 or even with sand. You just have to try some different mixtures, it depends on the media which you can buy easily/cheap, and if it's not good enough then you add something to it to make it better.
There are other places to buy media than gun shops.
In the USA corn cob and walnut is available in pet stores, where it's used to fill the bottom of bird cages. In Belgium I haven't found it yet, as people usually sell wood scraps for this.
The sand/beads which are used for sand blasting should work very well. If you have a local source for that, give it a try. Sandblasting media is very coarse so don't use it on parts you want to get a smooth polish, it's better suited to remove rust.
Plain uncooked rice is also a very good media that will last a good time. Especially suited if you have trouble finding expensive corncob media and are looking for a cheap alternative. You can add polishing agents to it such as brasso.
Even if you haven't seen or touched media, you probably have a good idea now what it is: small pieces, hard and dry.
As said above, using a tumbler is easy. Fill a bowl about three quarters with media, throw all your metal pieces in it, and switch the machine on. Let it run for hours/days and look once in a while to see the progress.
The most important part is to make sure there is enough media in the bowl. The parts should be covered completely and must have enough room to tumble (not just lay on the bottom and vibrate).
Don't mix different types of metal (flat parts, round parts, pointy things). Ie don't mix pinballs with screws, as the screws will make more scratches on the balls.
Because the media is very dry, it's best to add something to it. You can use liquid car polish, chrome polish or Novus. The media will last longer and it'll put a protective film on the metal.
A friend of mine tried tumbling very rusted pinballs. They looked as new, but a day later started to show rust again. He tumbled then again but added some car wax, and since then the pinballs look good and didn't rust.
A tip if the media starts to become dirty (grey dust): let it run with some pieces of kitchen paper in the media. The paper will absorb a part of the dust. I even went through the media with a magnet, as it attracts metal particles.
How long something needs to be tumbled, depends on how hard the metal is. Soft metal like bronze or copper (light bulbs, coins) are done after a few hours already. Very hard parts (leg bolts or pinballs) need multiple days.
If you remove the metal parts from the tumbler it's best to clean it with a soft cloth to remove the dust.
Tumblers are designed to be filled with (lightweight) brass shells. Do not overfill your tumbler so it is loaded too heavy ! It is better to split up parts and run multibple batches if they contain heavy parts.
- Safecracker tokens: 2 hours in the tumbler and they looked as new. The difference was unbelievable !
- pinballs : these also give good results. Even old balls with small spots of rust you can get as new.
Take care: only re-use old balls if they don't have any scratches, because that will damage your playfield ! Only polish rusted balls if they have small spots of surface rust.
New pinballs can be polished also for an increased mirror look. That's how the 'Mirror Glazed' pinballs are that shiny btw - they are already high quality steel balls that are extra tumbled.
Does your Twilight Zone have a grey powerball ? Tumble it and it'll become bright white again.
- screws: small screws don't have many flat pieces so it's difficult to polish. But you get them clean. The media sometimes gets stuck between the thread so take care when you clean them.
On large screws which hold plastic posts, and metal posts you get good results. But as they're of strong metal they need enough time.
- Light bulbs: #44 bulbs out of old machines usually have corrosion but still work fine. One night in a tumbler and they look as new. And no, the vibration doesn't destroy them. Maybe a few won't light anymore, but those were weak anyway and would have burnt soon. So no need anymore to throw away light bulbs because they have bad contacts.
- Leg bolts: these are made of very strong metal, you need to tumble them for many days. You will not get them as new (unless maybe you tumble first a long time with Tuffnut) but the head will be a bit more shiny.
- Plunger assembly. Gives very good results. Bally pinball machines of the 70ies and 80ies have a small piece of metal with the Bally logo on it. You get this as new. The plunger itself and spring also btw.
These are only a few examples of what I have tried. A tumbler will be invaluable when you're restoring a pinball machine which was in a slightly moist environment. All metal parts will then be corroded. Using a tumbler you can really get every metal part clean and look as new (even coin brackets, light sockets..), without spending many hours doing the work manually.
I've tested a Lymann turbo twin and a Berrys tumbler. It's difficult to say which one I like better. The Berry tumbler has a bigger bowl, so it's suited for larger parts (like small ramps).
But the shape of the Lyman bowl is much better in my opinion. While the media in the Berry tumbler just vibrates up and down, the curved shape of the Lyman bowl makes the media rotate also from the center to the outside. That seems more effective so it'll clean faster.
If you tumbler large metal parts, make sure you fill the bowl with enough media. The parts should be covered completely so they can move around freely in the bowl and the media move over it. If there is not enough media the parts will stay stationary and not a lot will happen. Tumbling is only effective when the media moves around.
A tumbler is a great machine to clean and polish metal parts. Once you have one, you'll clean more and more things with it.
If you only have 1 or 2 dot matrix pinball machines in good condition, then you don't need to invest in a tumbler. It'll be cheaper to buy new light bulbs and pinballs, and clean other parts by hand.
It only gets interesting when you often shop a machine and want to save a lot of time on manual work.
Or if you will do a complete restoration and will only be happy if every part is clean and looks as new. Then a tumbler will be invaluable.


Choosing the correct goal for your special first night is something you have to consider precisely all things considered a glad event needs a stupendous finale. The Caribbean has numerous wonderful islands that can offer you a definitive in special night decisions and make recollections that will last an existence time. These great special first night goals were chosen on account of their sentimental interest, shorelines, attractions, and wide scopes of conventional alternatives.
Genuinely a goal of enjoyment. It flaunts clearing shorelines, shocking cascades and a determination of inns, hotels and visitor houses that can oblige any financial plan. From the west drift in Negril and Montego Bay toward the north shore of Ocho Rios, regardless of what your pleasure, a special night decision in any of these areas will give you an assortment of choices. From rest and unwinding to scuba jumping, stream skiing, and parasailing to the unlimited hints of reggae music. Amid your stay on the island bear in mind to watch a lovely dusk at Ricks Café in Negril, climb the popular Dunns River Falls in Ocho Rios and visit Rose Hall in Montego Bay.
An exceptionally rich island which offers sentiment with style. An exceptional place will dependably be held in your heart once you wedding trip here. Invest energy at the numerous shorelines, mineral showers, estates or visit a rain woods. Your sentimental lodging determinations differ and incorporate the famous Anse Chastanet which gloat dazzling perspectives of the Piton mountains, the Body Holiday at Le Sport with its wellbeing spa and any of the wonderful Sandals resorts. How about we did not overlook Almond Morgan Bay, in spite of the fact that this is a family resort, it offers the vast majority of the enhancements of a grown-up just resort with a family style pizazz.
A regularly developing city rich with agreeable individuals and magnificence. Albeit little in size this superb area makes even the most untraveled visitor invited. Nassau enables honeymooners to do as much as they need or nothing by any stretch of the imagination. Who can prevent the magnificence from claiming link shoreline and its club's or the energetic trading at the Bahamian straw market nearby? Even better, grasp the fun that anticipates you on Paradise Island. On the off chance that you don't get the chance to remain at the astonishing Atlantis Resort, that is fine since you can take an evening and visit this uber resort which is a fascination in itself.
Regardless of whether you dare to the French or the Dutch side of this Caribbean island, you will encounter incredible sustenance, shopping, and lovely nightfalls. While the Dutch side is more popularized and has a bustling voyage port, it offers delightful inn decisions, awesome obligation free choices and water sports proliferate. The French side offers segregated shorelines with an all the more unwinding and upscale style in housing and eating choices. The special reward to this island is that you can utilize it as a bounce off point to the adjacent island of Anguilla which is just a 20-minute ship ride away.
What's not to adore about delightful Barbados. The west drift side of the island offers a determination of quiet clear shorelines and facilities that range from economical visitor houses to rich lodgings that give extravagance and solace. This island isn't known for its comprehensive in bundles, as Barbados needs you to encounter the rich joys of the islands fine feasting eateries at your recreation. Take the time while honeymooning to appreciate the energizing nightlife in the St. Lawrence Gap zone, visit Harrisons Cave or play golf at one of the islands superb greens.
A well-known decision for honeymooners, it is known for its astonishing white sand shorelines, palm trees and a wide cluster of delightful comprehensive resorts. With an all year normal temperature of 82 degrees F, this goal makes getting a charge out of the sun, sand, and ocean an impeccable joy. Honeymooners ought not to neglect to take a sentimental horseback ride along the shoreline or take an interest in the bounty of water sports accessible at general resorts.


