text:
From the Vogue Archive: Oscar de la Renta's Country Home
By Laird Borrelli-Persson
Photography by François Halard
Photographed by Fraçois Halard, Vogue, December 2008
Oscar and Annette de la Renta at the door of their Connecticut country house.
Oscar de la Renta was born in the Dominican Republic, trained in Spain and France, and made his name in New York City. He acquired the moniker "Concorde Couturier" after he was appointed head of Balmain in Paris in 1993. As high-flying as his life was, de la Renta was anything but rootless, maintaining showcase-perfect homes in his native country, in Manhattan, and in Kent, Connecticut, which we've pulled from _Vogue'_s archive to feature here.
Having been introduced to the area by Condé Nast's Editorial Director at the time, Alexander Liberman, de la Renta bought this American-style clapboard house, built by a House Beautiful editor and surrounded by many verdant acres, in 1971. "When I first saw what became my house—actually, when I first turned into the drive—I knew it was a place I wanted to be," the designer said in a 2011 interview. "That has never changed."
The same cannot be said of the house and grounds. De la Renta and his first wife, Françoise Langlade, gutted and altered it to fit their lifestyle. When the widowed designer remarried in 1989, the future of the main structure was perilous: "I very graciously said to Oscar, 'This house is so hideous; tear it down!' " recalled its chatelaine, Annette de la Renta. The house stands, though it went through another series of transformations, inside and out. The stylish duo traded rich, deep-hued Orientalist touches for lighter, British inflections.
"Out went the boulle cabinets and the seraglio scenes," as Hamish Bowles put it when profiling the house, "and in came gutsy (a favorite adjective) William Kent tables, Elizabethan portraits, and fading country-house chintzes." It was also expanded to include a dacha-inspired bedroom (a room with a view) built by Ernesto Buch and connected to the main house by a light-filled orangery. "I thought if I wasn't giving [Annette] a new house," de la Renta said, "I should give her a new bedroom."
TopicsCelebrity HomesInterior DesignFrom the ArchivesPhotographyOscar de la Renta


Art Pepper is without doubt one of my favourite saxophone players. I am especially fond of his recordings from the 50's. Just like this one.
His autobiography Straight Life is also makes for a very insightful read.


Edward and Nancy Kienholz Catalogue at ICA Miami.
Edward Kienholz (b. 1927, Fairfield, Washington; d. 1994, Hope, Idaho) began his artistic career in 1957. With his critically charged found-object sculptures, assemblages, and tableaux, he quickly became a central figure of the West Coast avant-garde. Photographer Nancy Reddin Kienholz (b. 1943, Los Angeles) met Edward in 1972; subsequently; they married and would collaborate on every facet of their artistic production. This publication and the related exhibition highlight the topic of gender and representation in the Kienholzes' work, including The Hoerengracht (1983-88) and pieces from "The Kienholz Women" series, spanning from 1982 to 1992.


text:
Institutes of Eminence : Education or Spectator Sports?
Institutes of Eminence demonstrate yet another scam designed by the BJP government that corporatizes education, implements unscientific ranking system presenting false data, enforces an increasing number of bad educational loans, and plays cruel games with the future of the Indian youth. A GroundXero report.
BJP's Achhe Din campaign promised an 'inclusive' education. As seen in other cases, this too turned out to be merely a media campaign. The review of BJP's policies will reveal their corporate bias, especially towards the ones who contribute to the party's coffer. Since the BJP government has come to power they supplemented previous government's strategies like cut in educational budget, decrease in the number of INSPIRE, UGC-NET scholarships, and attempts at scrapping fellowships like Post-matriculate scholarship, non-NET awards etc. They further intensified their attack on education by strict surveillance in the campuses, introducing biometric attendance, CCTV and police check post, establishing overall control over the students' existence and opinions. Each of these attempts culminated in students' protests. As a response, the government promptly slashed down the autonomy of the UGC and individual educational institutions, replacing an albeit notional 'autonomy' with tighter direct Government control, ironically all in the name of 'granting' autonomy to the institutes. The latest significant move in this direction is a new bill – establishing the so-called the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) – scrapping the UGC altogether.
Institutions of Eminence (IoE)
The short public response time before passing of the HECI Bill indicates that the UGC's demise is unavoidable. But even so the government does not intend to pass up any chance to puppeteer UGC. Case in point is the declaration of "Institutions of Eminence" by the UGC. The UGC recently declared a list of Institutions of Eminence, under which six institutes have been selected by the 'Empowered Expert Committee' chaired by N. Gopalaswami. The objective, as mentioned in the Guideline for Government Institutes for becoming 'Institutes of Eminence' is "To provide an enabling regulatory architecture to ten public and ten private Higher Educational Institutions to emerge as world-class Teaching and Research Institutions." The present list however contains only three public institutes – the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and Mumbai, and Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and three private institutes – the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, and the Jio Institute. Answering a question regarding why only three institutes were selected from each of the categories, Gopalaswami remarked that it was due to the poor quality of research and teaching. We will discuss later what he means by quality research. What is first remarkable is the inclusion of Jio! This is contradictory as Jio does not have any academic record to fulfill the criteria, on the basis of which other universities were rejected. Jio in fact seems comparable only to those thousands of other institutes/universities that exist on paper, and till recently were considered as 'fraud' by the Government and UGC. Let us get back to the question of 'quality research' and how to possibly measure such a thing.
The Global Ranking System: Who rates? On what?
The Gazzette notification of UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2017 mentioned that any Deemed to be University applying for being selected as an Institution of Eminence has to submit a "detailed fifteen year strategic vision plan and a five year rolling implementation plan, with clear annual milestones and action plans on how the new Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be University is to be set up, with identifiable outputs and outcomes."
According to the Government, the selected institutes were judged based on their 15 years' prospective plan towards securing a spot among 'top 500 world ranked' universities. The institutes are required to feature in ranking tabulations done by "renowned ranking frameworks" like The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE) or Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) or SJTU (Shanghai's Jiao Tong University) within the first 10 years of being declared as an Institution of Eminence.
In the countries that have pursued such ranking systems historically, enough flags have been raised against the unscientific nature of these ranking frameworks. The task of rating universities all over the world requires humongous amount of data and thorough surveys. Yet, the evaluating agencies have employed largely shortcut methods like tracking the number of Noble Laureates, 'reputation', citation data, faculty/student ratio, number of foreign faculties, among other things. As QS' methodology for Academic Reputation mentions, "respondents (academicians based on their expertise) are asked to list up to 10 domestic and 30 international institutions which they consider to be excellent for research in the given area" and for Employer Reputation the employers are asked to do the same.In 2018, the QS World University Rankings by Subject claims to have drawn responses from 75,015 academics worldwide. Discipline-wise, the highest number of respondents can be seen in disciplines like Computer Science (close to 3000 responses), whereas the lowest rate of responses are typically seen in disciplines such as Social Science, where it can go to as low as 200.The proper evaluation of a social science or humanities department seems to be suffering from not just low response rates, but also from other quantification attempts such as the citation index for publications and 'h-index' (quantifies "impact and productivity"). In order to address this issue, QS introduced a Subject-wise rating but the response rate is still not uniform for different subjects. Given the low response rate, the threshold (for number of respondents) for disciplines like Linguistics and Literature is kept zero.
However, despite such structural flaws, ranking frameworks have influenced education policies across different countries. Governments have regularly followed the productivity-oriented parameters of rating systems to develop institutes that can fetch positions in the league tables. Such college ranking systems first became prominent in the USA and in England, in the 1980s. Thanks to such systems, the entire debate around a better education system shifted to creation of a league of elite universities, rather than focusing on public inclusive education. Fund supplies were, and are, concentrated on these elite institutions. Also most of the times, it is only the economically affluent or culturally dominant who can afford to study in these places.
Corporatization of Education: Education For Public Profit
Why then the dependence of such quantifications and rankings? The Government responses to this question has typically been along the lines of ensuring quality control of education, evolving systematic vision concerning the direction and areas of future knowledge production, and building an 'incentive-punishment' based framework to increase the efficiency and commitment of educational institutions. However, if one needs to judge the real contribution of such ranking systems to the 'betterment of education', several aspects need to be looked at. Clearly, the so to speak 'best universities' of the world would figure in the top positions in any ranking system, if not anything else but to ensure that the ranking itself is seen as legitimate and factual. What therefore needs to be investigated is how many of the non-ranked or low-ranked institutions made it up the ladder in the past few decades, after the ranking systems were introduced. Further, for those institutions that did go up, what are the factors behind such 'improvement'? – is it real improvement in academic output (and if so, what are the reasons for it in terms of several policies that the specific institution or the Government might have pursued), or is it about money being spent to secure high rankings. After all, we have seen too often how 'rankings' and 'ratings' from 'audit agencies' can be bought and sold if one has enough money – the latest most glaring example being the fake credit ratings that renowned Wall Street rating agencies such as Moody's, S&P, or Fitch kept issuing for large banks till the last moment before the famous Wall Street Crash of 2008 that sent many of these large financial institutions into overnight bankruptcy.
This brings us to the question of linkage and mutual symbiotic dependence between 'ranking systems' and business or money-making. According to a report by The Indian Express, "Jio Institute has projected earnings of Rs. 100 crore from tuition and hostel fee to be paid by roughly 1,000 students in the first year operation." It further states, the institute "on an average, works out an income of Rs. 6.2 lakh from each student." The Jio Institute further goes on to claim that it will have 10,000 students in 15years, and net revenue (after fee waivers) from students in the fifteenth year is expected to be Rs. 1502 crores. Thus each student, at an average, will be paying around Rs. 15.02 lakh. The criterion for awarding some scholarship money, stated to be reserved for the "meritorious student", has been kept vague. It should also be noted here that no reservation system exists in the private universities in India. And therefore, in the absence of enough fellowships, the only option left with a huge number of students wanting to get education (that is considered worthwhile by their future employers) is student loans. Besides the fact that interest on education loans are higher than car and home loans (interest rate of SBI education loans are more than 10%) in India, and the fact that the only people who can even get such loans are those with some property of significant bank balance to show as surety or keep as mortgage, there has been around 124 percent rise in bad education loans in the last 3 years. This is particularly attributed to the significant slowdown in hirings for new jobs and huge layoffs in the IT and related sectors. Politically, loans are clearly the best method to make students vulnerable, and structurally stifle student articulations and agitations. The mantra for the 'new education' thus seems handpicked straight up from the industries rulebook: control disruption, increase production.
It is not surprising that such marketization of higher education promises to have deep irreversible impacts not only on students, but also on the faculty and researchers employed by these Institutions. Though the government pay scale is applicable for the IoEs, the institutes are allowed to develop their own pay scale for attracting 'foreign faculties' through raising their own funds. The IoE notifications indicate that money for this is to be raised from alumni, industry and other forms of donation, constituting a decisive push towards self-financing, even for public institutions. The direction on hiring also points towards greater control of the industry, allowing hiring of "personnel from industry, etc. as faculty, who, while being experts in their areas, may not have the requisite higher academic qualifications."
Ironically, or perhaps not, even this move of surrendering educational institutions to the mythical 'unbiased even-handed mechanical forces of the market', does not seem to observe unbiasedness when it comes to disciplines other that Science and Technology. Not to suggest that therefore other disciplines also must be incorporated into this framework, but among the universities chosen, there is none specializing on social sciences and humanities. The favour towards technological institutes is in fact clear from Mr. Gopalaswami's utilitarian logic about what he considers as quality research and why humanities and social science was exempted. He states, "You may have produced good research but was it of use to anybody? Whether somebody found it useful and quoted that research?" It would be curious to ask Mr. Gopalaswami what he really means by the 'use' of good research. Does he consider research into social hierarchies, or research in history, or archeological expeditions to be useful for the society? Given that not a single institution with active Social Science or Humanities research (of which there are many examples in this country), would it be fair to conclude that according to Mr. Gopalaswamy, none of them have produced any research ever that "was of use to anybody" or that was "useful and quoted"? Therefore it seems that Mr. Gopalaswamy's idea of utility of education is limited to economic productivity, as if creation of human social knowledge not directly geared for such aspirations can be devalued.
Control in the Name of Economy
Such quantification measures are clearly meant to provide high market value, with a cost effective targeted investment. The target is not only to control the topic of research but also to ensure that 'meritorious' students, with high product value in job market, are the one to access the best industries of knowledge production. Not just the act of ranking itself, but even the parameters it is based on, such as h-index, citation index, etc., also focus on the same productivity and control, over creation of knowledge as a critical exercise. And of course, once we set off on a path of exercizing control, there is no end to it.
The IoE document for example, further goes on to mention that government approval is to be required for academic collaboration with a "negative list of countries", though educational collaboration with institutions ranked in top 500 in global ranking does not need any such approval. Though the 'negative list' of countries is still not available, it is presumable that if a couple of Indian and Pakistani physicists want to collaborate on their research, it would require permission from the Government of India!
State control like the above is only one side of the coin, the other being control of the industry. As can be easily gleaned from the US academic policy of "Publish or Perish", enforced over the decades through such quantification processes, universities with funding from the industry became audit-intensive in order to retain their positions in the league tables. Academicians are required to perform more administrative work along with research, while there is also administrative bloat in hiring. The education institutes became bureaucrat hubs, and in many instances, sites of unbridled academic corruption. Universities came to be largely seen as agencies providing access to those who fetch greater price in the job market, while students from marginalized backgrounds keep getting treated as 'bad investments'. Teaching became a less important part of the job while research got more adapted for the market, designed to reap high profits.
The race to climb up the league tables is a deliberate measure to control not just access to education, but therefore and otherwise, control education itself. Which is ironic, because education is supposed to that process that fosters future production of knowledge, and the very nature of new knowledge is that it is something that cannot be necessarily predicted (which is why it needs discovery and exploration), and therefore cannot be judged according to its relevance given presently what we think is relevant knowledge. Human history has seen too many examples of knowledge production that opened uncharted frontiers for future enquiry, though no one in their times predicted they would.
However, the present BJP government, following the footsteps laid out by their predecessors in the UPA, is forcing their control over education, in a bid to please their political and economic masters. Let us keenly observe what new strategies are developed by the government to become 'World Class'. The competition to climb up the tables is steep, as Saudi Arabian universities are said to have provided highly cited academics with lucrative part-time contracts to use their Saudi affiliation when publishing. Some universities have now gone to the extent of hiring "rankings managers". If GATS has made education a commodity to be sold, the ranking system has finally converted education into a spectator sport.
Tags : bjp UGC education policy privatization institute of eminence educational institute privatization of education jio university jio institute eminence status prakash javadekar global ranking system reliance foundation