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Aberdeen-area firefighters kept hopping by three blazes
Calvin Men
calvinmen@aberdeennews.com
Area firefighters were kept hopping Monday evening after two grass fires and a car fire were reported.
The first fire was reported at a dropsite for the Brown County Landfill near the intersection of 387th Avenue and Fairgrounds Road shortly after 4 p.m., said J.R. Huebner, a battalion chief for Aberdeen Fire and Rescue.
A large pile of grass was on fire at the dropsite, and several fire department vehicles were dispatched to battle it.
"It was a relatively large fire based on the amount of material that it had to burn, but it was contained, so it wasn't going anywhere," Huebner said.
Firefighters were on scene until 7 p.m., he said. The cause of the fire was unknown and nobody was injured, Huebner said.
Other agencies that responded were Aberdeen Rural Fire Department and the Brown County Sheriff's Office.
While that fire burned, another grass fire was reported shortly after 5 p.m. near the intersection of 115th Street and 376th Avenue.
Firefighters from Aberdeen Rural and Frederick Fire Department responded to the call.
Some people on the road saw a small fire and stomped it out, as well as dumped water on it, said Rick Adema, a volunteer with the Frederick Fire Department.
Crews spent more than 10 minutes driving around trying to find the reported fire, Adema said.
"When we get a call like that, we cover a pretty big area to make sure we're not missing something," he said. "You have to because too many people with cellphones don't know exactly where they are."
Nobody was injured in the second blaze, he said.
Shortly after 7 p.m., a vehicle fire was reported at Central High School, he said. The fire was caused by a fuel line in the engine compartment that was cracked, Huebner said.
The vehicle's owner was able to put it out with fire extinguishers before Aberdeen Fire and Rescue firefighters arrived on the scene.


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NC Contact GitHub with NOAH Connect!
GitHub is the developer platform. We make it easier for developers to work together, to solve challenging problems, and to create the world's most important technologies. We foster a collaborative community that can come together - as an individual and in teams - to create the future of software and make a difference in the world. The GitHub Platform is where developers can create, share, and ship the best code possible. Our community is made up of students, hobbyists, consultants, enterprise professionals, partners and executives, building software in the way that works best for them. GitHub is much more than code. It is the home of open source collaboration. It is where new developers get started and where experienced developers expand their knowledge. It is a community where developers come together to solve the unsolvable and test the limits of what software can do.
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Parameter growth = Performance Growth: The researchers note that the winner of the 2014 ImageNet competition had 4 million parameters in its model, while the winner of the 2017 challenge had 145.8 million parameters – a 36X increase in three years. GPipe, by comparison, can support models of up to almost 2-billion parameters across 8 accelerators.
Pipeline parallelism via GPipe: GPipe is a distributed ML library that uses synchronous mini-batch gradient descent for training. It is designed to spread workloads across heterogeneous hardware systems (multiple types of chips) and comes with a bunch of inbuilt features which let it efficiently scale up model training, with the researchers reporting a (very rare) near-linear speedup: "with 4 times more accelerators we can achieve a 3.5 times speedup for training giant neural networks [with GPipe]" they write.
Results: To test out how effective GPipe is the researchers trained ResNet and AmoebaNet (previous ImageNet SOTA) networks on it, running the experiments on TPU-V2s, each of which has 8 accelerator cores and an aggregate memory of 64GB. Using this technique they were able to train a new ImageNet system with a state-of-the-art Top-1 Accuracy of 84.3% (up from 82.7 percent), and a Top-5 Accuracy of 97 percent.
Why it matters: "Our work validates the hypothesis that bigger models and more computation would lead to higher model quality," write the researchers. This trend of research bifurcating into large-compute and small-compute domains has significant ramifications for the ability for smaller entities (for instance, startups) to effectively compete with organizations with access to large computational infrastructure (eg, Google). A more troubling effect with long-term negative consequences is that at these compute scales it is almost impossible for academia to do research at the same scale as corporate research entities. I continue to worry that this will lead to a splitting of the AI research community and potentially the creation of the sort of factionalism and 'us vs them' attitude seen elsewhere in contemporary life.
Companies will seek to ameliorate this inequality of compute by releasing the artifacts of compute (eg, pre-trained models). Though this will go some way to empowering researchers it will fail to deal with the underlying problems which are systemic and likely require a policy solution (aka, more money for academia, and so on).
Read more: GPipe: Efficient Training of Giant Neural Networks using Pipeline Parallelism (Arxiv).
A recent trend in AI research has been work showing that deep learning-based techniques can outperform hand-crafted rule-based systems in domains as varied as image recognition, speech recognition, and even the design of neural network architectures. Now, researchers with CalTech, Northeastern University, and the University of California at Irvine, have shown that it is possible to use neural networks to learn how to land quadcopters with a greater accuracy than a PD (proportional derivative) controller.
Why it matters: Systems like this show not only the broad utility of AI systems for diverse tasks, but also highlight how researchers are beginning to think about meshing these learnable modules into products. It's likely of interest that one of the sponsors of this research was defense contractor Raytheon (though as with the vast majority of academic research it's almost certain Raytheon did not have any particular role or input into this research, but rather has decided to broadly fund research into drone autonomy – nonetheless, this indicates the direction where major defense contractors think the future lies).
Read more: Neural Lander: Stable Drone Landing Control using Learned Dynamics (Arxiv).
Watch videos of the Neural Lander in action (YouTube).
Nate Soares, the executive director of AI research group MIRI, says the organization "recently decided to make most of its research 'nondisclosed-by-default', by which we mean that going forward, most results discovered within MIRI will remain internal-only unless there is an explicit decision to release those results".
MIRI is doing this because it thinks it can increase the pace of its research if it focuses on making research progress "rather than on exposition, and if we aren't feeling pressure to justify our intuitions to wide audiences, and that it is worried that some of its new research paths could have "capabilities insights" which thereby speed the arrival of (in its view, unsafe-by-default) AGI. It also sees some merit to deliberate isolation, based on an observation that "historically, early-stage scientific work has often been done by people who were solitary or geographically isolated".
Why going quiet could be dangerous: MIRI acknowledges some of the potential risks of this approach, noting that it may make it more difficult for it to hire and evaluate researchers; makes it harder to get useful feedback on its ideas from other people around the world; increases the difficulty of it obtaining funding; and leading to various "social costs and logistical overhead" from keeping research private.
"Many of us are somewhat alarmed by the speed of recent machine learning progress", Soares writes. That's combined with the fact MIRI believes it is highly likely people will successfully develop artificial general intelligence at some point with or without safety. "Humanity doesn't need coherent versions of [AI safety/alignment] concepts to hill-climb its way to AGI," Soares writes. "Evolution hill-climbed that distance, and evolution had no model of what it was doing".
Money: MIRI benefited from the cryptocurrency boom in 2017, receiving millions of dollars in donations from people who had made money on the spike in Ethereum. It has subsequently gained further funding, so – having surpassed many of its initial fundraising goals – is able to plan for the long term.
Secrecy is not so crazy: Many AI researchers are privately contemplating when and if certain bits of research should be taken private. This is driven by a combination of near-term concerns (AI's dual use nature means people can easily repurpose an innovation made for one purpose to do something else), and longer-term worries around the potential development of powerful and unsafe systems. In OpenAI's Charter, published in April this year, the company said "we expect that safety and security concerns will reduce our traditional publishing in the future, while increasing the importance of sharing safety, policy, and standards research".
Read more: 2018 Update: Our New Research Directions (MIRI).
Read more: OpenAI Charter (OpenAI Blog).
Team Samsung SDS AI and Data Analytics (SAIDA) has won the annual StarCraft: Brood War tournament using a bot based on hand written rules, beating out bots from other teams including Facebook, Stanford University, and Locutus. The win is significant for a couple of reasons: 1) the bot's have massively improved compared to the previous year and 2) a bot from Facebook (CherryPi) came relatively close to dethroning the hand-written SAIDA bot.
Why StarCraft matters: StarCraft is a complex, partially observable strategy game that involves a combination of long-term strategic decisions oriented around building an economy, traversing a tech free, and building an army, and short-term decisions related to the micromanagement of specific units. Many AI researchers are using StarCraft (and its successor, StarCraft II) as a testbed for machine learning-based game playing systems.
Read more here: AIIDE StarCraft Competition results page (AIIDE Conference).
Researchers with Facebook AI Research have given details on some of the innards of their "CherryPi" bot, which recently competed and came second in the annual StarCraft competition, held at AIIDE in Canada. Here, they focus on the challenge of teaching their robots to figure out what build orders (out of a potential set of 25) their bots should pursue at any one point in time. This is challenging because StarCraft is partially observable – that is, the map has fog-of-war, and until the late stages of a game it's unlikely any single player is going to have a good sense of what is going on with other players, so figuring out the correct unit selection relies on a player being able to model this unknowable aspect of the game, and judge appropriate actions. "While it is possible to tackle hidden state estimation separately and to provide a model with these estimates, we instead opt to perform estimation as an auxiliary prediction task alongside the default training objective," they write.