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: MeteorJS Cant use node libraries on server side with typescript? I'm trying to use angular 2 meteor and I'm having some issues using node libraries such as FS on the server side.

import fs from 'fs';

results in:
(3, 16): Cannot find module 'fs'.
20170625-07:41:23.740(3)? (STDERR) TypeError: Cannot read property 'readFile' of undefined
W20170625-07:41:23.740(3)? (STDERR)     at meteorInstall.server.wordGraph.wordGraph.js (server/wordGraph/wordGraph.ts:8:3)
W20170625-07:41:23.740(3)? (STDERR)     at fileEvaluate (packages\modules-runtime.js:333:9)
W20170625-07:41:23.741(3)? (STDERR)     at require (packages\modules-runtime.js:228:16)
W20170625-07:41:23.741(3)? (STDERR)     at server/main.ts:5:4

A: Use Npm.require instead like
var fs = Npm.require('fs');

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Want to know how to create a killer brand? Brand Affairs Senior Consultant Markus Kramer was in London last week to give a talk about the subject. Find out why passion and history matter from a thought leader in luxury branding and marketing.
Click on the picture above or follow this link to read the article.


text:
Q: Regarding IllegalStateExceptions, MediaPlayer, failed prepares and State codes I have been struggling quite a lot with our beloved MediaPlayer class...
Specifically I want to simply play sounds from some Files...
I am getting two specific types of errors actually, and not continuesly but it seems like random... Sometimes 10 files are played rigth away with no errors, then the MediPlayer seems to stop accepting another File...
Ok the  first error :
- 05-26 15:02:00.916: ERROR/MediaPlayer(25793): error (1, -4)
- 05-26 15:02:00.916: ERROR/setupplayer(25793): java.io.IOException: Prepare failed.: status=0x1

Well for this one I have seen several solutions :
use
mp.setDataSource(ins.getFD()); (with ins being an inputstream to my File)

and/or to use
mp.setDataSource(ins.getFD(), 0, f.length());

Both unfortunately won't solve the problem, and I would simply LOVE to know what the very exhaustive error(1,-4) is... And where can I find the codes of the States of the MediaPlayer ?
Also I have tried using prepareAsync() instead of prepare() but to be honest it doesn't seem to make any difference at all..
The second error is the Exception which is thrown :
05-26 15:17:30.456: ERROR/playNextPlayer(27303): Error caught : java.lang.IllegalStateException

Which, I guess, might be related to the first error/problem ?

A: Try mp.setDataSource(String path)
For example,mp.setDataSource("sdcard/1.mp3");
The error is coming because of incorrect path or FileDescriptor.
You should check the State Diagram of Mediaplayer class


Cheese & Grain Market Hall, close to town centre ,follow the signs for the car park. Forthcoming markets in 2013: 12th January, 9th February, 9th March,13th April,11th May, 8th June,13th July, 10th August, 14th September,12th October,9th November,14th December. Times: 9am-1pm Overview and other information: A huge range of produce with up to 38 stalls in the historic Cheese & Grain Market Hall venue which boasts an excellent onsite cafe. Voted the best farmers market in Somerset in 2009 & 2010 in the Taste of Somerset Awards and Frome itself was voted the best food town!


text:
Home Around the World Diet that won Michael Phelps 22 GOLD MEDALS in OLYMPICS
By Pravin Dhyani -
Michael Fred Phelps nicknamed as "The Baltimore Bullet" "Flying Fish" has created history yet again by becoming the Highly decorated Olympian of all times, with total 22 gold medals under his belt and numerous world records. In current Rio Olympics 2016 till now he has won 4 gold medals.
For more interesting stuff visit:
The glory which he has achieved is not only due to his hard-work, persistence and dedication but also it has lot to do with his mental agility and physical fitness, To be in such a he need's to follow a strict diet and exercise regime .
Michael Phelps' diet is the stuff of legend. Phelps says he doesn't eat the crazy amount that he reportedly did as a 23-year-old before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But even though the swimmer now claims "I don't eat many calories a day," he's still almost certainly downing an amount of food that would have most of the rest of us running to the store for new pants..
Before the Beijing Games, Phelps said he was chowing down on an insane 12,000 calories a day, or 4,000 calories per meal. Eat, sleep and swim. That's all I can do. Remarkably, he thrived on the regimen, scoring an all-time record of eight gold medals. That achievement topped his already insanely impressive six golds and two bronzes from 2004.
By 2012 though, his meal plan had calmed down a bit. As you can see in the graphic below, he'd still consume a ton of calories, that dinner was often two plate loads but he'd still drastically cut back from that 2008 peak. And on this diet, he still took home a crazy amount of medals: four golds, two silvers, a feat that made him the most decorated Olympian ever.
In a sense, Phelps' insane diet has never been all that surprising, since swimmers burn crazy numbers of calories as they log hour after hour in the pool. In 2008, he recently explained he was training at least five hours a day, six days a week.
What Phelps is eating now in 2016?
Olympic records
Previous articleSimple Lines Creates Powerful Expressions by Tatyana Markovtsev
Next articleHillary Clinton From Bikini to Niqab by Street Artist Lushux
Pravin Dhyani
Charles August 24, 2016 at 8:23 pm
Cathy - July 21, 2019
Internet the way of getting information, entertaining, is being a most important part of life. When we start to click tabs or links in internet we want them to open as quickly as possible...
Pravin Dhyani - July 20, 2019
Meet Khara Ledonne a jewelry designer by profession from New York. She's the one who's been the creative mind behind making cute, romantic astronomical images on lockets. Which she refers to as the mini escapes:...
Post offices across the country offer banking services which enable you to open several types of accounts that offer attractive interest rates. Five post office savings schemes that are meant for general public, i.e,...
Air India Stake Sale Not Happening For Now: Five Things To Know
The government has, for now, decided to suspend divestment in national carrier Air India and will continue to provide funds for its operation, a top official said on Tuesday. Since the airline is posting...
Awesome Art by a 19 year old artist Sushant S Rane
I paint you? Miniature paintings by I Wayan Gd Smara Pradipta...
Yosemite National Park A Jewel Within California's Sierra Nevada Mountains
Captivating embroidery art using needle and thread by Meko Gelashvili
More Nations Going Vegetarian, Proving To The World Less consumption of...
Stunning Real Life Info-graphics
Zaks - August 10, 2016
11 of the Year's Best Wildlife Photographs
Cathy - October 16, 2015
Nintendo Revels It's New Console The Nintendo SWITCH.
Zaks - October 24, 2016


text:
Search * (Optional)
Mobile menu expand icon MenuClose
Exploring Flanders
Culinary treats and Belgian Beer
Discover nature in Flanders
The journey to Flanders Fields: a place of remembrance
48 hours in Antwerp, a grandiose experience
The charms of Flanders in autumn
Belgian beer
Travelling to Flanders and getting around
Good to know about Flanders
About VISITFLANDERS
Meet in Flanders
Discover Flanders
Visiting Flanders Fields by bicyle or on foot
©Westtoer
The open countryside, towns and cities that make up the historic site of Flanders Fields can be discovered by bicycle or simply on foot. Whichever way you want to travel, our selection of self-guided First World War itineraries will be sure to inspire your own journey to learn about First World War history in Flanders.
The cycling network guarantees over 620 miles (1,000 km) of cycling pursuits. Cyclists can plan their preferred route in advance, using the network maps to select the junction numbers. In the Flanders Fields Country there are two networks available, one for the north and another for the south of the region. Maps can be ordered from Ypres Tourist Information Centre. You can also use the app Route You that offers several routes uploaded by cyclists or the biking route planner.
To better explore the region, 10 First World War Cycling trails have been developed and the route maps can be brought online. Try The Legacy which explores sites of the Battle of Passchendaele.
Take The Peace Route for an introduction to the Ypres Salient. Starting in Ypres, visit First World War locations, cycle through the countryside and past the cemeteries of Tyne Cot, Langemark and Essex Farm.
Explore the beer routes and cycle along the hopfields and explore the world's best beers and breweries.
Local bike rental
Biking Box Cycle Tours
Cycling on the Western Front
Flanders Fields can be just as easily enjoyed on foot. Start at one of the three entry points of the Ypres Salient and walk along these historical landscapes. Discover the Passchendaele battlefields by following one of the four walking routes which take you along various sites in Zonnebeke, or the Mines & Craters trail, following the Battle of Messines.
During Word War I 'De Palingbeek' (Entry Point South) was located on the frontline, in the centre of the Ypres Salient. The highest peak was called 'The Bluff' and nowadays the area is a great place for walking. If you would like to join a guided tour for a day, there are a range of tours to choose from or book your own personal guide.
The Western Front Way is a long-distance walking and cycling route for peace, wellbeing and remembrance. Along with European partners and supporters, the WFW is connecting and marking a 1000 km walking and cycling route that echoes the line of No-Man's Land along the Western Front. The route is the biggest single commemorative project underway on the globe and represents a forward-looking approach to cooperation, collaboration and education to safeguard peace for the future.
The Belgian section in Flanders Fields is now complete, with over 450 plaques in place on 100 km of the walking route, and 35 larger plaques on local points of interest. Another 60 km will see an eastern branch off the main route taking in the Commonwealth War Graves Tyne Cot Cemetery and Langemark German War Cemetery.
Tourist Routes 14-18: walking
©Kris Jacobs
WWI tours
The Western Front Way
And if you are looking for a special way to tour Flanders Fields, a relaxing trip on the water might be the perfect option. Follow a 100 mile (163 km) route along historic monuments and buildings with the Cruising route. Book a self-guiding cruising holiday on a luxury Linssen motor boat with BBoat without the need for a skipper's licence, or follow Le Boat's Peace Cruise itinerary.
For those who want to sit back and relax while exploring, take a half day river cruise with Seastar between Nieuwpoort and Diksmuide; passing the Yser Tower (Museum of the Yser) and the Trench of Death (the last remaining Belgian First World War trench system).
Also interesting
Flanders Fields
The poppy that became a poem
On 3rd May 1915, Ypres, an officer of the Canadian army is sitting on the rear step of an ambulance. He is looking at the grave of his friend and brother...
(c) D. de Kievith
Behind the names on the Menin Gate
Here are some of the stories behind the names on the Menin Gate.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers fought in the muddy and shelled landscapes that are now known as Flanders Fields.
Tag your photo #visitflanders
Want to stay up-to-date?
Art Cities
Regions and cities
Travelling to Flanders
Visitflanders.com is an official website of the Flemish Government.
Published by Toerisme Vlaanderen


text:
Mykhailo Serhiiovych Hrushevsky (; , in Chełm – 24 November 1934, in Kislovodsk) was a Ukrainian academician, politician, historian and statesman who was one of the most important figures of the Ukrainian national revival of the early 20th century. He is often considered the country's greatest modern historian, the foremost organiser of scholarship, the leader of the pre-revolution Ukrainian national movement, the head of the Central Rada (Ukraine's 1917–1918 revolutionary parliament), and a leading cultural figure in the Ukrainian SSR during the 1920s.

Early life

Hrushevsky was born on 29 September 1866 to a Ukrainian noble family in Kholm (Chełm), in Congress Poland, an autonomous polity in the Russian Empire. Hrushevsky grew up in Tiflis, where he attended a local school. His spiritual native land became Podillia, in the area of the village of Sestrynivka, Podillia Governorate. There, his mother, Glafira Zakharivna Okopova, was born into a family of Orthodox priests. Glafira married Serhii Fedorovych Hrushevsky, who had come to Kholm to teach Russian language at a Greco-Catholic gymnasium in 1865. Serhii Fedorovych's father, Fedir Hrushevsky was a highly-decorated official (his awards included the two Orders of Saint Anna and the Bronze Cross, and a title of nobility). Upon enrolling into Saint Volodymyr University, in Kyiv, Mykhailo has received blessings from his grandfather who has graduated from the History Department of this university. Mykhailo spoke warmly of his parents and described them as real patriots of Ukraine, who managed to instill a sense of national pride in their children.

Historian
Hrushevsky wrote his first academic book, Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, on the history of Bar, Ukraine. As a historian, he authored the first detailed scholarly synthesis of Ukrainian history, his ten-volume History of Ukraine-Rus, which was published in the Ukrainian language and covered the period from prehistory to the 1660s. In the work, he balanced a commitment to the ordinary Ukrainian people with an appreciation for native Ukrainian political entities, autonomous polities, which steadily increased in the final volumes of his master work. In general, his approach combined rationalist enlightenment principles with a romantic commitment to the cause of the nation and positivist methodology to produce a highly-authoritative history of his native land and people. Hrushevsky also wrote a multi-volume History of Ukrainian Literature, an Outline History of the Ukrainian People and a very popular Illustrated History of Ukraine, which appeared in both Ukrainian and Russian editions. In addition, he wrote numerous specialised studies in which he displayed a very acute critical acumen. His personal bibliography has over 2000 separate titles.

In Hrushevsky's varied historical writings, certain basic ideas come to the fore. Firstly, he saw continuity in Ukrainian history from ancient times to his own. Thus, he claimed the ancient Ukrainian steppe cultures from Scythia to Kyivan Rus to the Cossacks as part of Ukrainian heritage. He viewed the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia as the sole legitimate heir of Kyivan Rus, which opposed the official scheme of Russian history, which claimed Kyivan Rus for the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality and Imperial Russia. Secondly, to give real depth to the continuity, Hrushevsky stressed the role of the common people, the "popular masses" as he called them, throughout the eras. Thus, popular revolts against the various foreign states that ruled Ukraine were also a major theme. Thirdly, Hrushevsky always emphasised native Ukrainian factors rather than international ones as the causes of various phenomena. Thus, he was an anti-Normanist, who stressed the Slavic origins of Rus, internal discord as the primary reason for the fall of Kyivan Rus and the native Ukrainian ethnic makeup and origins of the Ukrainian Cossacks. (He considered runaway serfs especially important in the last regard.) Also, he stressed the national aspect to the Ukrainian Renaissance of the 16th and 17th centuries and considered that the great revolt of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to be largely a national and social phenomenon, rather than simply a religious phenomenon. Thus, continuity nativism, and populism characterised his general histories.

On the role of statehood in Hrushevsky's historical thought, contemporary scholars still do not agree. Some believe that Hrushevsky retained a populist mistrust of the state throughout his career and that it was reflected by his deep democratic convictions, but others believe that Hrushevsky gradually became more and more for Ukrainian statehood in his various writings and that to be is reflected in his political work on the construction of a Ukrainian national state, during the revolution in 1917 and 1918.

Scholar
As an organiser of scholarship, Hrushevsky oversaw the transformation of the Shevchenko Literary Society, based in the province of Halychyna (Galicia), Austria-Hungary, into a new Shevchenko Scientific Society, which published hundreds of volumes of scholarly literature before the First World War and quickly grew to serve as an unofficial academy of sciences for Ukrainian on both sides of the border with Russia. After the Russian Revolution of 1905, Hrushevsky organised the Ukrainian Scientific Society in Kyiv in 1907 that served as a prototype to the future Academy of Sciences. After the 1917-1921 revolution, he founded the Ukrainian Sociological Institute in exile in Vienna. After his return to Ukraine in the 1920s, he became a major figure of the new All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv in 1923.