Method: The specific way the researchers get their system to work is by using an LSTM with 2048 cells (the same component was used by OpenAI in its 'OpenAI Five' Dota 2 system), training this using a series of Facebook-assembled 2.8 million games containing 3.3 million switches between build orders. They evaluate two variants of this system: visible, which counts units currently visible, and memory which uses hard-coded rules to keep track of enemy units that were seen before but are currently hidden.
Results: The researchers show that memory-based systems which perform hidden state estimation as an auxiliary task obtain superior scores to visible systems, and systems trained without the auxiliary loss. These systems are able to obtain win rates of as high as 88% against inbuilt bots, and 60% to 70% against Locutus and McRave bots (the #5 and #8 ranked bots @ the AIIDE competition this year).
Why it matters: If we zoom out from StarCraft and consider the problem domain it represents (partially observable environments where a player needs to make strategic decisions without full information) it's clear that the growing applicability of learning approaches will have impacts on competitive scenarios in fields like logistics, supply chain management, and war. But these techniques still require an overwhelmingly large amount of data to be viable, suggesting that if people don't have access to a simulator it's going to be difficult to apply such systems.
Read more: High-Level Strategy Selection under Partial Observability in StarCraft: Brood War (Arxiv).
Facebook has also released TorchCraftAI, the platform it has used to develop CherryPi. TorchCraftAI includes "a modular framework for building StarCraft agents, where modules can be hacked with, replaced by other, or by ML/RL-trained models", as well as tutorials, CherryPi, and support for TCP communication.
Read more: Hello, Github (TorchCraftAI site).
Get the code: TorchCraftAI (GitHub).
Researchers with IIIT-Delhi, IBM TJ Watson Research Center, and the University of Maryland have created a large-scale dataset, Disguised Faces in the Wild (DFW), which they say can potentially be used to train AI systems to identify people attempting to disguise themselves as someone else.
DFW: The DFW dataset contains 11,157 pictures across 1,000 distinct human subjects. Each human subject is paired with pictures of them, as well as pictures of them in disguise, and pictures of impersonators (people that either intentionally or unintentionally bear a visual similarity to the subject). DFW is also pre-split into subsets split across 'easy', 'medium', and 'hard' difficulty, with the segmenting being done according to the success rate of three baseline algorithms at correctly identifying the right faces.
Can a neural network identify a disguised face in the wild? The researchers hosted a competition at CVPR 2018 to see which team could devise the best system to sort images of people into the person or an imposter. They evaluate systems on two metrics: their Genuine Acceptance Rate at 1% False Acceptance Rate (FAR), and the far harder 0.1% FAR. Top-scoring systems obtain scores of as high as 96.80% at 1% FAR and 57.64% at 0.1% FAR on the relatively easy task of telling true faces from impersonated faces; scores of 87.82% at 1% FAR and 77.06% at 0.1% FAR at the more challenging task of dealing with deliberately obfuscated faces.
Why it matters: I view this research as a kind of prototype showing the potential efficacy of deep learning algorithms at spotting people in disguise, but I'd want to see an analysis of algorithmic performance on a significantly larger dataset with greater real world characteristics – for instance, one involving tens of thousands of distinct humans in a variety of different lighting and environmental conditions, ideally captured via the sorts of CCTV cameras deployed in public spaces (given that this is where this sort of research is heading). Papers like this provide further evidence of the ways in which surveillance can be scaled up and automated via the use of deep learning approaches.
Read more: Recognizing Disguised Faces in the Wild (Arxiv).
Get the data: The DFW dataset is available from the project website, though it requires people to sign a license and request a password to access the dataset. Get the data here (Image Analysis and Biometrics Lab @ IIIT Delhi).
The US Department of Commerce has released plans for potential new, strengthened export controls on emerging technologies. Earlier this year, Congress authorized the Department to establish new measures amidst concerns that US export controls were increasingly dated. The proposal would broaden the scope of the existing oversight to include AI and related hardware, as well as technologies related to robotics, biotech and quantum computing. The Department hopes to determine how to implement such controls without negatively impacting US competitiveness. They will be soliciting feedback on the proposals for the next 3 weeks.
Why it matters: This is yet more evidence of growing AI nationalism, as governments realize the importance of retaining control over advanced technologies. Equally, this can be seen as adapting long-standing measures to a new technological landscape. The effects on US tech firms, and international competition in AI, will likely only become clear once such measures, if they pass, start being enforced.
Why it could be challenging: A lot of AI capabilities are embodied in software rather than hardware, making the technology significantly harder to apply controls to.
Read more: Review of Controls for Certain Emerging Technologies (Federal Register).
The UK government has released its response to the public consultation on the new Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. The Centre was announced last year as part of the UK's AI strategy, and will be an independent body, advising government and regulators on how to "maximise the benefits of data and AI" for the UK. The document broadly reaffirms the Centre's goals of identifying gaps in existing regulation in the UK, and playing a leading role in international conversations on the ethics of these new technologies. The Centre will release their first strategy document in spring 2019.
Why it matters: The UK is positioning itself as a leader in the ethics of AI, and has a first-mover advantage in establishing this sort of body. The split focus between ethics and 'innovation' is odd, particularly given that the UK has established the Office for AI to oversee the UK's industrial strategy in AI. Hopefully, the Centre can nonetheless be a valuable contributor to the international conversation on the ethics and governance of AI.
Read more: Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation: Response to Consultation.
I've been promoted to Director of Policy for OpenAI. In this role I'll be working with our various researchers to translate work at OpenAI into policy activities in a range of forums, both public and private. My essential goal is to ensure that OpenAI can achieve its mission of ensuring that powerful and highly capable AI systems benefit all of humanity.
The new weather isn't hot or cold or dry; the new weather is about money suddenly appearing and disappearing, spilling into our world from the AI financial markets.
It seemed like a good idea at the time: why not give the robots somewhere to trade with eachother? By this point the AI-driven corporations were inventing products too rapidly for them to have their value reflected in the financial markets – they were just too fast, and the effects too weird; robot-driven corporate finance departments started placing incredibly complex multi-layered long/short contracts onto their corporate rivals, all predicated on AI-driven analysis of the new products, and so the companies found a new weapon to use to push eachother around: speculative trading about eachother's futures.
So our solution was the "Fast Low-Assessment Speculative Corporate Futures Market" (FLASCFM) – what everyone calls the SpecMark – here, the machines can trade against eachother via specially designated subsidiaries. Most of the products these subsidiaries make are virtual – they merely develop the product, put out a specification into the market, and then judge the success of the product on the actions of the other corporate robo-traders in the market. Very few products are made as a consequence, with instead the companies getting better and better at iterating through ideas more and more rapidly, forcing their competitors to invest more and more in the compute resources needed to model their competitors in the market.
In this way, a kind of calm reigns. The vast cognitive reservoirs of the AI corporations are mostly allocated into the SpecMark. We think they enjoy this market, insofar as the robots can enjoy anything, because of its velocity combined with its pressure for novelty.
But every so often a product does make it all the way through: it survives the market and rises to the top of the vast multi-dimensional game of rock-paper-scissors-n-permutations being played by the corporate robotraders. And then the factories swing into gear, automatic marketing campaigns are launched, and that's how we humans end up with the new things, the impossible things.
Weather now isn't hot or cold or dry; weather now is a product: a cutlery set which melts at the exact moment you've finished your meal (no cleanup required – let those dishes just fade away!); a software package that lurks on your phone and listens to all the music you listen to then comes up with a perfect custom song for you; a drone that can be taught like a young dog to play fetch and follow basic orders; a set of headphones where if you wear them you can learn to hear anxiety in the tones of other people's voices, making you a better negotiator.
We don't know what hurricanes look like this with new weather. Yet.
Things that inspired this story: High-Frequency Trading; Flash Crash; GAN-generated products; reputational markets.