Politician

Before 1917
As a political leader, Hrushevsky first became active in Austrian Halychyna, where he spoke out against Polish political predominance and Ruthenian particularism and supported a national Ukrainian identity that would unite both eastern and western parts of the country. In 1899, he was a cofounder of the Galician-based National Democratic Party, which looked forward to eventual Ukrainian independence. After 1905, Hrushevsky advised the Ukrainian Club in the Russian State Duma, or Parliament.

Ukrainian Revolution

In 1917, Hrushevsky was elected head of the revolutionary parliament, the Ukrainian Central Rada, in Kyiv and gradually guided it from Ukrainian national autonomy within a democratic Russia through to complete independence. He chaired the Congress of the Peoples of Russia. Hrushevsky was then clearly revealed to be a radical democrat and a socialist. On February 17, 1918, The New York Times published an article by Hrushevsky that outlined Ukraine's struggle for self-government. Following the German-supported coup of General Pavlo Skoropadsky, he went into hiding. Hrushevsky felt that Skoropadsky had perverted the cause of Ukrainian statehood by associating it with social conservatism. Hrushevsky returned to public politics after the overthrow of Skoropadsky by the Directory. He did not, however, approve of the Directory and soon found himself in conflict with it. In 1919, he emigrated to Vienna, Austria, having acquired a mandate from the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries to co-ordinate the activities of its representatives abroad.

Emigration and return to Ukraine
While an émigré, Hrushevsky began to become pro-Bolshevik. Along with other members of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, he formed the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, which advocated reconciliation with the Bolshevik government. Though the group was critical of the Bolsheviks, especially because if their centralism and repressive activities in Ukraine, it felt that the criticisms had to be put aside because the Bolsheviks were the leaders of the international revolution. Hrushevsky and his group petitioned the Ukrainian SSR government to legalise the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries and to allow the members of the Foreign Delegation to return. The Ukrainian SSR government was unwilling to do so. By 1921, the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries had ended its activity, but all of its members returned to Ukraine, including Hrushevsky, who did so in 1924.

Later life and death
Back in Ukraine, Hrushevsky concentrated on academic work. Above all, he continued writing his monumental History of Ukraine-Rusʹ. Although political conditions prevented his return to public politics, he was caught up in the Stalinist purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. In 1931, after a long campaign against Hrushevsky in the Soviet press, he was exiled to Moscow, where his health deteriorated due to difficult conditions and persecution. In 1934, while vacationing at the Academy of Sciences resort in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus, he died soon after a routine minor surgery at the age of 68. He was buried at the Bakiove cemetery in Kyiv.

At the time of his death, he was being shadowed by the Soviet GPU secret police after reports (probably fabricated by the GPU in Ukraine) were sent to Moscow that had been considering defection to the West, and afterwards the government resolution and approval of his official obituary were published remarkably promptly, as if already prepared: the suspicious circumstances effectively made him a martyr for the Ukrainian cause.

Legacy

Hrushevsky is presently regarded as Ukraine's greatest 20th-century scholar and one of the most prominent Ukrainian statesmen in Ukraine's history, and he is still famous in Ukraine. Hrushevsky has been more lionized than Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Symon Petliura were, despite both playing more important roles during the Ukrainian People's Republic, but Vynnychenko was too left wing and Petliura too associated with violence to make a good symbolic figure.

Hrushevsky's portrait appears on the 50 hryvnia note. A museum in Kyiv and another in Lviv are devoted to his memory, and monuments to him have been erected in both cities. A street in Kyiv bears his name houses and the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) and many governmental offices. The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences recently initiated the publication of his Collected Works, in 50 volumes.

Family
Mykhailo Hrushevsky had two siblings: a brother, Oleksandr, and a sister, Hanna.
 Oleksandr Hrushevsky (1877–1943) was married to Olha Hrushevska (Parfenenko) (1876–1961).
 Hanna Shamraieva had two children, Serhii and Olha.

His wife, Maria-Ivanna Hrushevska (November 8, 1868 – September 19, 1948), was from 1917 was a member of the Central Rada and a treasurer for the Ukrainian National Theatre.

Bibliography
 Hrushevsky, M., Bar Starostvo: Historical Notes: XV-XVIII, St. Volodymyr University Publishing House, Velyka-Vasyl'kivska, Building no. 29-31, Kyiv, Ukraine, 1894; Lviv, Ukraine, , pp. 1 – 623, 1996.

References

Further reading

 Dmytro Doroshenko, "A Survey of Ukrainian Historiography," Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the US, V-VI, 4 (1957), 262-74: online.
 Thomas M. Prymak, Mykhailo Hrushevsky: The Politics of National Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987). .
 Lubomyr R. Wynar, Mykhailo Hrushevsky: Ukrainian-Russian Confrontation in Historiography (Toronto-New York-Munich: Ukrainian Historical Association, 1988).
 Thomas M. Prymak, "Mykhailo Hrushevsky in History and Legend," Ukrainian Quarterly,LX, 3-4 (2004), pp. 216–30. A brief summary of this author's views.
 Serhii Plokhy, Unmaking Imperial Russia: Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). .
 Pyrig, Ruslan. Mykhailo Grushevsky and the Bolshevik Rule: The Price of Compromises in Zerkalo Nedeli, September 30, 2006. Available in Russian and Ukraine
 Christopher Gilley, The 'Change of Signposts' in the Ukrainian Emigration. A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s, Ibidem: Stuttgart, 2009, Chapter 4.

External links

 Collection of Hrushevsky's Works at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies press
 Oleksander Ohloblyn, Lubomyr Wynar. Hrushevsky, Mykhailo in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).

 Yershova, O. Unknown Ukraine: Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Film 86. "Kyivnaukfilm", 1993.

1866 births
1934 deaths
People from Chełm
People from Lublin Governorate
Ukrainian people in the Russian Empire
Ukrainian nobility
Society of Ukrainian Progressors members
Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party politicians
Ukrainian nationalists
Leaders of Ukraine
Members of the Central Council of Ukraine
20th-century Ukrainian historians
Historians of Ukraine
Ukrainian editors
Members of the Shevchenko Scientific Society
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni
Ukrainian revolutionaries
Russian Constituent Assembly members
Presidents of the Ukrainian People's Republic
Heads of state of Ukraine
Ukrainian exiles in the Russian Empire
Burials at Baikove Cemetery
Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Magazine founders
19th-century Ukrainian historians

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Click on the links below to access tutorial videos and documents containing step-by-step directions.
Did you find what you needed here? If not, try going to YouTube or Google and looking up a tutorial (there are so many out there! Just type in "How to...").


Relax and unwind in the luxurious Qantas Domestic Business Lounge before your flight. Enjoy complimentary food and beverage, wireless internet, and shower facilities.
Worth a DetourDefinitely worth visiting. Good pizzas and decent wines as well. Seating areas are very open - I would prefer a bit privacy, and at least some kind of partitioning. Seats are very comfortable though.
OutstandingBest domestic airline lounge in the world. Range of comfortable seating, pizza oven, tended bar and barista all excellent. Outdoes the Qantas international lounge at Perth!
OutstandingThis lounge is fairly new, and it looks great! I wish other QF Business lounges would adopt the same food offerings that the PER lounge has.
Worth a DetourThe food options are great throughout the day, including fresh made pizzas & plenty of other options. The staff are exceptional. Highly attentive, warm, and outgoing. They make this a great space!


Our Stopovers on Arrival package prices start from as low as USD 45 per person per night sharing for three nights.
The packages are available for sale ONLY at the 'Hotels & Visas for Dubai' desk located in the arrival hall prior to passport control/immigration, and cannot be pre-booked via an Emirates office.
Include your desired time in Dubai when booking your Emirates flights to avoid paying additional fees to change your itinerary after completing your booking. When booking online at emirates.com, this can be done by selecting 'Multiple Destinations' in our Make a Booking tool.
UAE visa fee is to be paid by the customer, if applicable*.
There is a maximum stay of 96 hours for passengers requiring visas.
Additional Federal Government and Immigration visa fees are not included.
If you change an existing booking to include a stopover, additional fees and charges may apply depending on your ticket and booking class. Where possible, please book your flight itinerary to include a stay in Dubai, in order to minimise any additional charges.
Approval of visas is at the discretion of the immigration authorities.
Stopovers on arrival are available to all Emirates passengers travelling to/via Dubai.
For those requiring visas, travel must be onward to another destination. Visas for turnaround passengers will not be processed. Travel on at least one sector (either in or out of Dubai) should be on Emirates or, in the case of passengers originating from points where Emirates does not operate, on an airline with which Emirates has a special agreement.
The offer is available to all Emirates passengers and is combinable with all fares and not restricted to any specific class of travel.
Supplement rates may apply during exhibitions/events in the city.
* Please see our UAE Visas section to check if you are eligible for a 96 Hour visa on arrival. Visas are subject to proof of hotel accommodation.


text:
Home / Models / BMW i / BMW: "By 2025, 15-25% of our cars will have…
BMW: "By 2025, 15-25% of our cars will have electric drivetrains"
BMW i, News | July 10th, 2018 by Horatiu Boeriu	14
At an event in Munich, BMW executives spent time with the media representatives to talk about the electrified future of the brand and to emphasize …
At an event in Munich, BMW executives spent time with the media representatives to talk about the electrified future of the brand and to emphasize BMW's commitment to EVs. In the recent years, BMW has often mentioned their ambitious plans to have 25 electrified cars by 2025, all of them built on the new Fifth Generation architecture which will have space for an underfloor battery pack. The packs will be flat but with scalable sizes based around a variety of different cells: high-performance ones for faster cars, taller ones for SUVs.
"We assume that, by the year 2025, something between 15 and 25 percent of the cars we make will have electric drivetrains," Oliver Zipse, BMW's board member for production, told Car and Driver. "But it could be 40 percent, or it could be only 10 percent."
The current plan is that every mainstream BMW model will be able to support both EV and PHEV variants as well as conventional engines, and that there will also be sufficient capacity to make specific electric-only models such as the upcoming iNext.
The iNEXT project is due out in 2021 and it's considered the most ambitious project BMW has ever put together.
[Source: Car and Driver]
BMW Electric vehiclesBMW EVelectric vehiclesEViNEXT
Previous post BMW gets suppliers ready for Brexit
Next post BMW describes their Fifth Generation architecture, scalable battery packages
Report: BMW Ponders Making MINI an Electric Only Brand
The launch of the new MINI Cooper SE, the all-electric model from Oxford, was a new page in the brand's history. The car has had …
BMW: "It is difficult to say if the i3 will have a straight successor"
The future of the BMW i3 has been in doubt for the last couple of years and we've reported several times recently that i3 is …
Learn more about the 720 hp BMW 5 Series Electric
BMW used the #NextGen event in Munich to not only unveil a series of production cars and concepts, but also a prototype which hints at …
Fully Electric BMW M Cars Will Become Reality After 2025
The launch of the BMW Vision M Next concept made a lot of people wonder about where the BMW M brand is heading. And the …
14 responses to "BMW: "By 2025, 15-25% of our cars will have electric drivetrains""
Audi e-tron will be preferred choice for most in Germany. It promises to be better built and higher tech than a Beamer.
Assumptions based on absolutely no evidence.
disqus_NdrthOMZ62 says:
Get used to it.
Yes, just as they are with diesel. Will their entire board go to prison, or just more executives?
Another insignificant and intellectually dishonest comment.
Rupert Stadler disagrees.
Chris Llana says:
I suspect the build quality will be about the same. On the other hand, the e-tron has three motors, enabling torque-vectoring, better handling and performance. The iX3 has just one motor, which excludes it as a "premium" EV.
Yes, totally unrelated manufacturers="build quality will be about the same". BMW 5th generation volume premium BEV>how many e-tron? You are not the arbiter of "premium" anything. You & John deserve each other. As BMW have acknowledged, tech. evolves so quickly they don't know where it will be in 5 yrs. Nor you.
Up to 200 (camoflaged) pre-production/production-ready examples of the Audi e-tron, Mercedes EQC, and Porsche Taycan have been driving around on public roads for many months, with journalists getting seat-time. The production EQC will be revealed in September, the Audi soon after. The Jaguar i-Pace has been test-driven in production form by many journalists, with universal praise. All have at least two motors, which is an important advantage over fossil cars. These are the competitors to the BMW iX3, which we have seen only in concept form, although I'm sure it will also be a very nice car when it arrives.
I assumed the discussion was about cars available within a year, and not announced "products" that will not exist for another five years, which as you so succinctly explained, are unknown to everyone.
The most important comparison to make over the next five years is electric versus fossil. That's where the competition will be; the larger the selection of EVs, the more choices fossil drivers will have, and the more likely they will make the switch. EVs from all manufacturers are all on the same team.
So a fraction of the test mileage & production volume of MINI & 1 Series test fleets and years of BMW hybrid & BEV sales. Last year BEV were a fraction of record ICE sales, good luck to the newcomers with their press fleets & press release production plans.
expat says:
You know what you can do with all these "short circuit" cars? Stick it up yours….
Johan Mo says:
iX3 Concept had one motor yes, but production model might get two.
Since we haven't yet seen a working prototype, let's hope they decide to put in two motors when they get around to finalizing the design (iX3 scheduled to start production in China at the end of 2019, so goes on sale in 2020 in China initially, but presumably elsewhere after that).
The upcoming Tiguan-sized VW I.D. Crozz (on sale in 2020) has two motors (225 kW/302 hp, 83 kWh battery). BMW would do well to meet the competition.
Hinu says:
By 2025… What a lousy goal. By 2025 they could easily rid themselves of all fossil-only cars and throw in an electric motor and a small battery.
If they said 2019, sure. But 2025? Terrible… Lazy…


text:
A Brief Bio of Me in 200 Words for iVERG
While watching the ALT-C 2010 Twitter stream, I saw a posting from the iVERG group inviting people interested in gaming and virtual worlds to check them out. I visited their home page to discover it's a consortium of academics investigating virtual worlds for use in learning and teaching:
iVERG is a group of collaborating academics and professionals from universities worldwide. Research on virtual environments for use in learning and teaching is diverse and complex and draws upon specialisms in education, computing, sociology, psychology and anthropology.
It has an important contribution to make to the effective uses of these environments which are being increasingly taken up by a wide range of educational institutions worldwide. Although they have an intrinsic appeal founded upon their origins within gaming and social networking, immersive virtual environments need research informed practice to ensure their effective educational use.
From: http://www.iverg.com/iVERG/Index.html
They're looking for people to join them, including students conducting research in associated areas. The two-page application form asks for a 200-word biography. I was struggling for something to write when it occurred to me to check my very old, but still maintained, "About Me" page, which had a blurb. I took that as the starting point and came up with:
Michelle finished her Bachelor of Science degree in honours computing science at the University of Regina (Canada) in October 1995. She then joined the University of Zürich's (Switzerland) Software Engineering Group, led by Dr. Helmut Schauer, and the Artificial Intelligence Lab, led by Dr. Rolf Pfeifer. While in Switzerland, she worked with Peter Schauble's team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on the EuroSpider project. She's a co-author with Kenrick Mock of several IRC-based games, including Risky Business and Acrophobia. She's a long-time member of the IDEAs Lab in the School of Informatics at the University of Sussex, where she's currently working on a Ph.D. under the direction of the Lab's head Dr. Judith Good. Michelle's part-time Ph.D., started in 2008, combines her lifelong love of teaching, community building, and gaming to examine learning and motivation in World of Warcraft (WoW). She also teaches, writes, and chairs courses at The Open University on accessibility, online learning, Open Source, PHP, and e-business technologies. In 2010, she completed the two-year Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice and got a second character to Level 80 in WoW. She's active on Twitter as @Eingang.
I suppose I'd like to see what other people have said. I hate writing about myself, but it's probably "good enough." Now, off to post the application.
networking, phding
Ein 2.0, iverg, virtual worlds


text:
// scalastyle:off println
package org.apache.spark.examples.mllib

import org.apache.spark.SparkConf
import org.apache.spark.SparkContext
// $example on$
import org.apache.spark.mllib.feature.{StandardScaler, StandardScalerModel}
import org.apache.spark.mllib.linalg.Vectors
import org.apache.spark.mllib.util.MLUtils
// $example off$

object StandardScalerExample {

  def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {

    val conf = new SparkConf().setAppName("StandardScalerExample")
    val sc = new SparkContext(conf)

    // $example on$
    val data = MLUtils.loadLibSVMFile(sc, "data/mllib/sample_libsvm_data.txt")

    val scaler1 = new StandardScaler().fit(data.map(x => x.features))
    val scaler2 = new StandardScaler(withMean = true, withStd = true).fit(data.map(x => x.features))
    // scaler3 is an identical model to scaler2, and will produce identical transformations
    val scaler3 = new StandardScalerModel(scaler2.std, scaler2.mean)

    // data1 will be unit variance.
    val data1 = data.map(x => (x.label, scaler1.transform(x.features)))

    // Without converting the features into dense vectors, transformation with zero mean will raise
    // exception on sparse vector.
    // data2 will be unit variance and zero mean.
    val data2 = data.map(x => (x.label, scaler2.transform(Vectors.dense(x.features.toArray))))
    // $example off$

    println("data1: ")
    data1.foreach(x => println(x))

    println("data2: ")
    data2.foreach(x => println(x))