We are proud to show some of the completed dog houses that have been sent in by customers who have completed their dog houses using our Dog House Plans. Each person has put their own finishing touches on their dog house. We hope you enjoying seeing their dog houses with their beautiful dogs.
If you have purchased our Dog House Plans, and have completed building your dog house, please feel free to email us a picture of your dog house, with your dog or dogs, and we will be happy to post it here. Please provide your dog's name and the state, province, or country where you are located.


Create Engineering Change Order (ECO) Flow Fails With ERROR: "The TEMPLATE_ID or TEMPLATE_NAME specified is not a valid template."
The TEMPLATE_ID or TEMPLATE_NAME specified is not a valid template.
1. Create a New item in Agile, Assign Part Type in Agile.


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Petition for Writ of Mandate
"Continuing Violation" Theory Saves Employee's Sexual Harassment Claim
Proskauer - California Employment Law on 9/29/2020
Blue Fountain Pools & Spas Inc. v. Superior Court, 2020 WL 4581664 (Cal. Ct. App. 2020) - Daisy Arias alleged she suffered sustained, egregious sexual harassment for most of the time she was employed by Blue Fountain,...more
In California the Housing Crisis Yields to Luxury Spas
A recent court of appeal opinion out of San Diego demonstrates how the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA") has once again been used to impede housing development—this time to the benefit of a high-end luxury spa. ...more
Next Up for the Oakland A's new stadium plan: another lawsuit
Downey Brand LLP on 9/4/2020
While some have been enjoying the return of baseball, albeit without fans in the stands, the Oakland A's are moving forward with their game plan for a new stadium in the Port of Oakland. However, relations with their...more
COVID-19 Update: Courts Rule Limitations on Evictions Not a Taking
Nossaman LLP on 8/10/2020
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic a number of local jurisdictions throughout the country adopted ordinances freezing rents and prohibiting or limiting evictions. Not surprisingly, some landlords were not particularly...more
California Court Of Appeal Denies Oracle's Petition For A Writ Of Mandate Or A Writ Of Prohibition To Reverse Class Certification...
Seyfarth Shaw LLP on 6/5/2020
Seyfarth Synopsis: On April 30, 2020, the California Superior Court granted class certification against Oracle America Inc., allowing former employees to represent a class of over 4,100 women for claims of alleged...more
Fifth Appellate District Invalidates Kern County Oil and Gas Ordinance
Downey Brand LLP on 3/13/2020
On Tuesday, February 25, 2020, the Fifth Appellate District invalidated Kern County's 2015 Oil and Gas Ordinance (the "Ordinance"), which was intended to streamline the permitting process for a variety of oil and gas...more
Appellate Court Holds Charter Cities Are Bound By State Housing Objectives, Signaling Erosion of Local Discretion
In Anderson v. City of San Jose (2019), the Sixth District Court of Appeal held that California's charter cities must comply with the Surplus Land Act (Govt. Code § 54220 et seq.). This decision, essentially, ruled that the...more
Court May Order City to Remedy Inconsistencies in its General Plan Created by Initiative
Perkins Coie on 1/10/2020
A court could properly direct a city council to correct internal inconsistencies in its general plan resulting from adoption of an initiative. Denham, LLC v. City of Richmond, 41 Cal. App. 5th 340 (2019). The Richmond City...more
Conditions for Coastal Development Approvals Must Be Reasonably Tailored to Accomplish Their Intended Purpose
Perkins Coie on 1/2/2020
The Fourth District Court of Appeal held that that while most of the California Coastal Commission's conditions for construction of a home on an oceanfront lot were reasonable, a requirement that the home be removed from the...more
Key California Employment Law Cases: November 2019
Payne & Fears on 12/21/2019
Carroll v. City & Cnty. of S.F., 41 Cal. App. 5th 805, 254 Cal. Rptr. 3d 519 (2019) - Summary: Each alleged reduction of monthly disability retirement benefit payments for discriminatory reasons was continuing violation...more
Key California Employment Law Cases: September 2019
ZB, N.A. v. Super Ct. of San Diego Cty., 8 Cal. 5th 175, 252 Cal. Rptr. 3d 228 (2019) - Summary: Employee may not recover unpaid wages under Labor Code section 558 through PAGA. Facts: Plaintiff Lawson worked for...more
Fall Season Results in California Coastal Commission Victories
Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP on 11/15/2019
This Fall, the California Coastal Commission ("Commission") was handed down two significant victories, further cementing its authority and jurisdiction within California coastal zones. These cases demonstrate that, in certain...more
California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act: Environmental Organizations Challenge Water District's Involvement with Dam Expansion and...
Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard,... on 5/20/2019
The Sierra Club and other organizations (collectively "Sierra club") filed in California Superior Court a May 13th "Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief and Verified Petition for Writ of Mandate" ("Complaint")...more
Joint Powers Authority Comprised of Irrigation Districts and the City and County of San Francisco Challenge Recently Adopted State...
On May 1, 2019, a group of California agencies and municipalities filed a petition for writ of mandate and complaint for mandatory relief challenging the State Wetlands Definition and Procedures for Discharges of Dredge and...more
EIR for Downtown San Francisco Mixed-Use Project Upheld Under Supreme Court's Newly Articulated Standard of Review
Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP on 5/7/2019
The belatedly published South of Market Community Action Network v. City and County of San Francisco (2019) ___ Cal.App.5th ___ ("South of Market"), is the first published decision in which the court applies the principles...more
First District Rejects "Location Exception" for Project in Earthquake Fault and Landslide Areas and Affirms Class 3 Exemption for...
In Berkeley Hills Watershed Coalition v. City of Berkeley (2019) 31 Cal.App.5th 880 [certified for partial publication], the Court of the Appeal for the First District affirmed that the construction of three new single-family...more
A Resolution to Dissolve a Fire District is Not Subject to Referendum
The court of appeal held that a fire district's resolution to dissolve the district was not a legislative act subject to voter referendum. Southcott v. Julian-Cuyamaca Fire Protection District, No. D074324 (4th Dist., Mar. 7,...more
California Supreme Court Clarifies Standards for Judicial Review and Air Quality Analyses
Latham & Watkins LLP on 3/7/2019
The Sierra Club decision affects both the preparation of EIRs and judicial review of agency decisions certifying EIRs. Key Points: ..An environmental impact report's (EIR) discussion of potential environmental impacts...more
Federal Court Blocks Shareholder Inspection Of Delaware Corporation's Records Pursuant To California Statute
Allen Matkins on 2/12/2019
United States District Court Judge Haywood S. Stirling, Jr. yesterday blocked a stockholder's attempt to use California's shareholder inspection statute to gain access to a corporation's "books and records and minutes of...more
California Court of Appeal Agrees Two Activities Constitute One CEQA Project
Latham & Watkins LLP on 1/17/2019
CEQA Case Report: Understanding the Judicial Landscape for Development - In a published decision issued June 12, 2018, County of Ventura v. City of Moorpark, Case No. B282466, the California Court of Appeal rejected part...more
Petitioner's Unreasonable Delay in Preparing the Record in a CEQA Case Justifies Award of Costs to Agency
Where a petitioner in a CEQA case has elected to prepare the administrative record but unreasonably delays such preparation, the defendant agency may be awarded costs for preparing the record. LandWatch San Luis Obispo Co....more
California Appeals Court: Which Conflicting Limitations Period Applies to CEQA Claim
Latham & Watkins LLP on 12/21/2018
CEQA Case Report: Understanding the Judicial Landscape for Development - In a published opinion issued on October 23, 2018, Save Lafayette Trees v. City of Lafayette, Case No. A154168, the California Court of Appeal...more
UPDATE: LCFS Standards for Diesel and Diesel Substitutes to Revert to Schedule Specified in LCFS Regulation January 1, 2019
California Air Resources Board lifts freeze on Low Carbon Fuel Standard. On December 7, 2018, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) issued Regulatory Guidance Document 18-02 which lifts the freeze on Low Carbon Fuel...more
Court of Appeal Allows CEQA Challenge to PG&E Tree Removal Project to Proceed, But Finds Claims under Planning & Zoning Law...
Downey Brand LLP on 11/2/2018
On October 23, the First Appellate District issued its opinion in Save Lafayette Trees v. City of Lafayette et al. (Case No. A154168) finding that Save Lafayette Trees' ("Save Lafayette") CEQA challenge to a Pacific Gas and...more
California Court of Appeal Rejects City's MND in Historic District Due to Aesthetic and Traffic Impacts
CEQA Case Report: Understanding the Judicial Landscape for Development - In an opinion published on August 9, 2018, Protect Niles v. City of Fremont, Case No. A151645, the First Appellate District of the California Court...more
CEQAConstruction ProjectEnvironmental Impact Report (EIR)Administrative RecordAppealsBaseballCommercial DevelopmentCommercial UseCommon-Interest PrivilegeContinuing Violation TheoryContracts ClauContracts ClauseCoronavirus/COVID-19Department of Toxic Substances ControlDiscovery Disputes
Art, Entertainment, & Sports Law