    sc.stop()
  }
}
// scalastyle:on println

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Carol's Reviews
Wendy's Reviews
Diane's Reviews
Specials/Giveaways
Release Day Blitz
With your support by clicking on our links and using StarAngels' Reviews Ads to purchase your products through Amazon, etc. - All proceeds from these sales go directly back into the page and are used for the benefit of our fans and followers. We use this money to purchase Gift Cards and Swags in order to host Giveaways!
The Angels with an Attitude
**FREE Kindle Books**
Giveaways Blog Tour Review Book Blitz Cover Reveals Reviews by Wendy Reviews by Carol Reviews by April
Cover Reveal - Heated Desire by Wendi Hulsey
Pre-Order Blitz ♥ A Right To Remain by Beth Rinyu ♥ #giveaway $10 GC
Blog Tour - The Summer Heat by Elodie Parkes (#giveaway $5 GC)
Blog Tour ♥ A Fairy Tale Romance by Elodie Parkes ♥ #giveaway $5 GC
Release Blitz ♥ Hero Undercover by 25 Best Selling Authors ♥ #giveaway $10 GC
Title: Hero Undercover
Author: 25 Best Selling Authors
Publisher: Blushing Books Publishing
#heroundercoverblitz
SUMMER IS COOLER WHEN YOU STAY UNDERCOVER!
25 New York Times, USA Today, and award-winning best-selling romance authors offer this sizzling compilation of panty-melting undercover bad boys, from swoon-worthy cowboys and alpha military men to deliciously decadent dominants. This smoking-hot collection features a wide array of stories including dark fantasies, seductive sci-fi, and erotic BDSM, all with the sweet happily-ever-afters you crave!
Hundreds of pages for one unbeatable price. Turn up the AC, lie back, and escape into these brand new, red hot riveting reads.
Authors include: Annabel Joseph, Addison Cain, Renee Rose, Maggie Ryan, Maddie Taylor, Emily Tilton, Trent Evans, Jennifer Bene, Sophie Kisker, Megan Michaels, Katherine Deane, Maggie Carpenter, Jane Henry, Maisy Archer, Alyssa Bailey, Claire Conrad, Stevie MacFarlane, Piper Stone, Anya Summers, Lucy Wild, BJ Wane, A.C. Rose, April Hill, Amelia Smarts, Meredith O'Reilly
AMAZON US - http://amzn.to/2sbwIAq
AMAZON UK - https://goo.gl/kL57Q7
AMAZON CA - https://goo.gl/Sr788Z
BARNES & NOBLE - https://goo.gl/ZxY6xF
iBooks - https://goo.gl/8LiGyK
Testimony by Maggie Ryan
"Miss Fields, you've been found guilty. Sentencing is over and it's time to pay the piper."
"Objection!" Mia squealed again when he stood, sat on the wide rim of the tub and flipped her over his knees.
"Overruled," Damian said, slapping her left buttock.
"Ow! That hurts!" Mia cried, her hand flying back to rub her abused cheek, a bit shocked at exactly how much a simple swat could sting.
"It's supposed to hurt," Damian said calmly, easily avoiding her hand to add a second swat to her right cheek. "Consider it as a form of rehabilitation."
"Wait! This is cruel and unusual punishment!"
"No, babe, cruel would have been if you'd died in that explosion. And I would have been the one punished for the rest of my life if I'd lost you."
Mia turned her head to him, the look in his eyes causing her heart to hitch. He was right. This all could have been avoided if she'd only obeyed him. Sliding her hand from her bottom, she nodded, accepting his right to carry out the sentence. Her acquiesce didn't make the spanking easier to take. His hand was huge and hard, but for some reason she couldn't explain, it just felt right.
The Mercenary's Girl by Emily Tilton
Tess hoped for one wild moment that Jack would do something. Ever since he had said the strange thing about having to make it hurt, as, trembling, she felt her panties taken down for a public whipping, Tess hadn't been able to escape the feeling that he understood her terrible dilemma more deeply than she did herself. Now, desperately, she looked at him, filled with the certainty that he must stop this awful thing that seemed to make a mockery of Tess' confusion and conflict, her struggle against the dark force of her relationship with Jeffrey.
Three weeks ago, when Tess had heard Jack say that he had to whip her hard, her newly-exposed pussy had clenched, and she had felt the wetness flow so urgently that her face blazed like the sun, but she had had not the faintest idea why. When he had told her to take hold of the opposite edge of the table, and begun to bring his belt down, it had felt so different from when Jeffrey had spanked her or whipped her. Something in his voice, something in the hand he laid on the small of her back, controlling her, seemed to say that while Jeffrey punished her only to take out his aggression and for an erotic thrill, Jack had something different in mind.
I have to make it hurt. That was what he had said. He had seemed to mean that he knew the necessity of complying with Jeffrey's command that Tess be thoroughly punished for speaking out of turn. But she had never been able to rid herself of the feeling that Jack had really meant something else. She couldn't push that feeling away even now, when he had gone to get the toy-box that held the vibrating dildo with which Jeffrey brought the girls to orgasm after disciplining them but whose other contents Tess had never known. She kept thinking, despite everything, He loves me.
"Tess, darling," Jeffrey said in the cultured voice that always conveyed more menace than she thought the roughest lower-class accent from the London docks might have done, "take off your dress."
Slave for a Day: An Idan a Svali Novella by Jane Henry
"My lord, the men of the inner sanctum are not…nice men," he says.
I clench my jaw and nod. I have already surmised as much. "Yes, of course," I say.
"If they detect that you are treating her with kindness, they will suspect you--"
"I understand," I interrupt. Svali's eyes widen. I pull the chain that binds her to me and bring her ear to my mouth. "I may take you beyond where you are comfortable, lovely," I whisper. "But I promise you two things. First, that I will do whatever I can be ensure you like it. And second, that you can always trust me."
The Rangers Shotgun Bride by Maddie Taylor
His boot heels rang out across the wood floor as he approached. She watched as he pulled off his hat, and dropped it on one of the benches, his actions contradicting his comment that he had to go. Before she could ask if something was wrong, he slid her book from her fingers, set it aside, and with both hands clasping hers, tugged her to her feet.
They stood close. He was so tall—an attribute she liked about him, a lot—she had to angle her head back to look up at him. Just as she did, he bent toward her, his large palms warmly bracketing her face, and much to her surprise and great delight, he kissed her.
Soft, at first, when she moved a step closer, welcoming his advance, one arm slid around her waist, hauling her up against him as he deepened the kiss. As he pressed her close, their bodies melded together, supple and curved to hard and well-muscled, just like in all her daydreams. Breathless immediately, she became more so when his tongue slipped inside her mouth. It searched out every nook and cranny, the intimacy robbing her of rational thought and making her legs limp as noodles. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, clinging to him to keep from slithering as though boneless to the floor when he lifted his lips moments later.
"Amelia, darlin'." His husky voice rumbling low in the chest pressed hard to her breasts made them tingle more than they already were. "We've grown close these past few months. I want you to remember how you feel at this exact moment."
"How could I forget?" she asked dreamily, seeing that it was the best moment of her life.
"I'm gonna hold you to that."
Her Protector by Annabel Joseph
He was dancing on her last nerve, and she wasn't in the mood for a cha-cha, not after all that had happened. "Don't come at me with your authoritative, angsty government-agent posturing." She looked around their claustrophobic cabin. "I'm not in the mindset to put up with it."
Far from being deflated by her scathing warning, he leaned in on bulging arms and pinned her with his gaze. "Sorry to be so authoritative, Cracky, but I'm in charge of your safety."
"Did you just call me Cracky?"
"Until we get the all-clear from the DOD, you're under my protection."
"I didn't ask for your fucking protection!"
His blue eyes darkened as he frowned. "I asked you not to use coarse language, Miss Park. Here are the rules of our sojourn together, which you will follow whether you like it or not."
As she spluttered in irritation, he leaned an elbow on the table and ticked off each order on his fingers. "Number one, we respect each other. That's non-negotiable. Number two, no leaving this cabin, not for any reason. Number three, no contact with the outside world. You can't leave any physical or digital footprint that might be traced."
"But my friends, my parents, when they can't reach me—"
"We've left an outgoing message on your voicemail and email, letting everyone know that you've taken an impromptu cruise to the Bahamas. Wyckoff's watching your apartment and picking up your mail. If anyone gets suspicious, the security division will take care of it. They know how to make it look like people aren't missing."
"This is bullshit. All of this is utter, freaking craziness."
He sighed. "Language. This is your third warning."
"My third warning?" She snorted. "I know you're old, but you're not my dad. You can't tell me what to do."
"I can, to an extent. I'm your commanding officer right now, and I make the rules."
"What if I don't follow your rules?" Rowan sassed, not quite recklessly enough to add an expletive. "What happens then? A court martial?"
She could see, visually see, some last tendon of patience snap behind his patrician regard. "If you keep pushing me, you're going to end up over my lap, getting taught some manners for both our sakes. And it won't be one of those fun spankings you perv on your phone in the break room. It'll be the kind that makes you wish for a court martial instead…"
Alyssa Bailey
International Bestselling author Alyssa Bailey is the author of eighteen books including the Chase Abbey historical series and the O'Connors rancher series. As a Texan living in Alaska, she has plenty of material for her spanking and power exchange stories, all complete with happily ever afters that make you feel good.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/alyssabaileyromance.love/
Amelia Smarts
Amelia Smarts is a #1 Amazon bestselling author of domestic discipline/spanking romances, usually involving a cowboy, always involving a firm hand and a scorched ass.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/smarts.amelia/
Maisy Archer
Maisy is a romance-loving book-nerd. She writes bestselling contemporary tales about hot, unapologetically-kinky, alpha heroes and the crazy stuff that happens when they fall in love.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/janeandmaisy/
Stevie MacFarlane
Best-Selling author Stevie MacFarlane has been writing in her spare time for more than twenty years. While most of her stories are on the sweet side, she never fails to add just enough kink and humor to keep her loyal fans clamoring for more.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/stevie.macfarlane.7
Maddie Taylor
USA Today Bestselling Author Maddie Taylor is a multi-genre author with over 30 published titles, with #1's in the U.S. and Internationally in Erotica, Western, Historical Romance, BDSM, Time Travel, and most recently SciFi. She works with two well-known eBook and print publishers and has had success in self-publishing under her own brand, Breathless Romance.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/maddie.taylor.121772
Sophie Kisker
Sophie Kisker writes erotic romance that sometimes travels a dark and uncomfortable path, before arriving at a happily ever after. She lives in the American Midwest with her husband, son, and the cat, who is really the one in charge.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sophie.kisker.9
Emily Tilton
USA Today bestselling author Emily Tilton, whose books have hit number one on Amazon in six different erotica categories, is a married professor who lives in New England and has two wonderful children. Her stories are what she wishes her real sex-life could be.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/emily.tilton.98
Katherine Deane
USA Today bestselling author Katherine Deane is a multi-published, top 100 romantic and BDSM author and romantic at heart. She loves cheese, red wine, chocolate, and snuggling up with her daughters' kittens while reading a good book.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/katherinedeaneauthor/
BJ Wane
I live in the Midwest with my hubby of 'too many years to count', enjoy spending time with my daughter, love dogs and working any kind of puzzle. I've been writing spanking erotic romances for 10 years, the last two with a touch of suspense added.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/bj.wane
Lucy Wild
Lucy Wild is a contemporary romance author who specialises in dark romances. She lives on the Yorkshire coast with her partner and their border collie in a house full of books, sweets, and more books.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/lucywildromance/
Maggie Carpenter
Award-winning and best-selling author Maggie Carpenter has published over fifty romance novels spanning a variety of genres. Her readers describe her work as steamy, funny, suspenseful, beyond a five-star read, and exciting unpredictable romance.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MaggieCarpenterWriter/
USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR RENEE ROSE is a naughty wordsmith who writes kinky BDSM novels. Named Eroticon USA's Next Top Erotic Author in 2013, she has also won The Romance Reviews Best Historical Romance, and Spanking Romance Reviews' Best Sci-fi, Paranormal, Historical, Erotic, Ageplay and favorite couple and author.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/reneeroseromance/
#1 Amazon Bestseller in Erotic Western & Erotic Historical, Megan Michaels writes BDSM Romance that is Contemporary, Western Historical, Sci-Fi, and Victorian. Her books delve into Domestic Discipline, Dominance/submission, and all of them have elements of BDSM.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/megan.michaels.104
Trent Evans
A USA Today bestselling author, Trent Evans specializes in several flavors of BDSM erotic romance and erotica.
A long-time resident of the Pacific Northwest, he tends to use his long hours cooped up inside spinning yarns about things he'll never see or experience — such as sunshine.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/authortrentevans/
A.C. Rose
A.C. Rose is a sex and love journalist who also writes very steamy romance books. As a former editor of an iconic women's magazine, sexy stories and beautiful men have long been her beat.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AuthorACRose/
Jane Henry
Jane is a bestselling erotic romance author in multiple genres, including contemporary, historical, sci-fi, and fantasy. She pens stern but loving alpha heroes, feisty heroines, and emotion-driven happily ever afters.
Maggie Ryan
USA Today Best Selling and award winning author Maggie Ryan brings you stories that you can disappear into, to experience what might have been or what may be to come. She invites you to curl up in your favorite chair and take a journey and wishes you happy reading.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/authormaggieryan/
Annabel Joseph is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of emotionally intense BDSM and erotic romance. She writes mainly contemporary romance, although she's been known to dabble in the medieval and Regency eras.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/annabeljosephnovels/
Jennifer Bene
Jennifer Bene is the international bestselling author of the Thalia series, and other dark and devious romance and erotica in a variety of genres.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/jenniferbeneauthor/
Anya Summers
Anya Summers is a bestselling and award-winning author published in multiple fiction genres. A total geek at her core, when she is not writing, she adores attending the latest comic con or spending time with her family.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AnyaSummers/
Pitch black suits Addison Cain's tastes just right. Driven to push her characters beyond the pale, Addison's books are not for the faint of heart.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AddisonlCain/
April Hill is a best-selling author of women's romance, known for her wry humor, sensitive character development and of course, the love.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/april.hill.3150
Claire Conrad
Claire Conrad is a full time writer and chocolate enthusiast who writes sexy alpha males, hot aliens, fantasy lovers and anything else her muse thinks might be fun (or a little naughty). She loves a good red wine, traveling just about anywhere, coffee and is absolutely addicted to a hot read with a happily-ever-after.
Piper Stone
Piper Stone writes in several genres including thrillers, erotic romance, dark erotic, Domestic Discipline, spanking, Domination and submission and traditional romance. She has a love of the non-traditional, preferring to create worlds that defy the imagination. Wine and sous vide cooking are only second to her love of golden retrievers and you might find all three nestled in the pages of a book or two.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Piper-Stone-573573166169730/
Meredith O'Reilly
Meredith O'Reilly is an erotic romance author. She's full of energy, is obsessed with polka dots, and loves writing sweet stories with a sexy twist!
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005903835160
Sign up for Promo Stars Mailing List!
Sign up to be an All Event Tour Host!
Posted by Carol Allen at 7:30 AM
Labels: Book Promotions , Giveaways , PromoStars , Release Day Blitz
Anna Josefin Bergman July 5, 2017 at 4:16 PM
Share book reviews and ratings with Carol (StarAngel's Reviews), and even join a book club on Goodreads.
Wendy'sThoughts's
Share book reviews and ratings with Wendy'sThoughts, and even join a book club on Goodreads.
Copyright (c) 2012 StarAngels' Reviews . Designed by lord of the ocean


text:
The Eurogamer team's favourite games of 2018
Hot fives.
Article by	Eurogamer staff, Contributor
The editor writes: We'll be publishing Eurogamer's official top 30 games of 2018 tomorrow. In a break with Eurogamer tradition, we didn't put that list together by voting among ourselves this year. But I still asked for everyone on the staff (plus the Digital Foundry team and a couple of our most regular freelance contributors) to submit their favourite games of the year because I thought it would be interesting to build up a picture of what the Eurogamer team really plays and cares about, rather than some homogenised arithmetic byproduct of that.
Each staffer submitted five games, listed in no particular order. Remasters and reissues on new platforms were allowed, as were games which weren't first released in 2018 but which made a major impact or underwent significant changes this year (such as Fortnite). I wanted these lists to reflect about what we were actually playing rather than the release schedule. This is our gaming life, warts and all. Don't judge us too harshly.
Aoife Wilson
Video Team
Oh god, I'm so basic. But it came as a bit of a surprise, when I looked back on the year for this list, to see how few new games I'd actually gotten round to playing. Part of it, I think, is down to the fact I've been playing a lot of older games for the channel (Dark Souls, Bloodborne) and older games with my partner at home (Persona 5), but there just haven't been that many titles this year that I feel like I'll remember in a few months' time. The new games I have played, however, were played thoroughly - and Spider-Man was exactly what I wanted from Insomniac as a big comic book fan.
Spider-Man. Correction: MARVEL's Spider-Man.
Bertie Purchese
Senior Staff Writer
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Fortnite ruled - and continues to rule - 2018 in my home. Not so much because I play it but because my son plays it, and that's a very powerful thing for me. It's hilarious and weird. I love it. I just wish they'd lose the real guns. Nintendo Labo is just magic and it really ignited my son's curiosity. That inspired mind is priceless. I knew Thronebreaker wouldn't be crap but I didn't expect it to be dark, provoking and brilliant. I have never been so thrilled by a city-building game as I have by Frostpunk, because it's a survival game too and it keeps you on the edge of coping right until the bitter end. And sailing the warm Caribbean seas and tinkering with an archipelago's worth of politics and personalities in Pillars 2 is still an irresistible draw to me - less so the overarching story, so take your time there and enjoy it.
Pillars of Eternity 2.
Chris Tapsell
Guides Writer
Pokémon: Let's Go
Into the Breach is the best strategy game of 2018, and probably one of the best since FTL - and that's one of the best ever. Pokémon was a lovely, candy-floss surprise. Spider-Man isn't a particularly sophisticated game - it feels a lot like a PS2-era ideal - but it needn't be. Few games this year have got close to its charm or heart. God of War was so relentlessly overpraised as a masterpiece that it actually lessened my opinion of it, but it is still a bellowing, cacophonous assault of pure, blockbuster action. And of all the battle royales I've now played, the sheer adrenaline of PUBG is still unmatched. As is its tactical depth, its arithmetical, long-range gunplay, and especially the unique and rather pensive, doomsday-prepper serenity of looting some quiet shore of Erangel at sunset.
It's pronounced pubjee, Emma.
Christian Donlan
Features Editor
Searching for a theme to unite such a diverse gaming year has made me realise that this is almost a class-based top five. You've got Depth and Mastery with Into the Breach, Novelty with Astro Bot, The Shock of the New (it should be a class if you ask me) with Return of Obra Dinn, Comforting Familiarity with Burnout Paradise, and then there's Tetris Effect to bring us home: Transcendence.
Take me down to the paradise city.
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Cultist Simulator
The more I think about Subnautica, the more I think it could be the finest open-world game I've played. It sticks out from the crowd of Ubiworlds and Ubiworld imitators like a downed starship from an alien ocean. Octopath's battle system is as juicy, testing and ruthless as they come. Cultist Simulator is a magnificent, tittering parasite of a card game. Dead Cells is that rare roguelike - or as its creators might prefer, "roguevania" - that feels utterly silky in the hands. And Into the Breach is a turn-based strategy game of quite terrifying compactness, one that is somehow as simple as noughts-and-crosses yet as dense with approaches as, say, Final Fantasy Tactics.
Cultist Simulator.
Emma Kent
2018 once again displayed the power of existing games to re-invent themselves, with Fortnite receiving possibly the biggest glow-up of all. Epic's stellar environmental storytelling, continuous maintenance and charming sense of humour has established Fortnite as the new gold standard for online gaming. Warframe also had a strong year, with a solid Switch port and major open world expansion serving to revitalise its enthusiastic community. Meanwhile, on the single-player front, God of War took the series in a more mature direction with beautiful world-building and careful nods to Scandinavian history. New year, new you - so just who will it be next time?
Warframe.
Ian Higton
My year has been dominated by VR, so much so that I've just not had enough time to commit to playing through the big titles like God of War, Spider-Man and so on. The year was off to a cracking start with Moss showcasing just how good PSVR could be, and it only got better with the additions of Astro Bot and Beat Saber. Firewall: Zero Hour proved to be my favourite first-person shooter of the year - the gameplay and immersion is just incredible, and this makes up for the lack of modes and the myriad of lobby issues. Finally, H1Z1 on PS4 was my most played game and it let me scratch that battle royale itch on console without the annoying building aspects of Fortnite or the performance issues of PUBG on Xbox One.
Beat Saber.
John Linneman
Staff Writer, Digital Foundry
Monster Boy & the Cursed Kingdom
A truly magnificent presentation combines with arguably the greatest puzzle game of all time in Tetris Effect. It's Tetris on the surface only - the experience of playing (and replaying) its various challenges and modes left a huge impression on me. Mega Man 11 plays like classic Mega Man and I feel it stacks up against the best in the series. Monster Boy & the Cursed Kingdom is a brand-new successor to the Wonder Boy series that manages to outshine every single of them, plus the soundtrack, featuring composers such as Michiru Yamane and Yuzo Koshiro, is sublime. Astro Bot Rescue Mission is easily one of the best VR games ever made. Finally, it's no secret that I'm burned out on open world games but Spider-Man manages to solve this with superb traversal, a great mainline story, slick combat and gorgeous visuals.
Mega Man 11.
Johnny Chiodini
Because so much of the world feels like it's perpetually on fire at the moment, my year has been characterised by big, vibrant games that are fun to play no matter what you're doing. Sea of Thieves and Monster Hunter World in particular have been joyful distractions and I am grateful for how meticulously they were crafted.
Dead Cells.
The Red Strings Club
Ni no Kuni 2
While endowed with the same over-the-top silliness as most anime titles, Yakuza provides a much more approachable look at Japanese culture. Yakuza 6 is less boastful than previous games, oddly for a send-off to the series, but there's still nothing quite like it. Florence is a poignant and relatable exercise in how much you can say without words. I picked up The Red Strings Club on a whim and it turned out to be one of my favourites: I'm a cyborg, a magical bartender and a hacker in a cyberpunk environment? Well, sign me up! It's stating the obvious to say a game is cleverer than I am - games anticipate your reactions like a cat with a string - but my, Into the Breach is a clever game if I've ever seen one. There is so much nuance to the simple task of defending buildings with a few mechs, and it's a strategy game in which even the best-laid strategies can fail spectacularly. It was one of many cold and unforgiving games this year, but sometimes you want a comfort blanket of a game, and that's where Ni no Kuni 2 came in. It's kind at heart, perhaps too kind to the player with undemanding combat and a simple narrative, but it's all the richer for it. In a year in which unkindness was once again a near-daily companion, I accept without any cynicism its message that a great kingdom can be built on the grounds of kindness.
Ni no Kuni 2.
Martin Robinson
Features and Reviews Editor
It's not, I think, been a stellar year all told, though maybe that's just the whining of a Nintendo fanboy about what's been a relatively quiet year for them after the bonanza that was 2017. Still, there's been enough to make me more than happy, and in Tetris Effect there's what I think will go on to be an all-time classic. Oh, and some half-decent racing games, too - I'd have loved to have made space for Onrush, which was brilliantly offbeat, or for the amazing F1 2018, a true equal of Geoff Crammond's greats, or even for iRacing and Gran Turismo Sport which saw sizeable updates this year - but the nostalgic part of me just adores Wreckfest and its take on knockabout 90s racers, and the incredible achievement of Isle of Man TT in bottling the magic of the world's most outlandish motorsport event.
Isle of Man TT.
Matt Wales
Subnautica is a game of always compelling, often terrifying, exploration through a wonderfully realised underwater world. In a year that's been a dream for management sim fans, with the likes of Two Point Hospital, Megaquarium and Parkasaurus, Parkitect is a real standout: an engrossing, staggeringly well realised experience, combining surprisingly powerful building tools with a rich, forward-thinking management core. It still blows my mind that Hollow Knight is the work of, essentially, four people: a near-flawless, modern-day classic. Sea of Thieves is certainly not the best game on my list by any traditional criteria, but it's easily my favourite, and the one that I've played most in 2018: I've lost count of the number of times where I've turned off the game only to be faintly surprised to find myself on a chair in front of the TV. I somewhat grudgingly played Fortnite at the start of the year to see what all the fuss was about and fell in love with it almost immediately. It's a game that sees no shame in being silly. Throw in Epic's absolute mastery of background narrative, its flawless sense of occasion, and its ceaseless capacity to surprise and it's hard to think of another game quite as rich, quite as consistently engaging, this year.
Parkitect.
Matthew Reynolds
Shenmue 1 and 2
Fortnite and Assassin's Creed Odyssey might feel out of place against the rest, but these are finely-crafted experiences brimming with personality - elevating them above their blockbuster peers. Minit and Celeste were two perfect Switch experiences: Minit, a brief but enormously clever adventure that doesn't waste any of your time, and Celeste giving me a Super Meat Boy-style challenge I've not had since the XBLA days. Shenmue, meanwhile, was the sheer relief of playing some of my favourite ever games and realising they hold up remarkably well - and though technically rough, the collection was the perfect way to bring them back, by keeping them almost exactly as they were.
Shenmue.
Oli Welsh
Even-numbered years are always good gaming years for me, because they mean a new Forza Horizon and a new World of Warcraft expansion. That's my entire gaming diet taken care of from late summer and well into the following year. Horizon 4 has a stunning map and I love the weekly seasonal updates - I think developer Playground will nail the live game experience next time out. The rest of the year was mostly spent on Switch with the deliciously post-modern JRPG Octopath Traveler and catching up with all the indies I'd missed when they appeared on Steam, the microcosmically perfect Into the Breach being the standout. Bluepoint's astonishing rebuild of Shadow of the Colossus, which I reviewed way back in January, cast a long shadow over the year, though. Such clarity of vision isn't easy to come by in games in 2018, and its sheer emptiness now seems not dated but daring and refreshing.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth.
Paul Watson
2018 has been a tough year for pretty much everyone, I reckon. I think that's fair to say; it seems like we've all spent the past 12 months being beaten down by one loathsome current event after another. The games I've enjoyed the most this year, then, have been games which offered pure escapism - an escape to tender tales of love and existentialism, like Night in the Woods, Florence and Gone Home; to a cheerful colourful world inhabited by cute creatures, like Pokémon: Let's Go; and, because sometimes the best therapy is smashing things with a big hammer, to a world where I can batter the absolute spit out of evil unholy creatures from the safety of my bed, like Dark Souls: Remastered.
Night in the Woods. (It came out on Switch this year.)
Tom Morgan
The biggest surprise of 2018? Seeing Assassin's Creed reinvent itself so effectively in Odyssey as an action RPG set across a gorgeous medley of islands. It got lost in the end-of-year muddle, but it's the one I'm most eager to get back to. Most played? Another surprise. The Blackout mode in Black Ops 4, for a short while, became a nightly obsession. It worked so well, but I found myself wanting more variety from the map, and faster than Treyarch were able to implement it. Here's hoping they do - and that it's enough to lure my squad back from Fortnite.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Tom Phillips
I believe Fortnite is probably the most interesting game in the world right now, irregardless of it also being the most popular. I feel like it is going to be a template for the future of gaming way outside of battle royale. Assassin's Creed Odyssey is also kind of Fortnite-y, in a way: it's as close as Ubisoft has come to making a live world, and it is so rewarding and fun to jump back into. Its procedural quest system is both banal and brilliant - it provides excuses to simply play around with the systems it has set up for you to have fun with. I love it and Kassandra is the best. Forgotton Anne is my indie pick of the year, a beautiful self-contained story which is just the right length and just the right amount of weird. Yoku's Island Express is joyful, instant smiles, and perfect-feeling controls. And then there's Tetris Effect. Unlike some on the team, I don't think it is trying to reprogram us all to become better people - but it is an endorphin-releasing trip I'm glad to have partaken in.
Forgotton Anne.
Vikki Blake
I love first-person shooters, but there's not a single one of them in my top five games this year. I don't think that's happened before. I'm not sure if it's because I'm growing up or the pickings were just too slim this year, but despite a new Far Cry and a Destiny 2 expansion to sink into - two of my favourites - my top five consists of four indie diamonds and a AAA game from a series that I've hitherto intensely disliked. What a turn up!
Wesley Yin-Poole
Destiny 2: Forsaken
Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition
It's hard to remember what happened in 2018 that wasn't Tetris Effect, so all-encompassing is that game. But it turns out I quite like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, whose Blackout mode is a wonderful battle royale, and Destiny 2 expansion Forsaken, which kept my attention for a solid month. Earlier this year we got two superb fighting games: Arc System Works' Dragon Ball FighterZ is just a joy on every level, and Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition did its best to right the wrongs of Street Fighter 5's disastrous launch. Not a banner year by any stretch of the imagination, but Tetris Effect came on as a late game substitute to rescue a point for team 2018.
Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition.
Will Judd
Senior Staff Writer, Digital Foundry
Battletech's rocky launch ultimately didn't detract from a long-awaited tactical return to a treasured sci-fi setting. For me, Battlefield 5 is modern, chaotic and destructive; the best Battlefield since Bad Company 2. Pillars 2 was my favourite game world of the year, a vibrant fantasy take on the Caribbean with a memorable lexicon and the confidence to tackle hard topics. Forza Horizon 4 is the best reproduction of Britain I've ever seen, with fun and varied racing wrapped in an incredibly slick package - and Overcooked 2 has caused more arguments and laughter in my house than any other game.
Battletech.
Want to know how we decided Eurogamer's best game of 2018? Give our podcast a listen through iTunes, Spotify, RSS, and SoundCloud:
Jump to comments (200)
Eurogamer staff