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This article uses bare URLs, which may be threatened by link rot. Please consider converting them to full citations to ensure the article remains verifiable and maintains a consistent citation style. Several templates and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as reFill (documentation). (May 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
The Right Honourable
The Lord Soley
Lord Soley in 2019
Member of the House of Lords
Assumed office
Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party
1 May 1997 – 11 July 2001
Doug Hoyle
Jean Corston
Member of Parliament
for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush
Hammersmith (1983–1997)
Hammersmith North (1979–1983)
3 May 1979 – 11 April 2005
Frank Tomney
Andy Slaughter
(1939-05-07) 7 May 1939 (age 82)
University of Southampton, University of Strathclyde
Clive Stafford Soley, Baron Soley (born 7 May 1939) is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2005, and has since then served as a Member of the House of Lords.
He went to Downshall Secondary Modern School (eventually ended up as Seven Kings High School) on Aldborough Road in Seven Kings near Ilford, then Newbattle Adult Education College in Newbattle, Midlothian, from 1961–3. He did RAF National Service from 1959–61. He went to the University of Strathclyde, where he gained a BA in Politics and Psychology in 1968, then the University of Southampton, where he gained a Diploma in Applied Social Studies in 1970. He was a British Council Officer from 1968–9, then a Probation Officer from 1970–9 for the Inner London Probation Service. He was a councillor on Hammersmith Council from 1974 to 1978.
Parliamentary career
Soley was a Labour Party Member of Parliament from 1979, first for the constituency of Hammersmith North, then Hammersmith and finally Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush from 1997 to 2005. In 1981, he was a member of the anti-nuclear Labour Party Defence Study Group[1] and was Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 1997 to 2001. In 2003, he voted in favor of the government's decision to engage in military action against Iraq despite the absence of convincing evidence that Iraq still had an active WMD programme.[2]
In 2005, it was announced that he would be given a life peerage, and on 29 June 2005 he was created Baron Soley, of Hammersmith in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.[3] He was from 2005 to 2010 Campaign Director of Future Heathrow, an organisation dedicated to the expansion of Heathrow. He was from 2004 to 2016, chair of the trustees of Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal, now renamed the Mary Seacole Trust, which worked for the erection of the statue of Mary Seacole in the grounds of St Thomas's Hospital in London.[4]
Soley has a son and daughter. He is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.[5]
^ Rhiannon Vickers (30 September 2011). The Labour Party and the World - Volume 2: Labour's Foreign Policy since 1951. Manchester University Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-84779-595-3.
^ Zaid Al-Ali (23 January 2003). on the crisis in Iraq. Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
^ "No. 57692". The London Gazette. 4 July 2005. p. 8639.
^ http://www.maryseacoleappeal.org.uk/
^ "National Secular Society Honorary Associates". National Secular Society. Retrieved 27 July 2019
Profile at the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
Voting record at PublicWhip.org
Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
Articles authored at Journalisted
Hammersmith & Fulham Labour Party
Guardian Politics Ask Aristotle – Clive Soley
Lord Soley of Hammersmith Open Rights Group
BBC Politics profile, 2002
Parliament of the United Kingdom Preceded byFrank Tomney Member of Parliament for Hammersmith North 1979–1983 Constituency abolished New constituency Member of Parliament for Hammersmith 1983–1997 Constituency abolished New constituency Member of Parliament for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush 1997–2005 Succeeded byAndy Slaughter Political offices Preceded byDoug Hoyle Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party 1997–2001 Succeeded byJean Corston Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom Preceded byThe Lord Anderson of Swansea GentlemenBaron Soley Followed byThe Lord Goodlad
Alumni of the University of Southampton
Alumni of the University of Strathclyde
British bloggers
Labour Party (UK) life peers
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
People from Ilford
UK MPs 1979–1983
Royal Air Force airmen


text:
Tag: Institutional Effectiveness
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) enhances the learning and teaching environment at Georgia Tech by encouraging a fully engaged, sharing community with communication networks, resources, and innovative programs for faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students. The center is part of the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Faculty Development.
atomic_link Updated 12/7/17 Institutional Effectiveness, Staff Development Faculty and Staff
The Faculty Handbook is the authoritative source of policies pertaining to the Faculty.
It sets out the principles, policies, and procedures relevant to the functions of the Faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and also includes provisions for the academic life of Students of the Institute. It makes reference to certain key principles relevant to the functions of the Board of Regents, the President, and the Administration.
atomic_link Updated 12/7/17 Faculty Affairs, Institutional Effectiveness Faculty and Staff
presentation_page Updated 12/7/17 Faculty Affairs, Institutional Effectiveness, Staff Development Faculty and Staff Faculty and Staff
The following learning outcomes were approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee at Georgia Tech and by the USG Council on General Education in April 2011.
atomic_node Updated 12/1/17 Institutional Effectiveness, Student Assessment, Program Evaluation General Audience Home


The colossal Pyramids of Giza challenge age. In spite of the fact that there are more than 100 pyramids all through Egypt, these behemoths with a tremendous stature of almost 500 ft. furthermore, covering more than 13 sections of land of land emerge gladly puncturing the scene, a center hotspot for whatever remains of mankind's history.
On the edge of Cairo, the Pyramids of Giza linger over the dark obscure of the city's horizon which blends consistently behind them. The 3 Pyramids of Giza were worked as tombs to hold the physical assortments of the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, best referred to by their Greek names separately as Cheops, Chephres and Mycerinius. The best of these is the pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), who moved his court and living arrangement here from Memphis when he progressed toward becoming ruler of Egypt. Apparently, this is a standout amongst other man-made structures on the planet. Named by Herodotus as one of the 7 Wonders of the World as right on time as the fifth Century BC, it is the first and final survivor!
The Pyramids were molded to impersonate the Benben, a comparatively formed stone found in the most punctual sanctuaries, which symbolized the primitive hill from which life developed. As indicated by Egyptian folklore, the sun god, Re, ascended from the primitive hill to make life, accordingly the pyramids' shape was straightforwardly connected with Re. By old Egyptian cosmology, Re reigned in the East, with the goal that the ascending of the sun, thus life, was connected toward the eastern bank of the Nile. Here the towns and sanctuaries of antiquated Egypt were manufactured. The west bank, the area of the obscurely aspected god Set, was related with the setting sun, or passing. It is here, on the very edge of Set's area that the Great Pyramids sit.
The development of pyramids began with a surge of building which started amid Egypt's third tradition between 2650-2575BC. Imperial pyramid building stopped altogether amid the rule of the New Kingdom after 1295BC. Pyramid development advanced amid this period and was the consequence of hundreds of years of experimentation, improvement and social adjustment as it wound up noticeably institutionalized. The pyramid edifices incorporated a primary pyramid with an encompassing patio, a substantially littler faction pyramid lodging the ruler's spirit, a funeral home sanctuary set by the fundamental pyramid, and an encased divider and walkway prompting a valley sanctuary, and now and again, littler backup sanctuaries or tombs for relatives.
Pyramid development clung to strict introduction of cardinal focuses and its arrangement needed to comply with genuine essential organizes by stellar estimations. Regarding size, specialized development achievements, cardinality and the association required for their development, the Great pyramids speak to an extraordinary exertion.
Past the pyramids, the mysterious ghost of the Father of Terror, the Sphinx, keeps on guarding over the imperial internment councils of the pharaohs, remaining quiet about its insider facts.
Today, the Great Pyramids fill in as a setting for ceaseless clamor and action, including, among others, imaginative showcases, melodic exhibitions and races. The most elating movement, in any case, is an ascend the pyramid steps. Of the numerous, many advances, each as high as a table (2-5 ft.), a scale is a muscle-stressing, agonizing, debilitating and exceptionally beneficial experience!
The pyramids, an image of enduring sturdiness, were at that point as antiquated to such guests as Alexander the Great as old Greece is to us today.
Sylvia is an outing specialist, organizer and supervisor who makes novel intercultural enterprises for families and loves to give data, tips and individual encounters particularly identified with family experience travel.