WHICH COUNTRIES DO THE BALKANS SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM COVER?
WHICH COUNTRIES DOES THE HARRAN SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM COVER?
IN THE FRAMEWORK OF TÜRKIYE SCHOLARSHIPS, WHAT IS THE TURKISH LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIPS PROGRAM (KATİP) WHICH IS OFFERED FOR PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND ACADEMICS?
WHAT ARE THE SPECIAL LIBRARIES IN TURKEY?
WHAT DOES TÜRKİYE SCHOLARSHIPS AIM TO DO?
WHAT ARE THE DRIVING CONDITIONS FOR FOREIGN NATIONALS IN TURKEY?
WHAT IS THE SUCCESS RATE THAT THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS APPLYING TO TÜRKIYE SCHOLARSHIPS MUST ACCOMPLISH?
WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM DURATION OF THE RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM?
WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVE MEANS OF TRAVEL BETWEEN CITIES IN TURKEY?
WHERE ARE HISTORIC AREAS TO VISIT IN TURKEY?
WHAT ARE THE OFFICIAL HOLIDAYS IN TURKEY?
WHAT IS THE TURKIC SPEAKING COUNTRIES SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM?
WHERE COULD INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS TAKE UP INTERNSHIPS APART FROM TBMM?
CAN INDIVIDUAL APPLICATIONS BE MADE TO THE TURKISH COMMUNICATION PROGRAMS FOR PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND ACADEMICIANS (KATİP)?
WHAT IS TURKEYS GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION AND WHAT ARE IT'S ADVANTAGES?
WHAT ARE THE ACTIVITIES AIMED AT RAISING STUDENT FACILITIES?
WHAT ARE MUSIC FESTIVALS HELD IN TURKEY?
WHICH COUNTRIES DOES THE TÜRKIYE AFRICA SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM COVER?
WHAT IS THE BLACK SEA SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM?
The Student Visa, is an entrance visa given by the Turkish Representations for international students who come to study in Turkey. Beneficiaries of the Türkiye Scholarships must apply for the visa at the Embassy or Consulate of the Republic of Turkey before arriving to the country.
DO INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK IN TURKEY?
CAN I APPLY TO TÜRKİYE SCHOLARSHIPS INDIVIDUALLY?
WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF TURKEY AND WHAT ARE IT'S MAJOR CITIES?