text:
@echo off
call ./set-env.cmd

start %SOFTWARE_DIR%\intellij-2016.2\bin\idea64.exe

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


How Can Arrhythmia be Prevented?
Know the symptoms of arrhythmia. If you notice symptoms, report them to your doctor as soon as possible.
Maintain your treatment program, and take all your medications.
Know the causes of arrhythmia and the factors that increase the risk of arrhythmia.
Learn how the heart works so you can better understand your condition.
Know the risk factors and symptoms of arrhythmia and other heart conditions.
Get treatment for any problems.


text:
/* network.h */
/* Network definition and helper functions */

#ifndef NETWORK_H
#define NETWORK_H

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <math.h>
#include "consts.h"
#include "address.h"

typedef struct
{
	Address addr; /* 32-bit; IPv4 */
	unsigned char nBits;
} Network;

int netw_bits_borrowed(Network* netw);
int netw_borrowed_valid(Network* netw, int borrowed);
void netmask(Network* netw, Address* mask);
int netmask_valid(Network* netw, Address* mask);
int netbits_from_mask(Address* mask);
void netbroadcast(Network* netw, Address* broadcast);
int netw_maxsubs(Network* netw);
int netw_maxhosts(Network* netw);
void netsummary_str(Network* netw, char* str);

void netw_subnet(Network* netw, int subnum, Network* subnet);
int netw_subnum(Network* subnet);
int netw_subnum_valid(Network* netw, int subnum);
void netw_subsummary_str(Network* subnet, char* str);

int netw_subcount_bits(int subcount, char class);
int netw_hostcount_bits(int hostcount);

#endif


text:
Q: try to create shopping basket with jquery

number:

        <button id="firstbtn"> left</button>

        <button id="secondbtn">right</button>

I want to create a shopping basket for practice. My code does not work correctly. I want to increase or decrease the number of products when a drag & drop happens!
Where is my problem?
$(document).ready(function() {
  var i = 1

  $("#first").draggable();

  $("#basket").droppable({
    drop: function(event, ui) {
      $(this).addClass("ui-state-highlight", function() {
        $("#first").css({
          "left": "0px",
          "top": "320px"
        }, $("#fir").css({
          "display": "block"
        }))

        $("#firstbtn").click(function() {
          $("#fir").html("number:" + i--)
        })

        $("#secondbtn").click(function() {
          $("#fir").html("number:" + i++)
        })
      })
    }
  });
})

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Located in the town of Bukit Merah, Singapore, Alexandra is home to many and brings a sense of peace to everyone that visits this tiny and cosy neighbourhood. The charming neighbourhood has a lot to offer, if you look in all the right places!
For many Singaporeans, walking through these furniture shops invoke a sense of nostalgia, as wooden traditional furniture shops are now very seldom found in Singapore!
The hotels near Mapletree business city Singapore are usually only a few minutes away from Alexandra, so reaching this neighbourhood to taste the best Laksa isn't going to be tough. A well-known fact is that three of Singapore's best Laksa are all found in Alexandra!
For some fresh air, you can enjoy the greenery in this city. While walking around, you'll come across Park Hotel Alexandra which is a charming place to spend your time in as it boasts a cosy coffee place, a bar and an infinity pool.
Dropping into IKEA is a lot of people's idea of fun! Randomly strolling through IKEA is therapeutic and you can have a taste of Swedish meatballs right before you leave!
Operating 24 hours, you get all sorts of popular dishes here, such as BBQ seafood, clay pot Laksa, Avacado milkshake, etc. There's plenty to love here!
While there's an abundance of bakeries, the number of confectionaries has been declining. Explore Alexandra and you'll manage to find a few old school confectionary stores selling home made goodness.


From our personal experience we are inclined to believe that the official inflation rate doesn't reflect the real cost increases. If we kept a record of our expenses, we would see that the official inflation is more or less a joke.
There are many tricks to "doctor" the numbers. They change the basket of goods very often overweighting the ones with less increase and underweighting or even removing the ones with big increase in price (such as healthcare). Also the official rates usually don't take into account the "difference in size for the same prize".
Where the official inflation averages 2.3% a year, some private institutions believe real inflation is more than 7% per year. Can you imagine what would be the consequences of applying the real inflation rate?
1. Social Security. Beneficiaries would ask for higher increases and immediately an already-collapsed system would sink.
2. Bonds. Bond holders would demand higher coupons just to keep up with inflation. The biggest bubble of all times, the bond market, would receive a death penalty.
3. Debt. The only way to maintain the system is to reduce the government and private debt through "invisible" inflation. You keep on borrowing but in real terms you are reducing your debt. When the "invisible" becomes "visible", it doesn't work any more.


text:
Situations not Plots
A sorcerer-wight has awakened in his barrow after his ancestral necklace was filched by a hobbit thief, and he has sent undead minions forth to sack the countryside and find it.
That's a plot. You (the GM) know it's a cool idea, but the players aren't going to see that until they put all the pieces together. Will that happen this game session, or four sessions down the road? What are you going to show them, now? You need a situation.
The heroes spend the night at a cheery road-side inn, but awaken in the middle of the night to find it besieged by hordes of zombies. Travelers and tavern wenches scream and run around in a panic. Perimeter defense and window-boarding ensues.
That's a situation. Players see situations immediately. It's part of the same plot above, but it's the part the players actually get to deal with, now. From their point of view it's the meat of the game. In fact it is the game, because it is what happens, not the subtext you (the GM) have in mind but haven't fully revealed yet. Ask a player about a game that happened a long time ago — the parts they remember are probably situations they were in (or really good dice rolls). They will remember defending the tavern from zombies, not the wight's stolen necklace.
GMs are very keen on plots. Nothing wrong with plots, but most plots involve finding things out over time, so players can go through game after game before they see the entire plot and understand what is going on.
All plot and no situation is player hell (and player hell is GM hell, sooner or later). That's the game where the players know something is going on, but can't really put their finger on what they are supposed to be doing. Aimless wandering ensues. On the other hand, all situation and no plot can play quite nicely for a few games, but sooner or later the players may start to wonder how it all is going to tie together.
But that's later on. To run a game, right now, you need situations, not plots:
– Your hovercraft breaks down in the deep desert, and it's a long walk to the nearest outpost.
– The sleepy coastal village where the travelers bed down turns out to be full of evil cultists.
– The superhero PCs are swarmed by reporters after false rumors surface that they have become corporate sponsors.
Those are good situations. Why is any of that happening? What does it lead to? What happens next? We'll find out later. Good situations keep the players involved, which makes them curious about the plot, even if takes a while to unfold.
If you have a situation (preferably several), you are ready to run the game. You have something to show the players, something for them to deal with. If you don't have a situation ready to go, well, it's improv time.
Ben Robbins | December 24th, 2006 | classic, GMcraft | show 11 comments hide comments
#11 Andrew said:
I have been reading a lot of these articles latley, a LOT.
I don't think I am doing this right since it is so overwhelming, both the learning and the trying to create my world in a well built fashion based on what I have learned, which is not so much.
My situation now is that I am making a world as a first time DM/GM. I had my friend draw a world map for me and basically I had a simple idea of what I wanted where and a generic plot of a Necromancer who is trying to assassinate rulers to revive them and have them rule under his will with no one knowing. My problem is getting started. I have a good idea of what is around certian areas and what is going on but I have no idea of how to put in a beginning 'situation' the players can play through that can introduce them to my story-line but still keep them in the dark a little about who is all behind it. Along with this I also have to somehow shove a Dragonwrought Kobold into the party.
Isn't there some easy-to-use formula of situation making where I can make something interesting that goes along with my plot?
#10 Lindel said:
This actually reflects almost perfectly my GM'ing strategy, I just never had the words to describe it with: There's an overarching story that the players are looking to piece together, but at every stop along the way they get involved in something else. When you combine it with the soiciopathic personalities a lot of my players have… you get soemthing magical.
#9 Krodar said:
I have to agree with Milander, there shouldn't be an distinction between the two; if the plot gives the players relevant situtations to play. I am due to start a Battletech/Mechwarrior game, the plot came first; then the 'situtations' that will lead up to the plot ending. If, as you say the players end up 'flailing around, looking for the plot'; that is the fault of the GM for not allowing the players opportunites to find the clues.
Frankly, having a situation game as you describe it, would be one long string of mini adventures each session. Might as well do a dungeon crawl and be done with it.
#8 cr0m said:
@Milander I think you're right, situations are derived from plots. The problem is that plots don't necessarily produce situations.
For example your "you slowly awaken" is the beginning of a plot, where the players wander around and try to discover what happened to them the previous night. Most likely that's not a situation. As Ben mentions, a situation is something that players get to see right away, something they can deal with.
Not remembering last night isn't something to deal with. There's nothing for the players to *do*, other than start digging for clues. That can lead to players flailing around, looking for the plot.
#7 Milander said:
As a DM/GM of more than 20 years I can say that situations are derived from plots. You have to devise a plot first and then thrust it upon the players as a situation or collection of situations. Maybe it's just me but I cannot see how you can make a clear distinction between the two unless you play to the plot rather than allowing the players to have a full range of decision making abilities.
I have never started a gaming session with – "You are in a 7″ by 9″ room, the walls are stone and there is a door to the north". I'd start that scenario as – "You slowly awaken, you have little memory of the last night, looking around see dark walls and dark shadows in the corners".
That is plot cast as situation and works much better as an introduction, players should be only given the information that is necessary. I think of role playing as writing a book, except I'm not writing it they are and therefore they have to ask questions not be fed it. Of course I'm old school….
#6 A bit of tech for starting a campaign « Technology for roleplaying said:
[…] also seems like a way to let the GM focus on plot (as they often want to), instead of situation, at least at […]
#5 Andre said:
I'm running a Vampires campaign and have decided to shift the focus of my game away from overall plot and instead focus on smaller "chapters" or situations as you call them.
I occasionally like to flip on Tarantino movies like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs to give me a bit of inspiration on how to keep the game focused on the smaller scene rather than the whole plot.
#4 Ben said:
"Every time I read one of your articles, I amazed at the way you are able to articulate aspects of gaming that most of us never notice or understand."
It's the happy by-product of making years and years of GM'ing mistakes ;)
#3 Cullen said:
Every time I read one of your articles, I amazed at the way you are able to articulate aspects of gaming that most of us never notice or understand. At least, we don't until you articulate them for us.
This is a great way to think about DMing, thanks.
#2 'gene cloud said:
Situations are a really good concept. They help focus the game to the player's perspective, but are still guided by the plot as a backdrop.
Thinking of the game as a sequence of situations, and tackling them as such, helps break you out of a writer's block or spiral of trying to write the whole thing in one hit. Divide and conquer.
#1 Ping said:
I thought about this article, "Situations not Plots" again when I read Treasure Table's recent post, "Overused Plots in RPGs"<http://www.treasuretables.org/2006/12/overused-plots-in-rpgs>. I have to say that as a total newbie GM, I have found so far that focusing too much on the originality or intricacy of the plot of my game is not a good use of my GMing time. Situations are a more useful concept for me. I spent weeks before my first game fretting that I didn't have enough plot and world politics and personal history of all NPCs and descriptions of all the worlds in the universe figured out. I then started off with a "plot" game, and that was a bad idea. All I really needed was to set up an easy or obvious situation and they would have been off to the races and into their characters.
So, I'm switching gears to situations, and I think it's going to work better. I won't know until I run a few more games, but I can already say that conceptually breaking down the games into situations has made it easier for me to think about and prepare to actually run them. This alone has made life better for me as a new GM. The same plot, original or not, may still be there, but I don't feel overwhelmed by it nor do I focus on it so much that I forget that the players want to play the game, not discover plot they haven't been given a chance to care about.
email (will be kept private)
« Anatomy of an Action Scene | all posts | Western Paranoia (part 1), Run Club Experiment »


text:
Q: Determine whether or not the poset $(\mathbb{N}, \propto)$ has a least element
Define a relation $\propto$ on the natural numbers $\mathbb{N}$ by declaring that for $x, y \in \mathbb{N}$, $x \propto y \iff (x=y)$ or $(3x \leq y)$
a) Show that $\propto$ is a partial order on $\mathbb{N}$
b) Determine whether or not the subset $\{2, 6, 8\}$ of $\mathbb{N}$ is totally ordered with respect to $\propto$. Explain your answer.
c) Determine whether or not the poset $(\mathbb{N}, \propto)$ has a least element.

For part a), I showed that it was reflexive, transitive and antisymetric.
For part b) I determined that the subset was NOT totally ordered because 6 $\not \propto 8$ and $8 \not \propto 6$
I'm unsure about part c). My guess is that there is no least element because $1 \not \propto 2$ so $1$ cannot be the least element. However $\forall n \in \mathbb{N}$ with $n>1$, $n \not \propto 1$, so there is no number $n \not = 1$ which is the least element.
But I'm sure I'm phrasing this really badly...

A: You have the right idea.
Suppose $n \ne 1$ is a least element under $\propto $. Since you assume $\Bbb N = \Bbb Z^+$, then $n \ge 2$. Then $n \propto 1$ in particular. However, $n \ne 1$, and since $n \ge 2$, then $3n \ge 6$; thus $3n \not \le 1$ and $n \not \propto  1$
So the only remaining candidate is $n=1$. However, $1 \not \propto 2$ because $3 \cdot 1 \not =3\le 2$.
Thus, all possible candidates have been removed, and $\propto $ has no least element in $\Bbb N$. (Though if you were to include zero, then $0$ would be the least element, since $0 \cdot x = 0 \le y$ for all $y \in \Bbb N$.)

Mostly just posting this to get this out of the unanswered queue. Posting as Community Wiki in particular since I have nothing further to add.