text:
What is StoryBundle?
Joseph R. Lallo was born in Bayonne, NJ. For most of his life, writing was an interest that he used to fill those spare moments when he should have been studying or doing other more productive activities. This continued all the way through college, graduate school (where he earned a masters of computer engineering), and nearly a decade as an IT specialist. On January 28th 2010, after several dozen failed attempts to have his stories traditionally published, his friends convinced him to self-publish. A year later he had earned $19, so he decided to make the first book in his series free. The following month he made $1900 and was well on his way to a career in self-publishing.
Primarily known for his Book of Deacon fantasy series, Joseph R. Lallo has completed more than a dozen books in five different settings. These include the main Deacon setting and its spinoffs, five science fiction novels in the Big Sigma series, five steampunk novels called the Free-Wrench series, and the new Urban Fantasy series, Shards of Shadow.
Temporal Contingency by Joseph R. Lallo
Temporal Contingency is the fourth book in the Big Sigma Series.
Trevor "Lex" Alexander's life has been less than blessed. In the past year he's had to battle corrupt corporations, deranged techno-terrorists, and a robotic scourge. Now he's received the opportunity to finally return to the racing career that had been cut short by some poor decisions. One could excuse him for not wanting to be embroiled in another insane adventure when he is so close to returning to his life's calling. Sometimes the call of duty will not be denied.
Karter Dee, a certified lunatic responsible for many of Lex's recent woes, has discovered a threat on an unprecedented scale. He and Ma, his AI caretaker, know their plan to solve the problem will take a special mixture of competence, improvisation, and disregard for personal safety. Reluctance aside, Lex is the only man for the job. Even with the skilled pilot on the team, the scope of the problem has grown so massive that it may be unsolvable in its current state. Some would consider the situation hopeless, but any good engineer knows if you can't find a solution, you have to change the problem.
To give human society a chance at a future, Lex, Karter, and Ma, will have to venture into the past.
CURATOR'S NOTE
This is my own contribution to the bundle, the fourth installment of the Big Sigma series. Back when I wrote Bypass Gemini, I wasn't even certain it would be a series. Readers got a kick out of the characters of Lex, Karter, and Ma, so the stories continued to flow. What's special about this one is the fact that the whole series exists because a friend of mine suggested I write some sci-fi. I didn't know at the time, but he was hoping it would be a time travel story. It took a few years, but Temporal Contingency finally scratched that itch for him. I hope you find it similarly enjoyable. – Joseph R. Lallo
"… How can you top time travel?! It's always a hard subject for Sci Fi writers and you can never escape paradoxes, it takes a v good author to make the paradoxes workable… [Mr. Lallo] manages to wrangle the time travel angle with multiple versions of the characters in another great story to 'save the universe'! …"
– Amazon Review
"A well told edge of your seat tale with surprising elements of humor."
– Buck Norton, Goodreads
"… I've read all of his other books, and all I have to say is that everything that he learned crafting those other books has paid off with this far superior series. His characters are more rounded, the story lines are way richer and the antagonists are more than walls that his heroes need to climb over. … This author did up his game this time around and produced some really fine work. And his take on the temporal story line is among of the best that I have ever read."
– John Frosted, iBooks
There was nothing quite as satisfying as the roar of a hoversled. Sure, even the most underpowered ships had more potent reactors, but the vacuum of space always muted the bulk of their sound. Only what worked its way through the structure of the ship itself ever made it to the ears of the pilot. But a hoversled? Every rattle and hiss was yours to enjoy.
Trevor Alexander, "Lex" to all but a select few, basked in the throaty rumble of the thrusters. To him the complex overlapping rhythms had all the nuance and elegance of a symphony orchestra, and had the bonus of propelling him across the landscape at 1200 kph in the straightaways. A desert landscape, wavy and distorted with rising heat, stretched out around him in all directions. It was beautiful in a raw, austere kind of way, sandy-yellow and brick-red stone arranged into a lifeless moonscape of irregular spires and sprawling mesas. Flickering red laser lines stretched between roughly placed markers, tracing out a naturally clear section of the planet's surface. If he focused, he could feel the repulsors ride across the cracked earth. It was a mild shudder layered atop the general vibration that came with oversize engines forcing a ship through an atmosphere that at this speed may as well have been thick as mud. Pumping lubrication and overheated electronics filled the cockpit with a stinging, acrid smell that almost overpowered the prevailing aroma. Lex himself.
Heat management was a tricky thing on any high-speed vehicle. The amount of power belching from even the high-efficiency state-of-the-art propulsion systems mounted on this sled was difficult enough to vent completely in a temperate atmosphere. On Operlo, a planet with a "habitable zone" that seldom dropped below 65 degrees Celsius, it was that much harder to dissipate the excess heat. All of this translated to a cockpit that was practically a sauna even with the air-conditioning blasting. Dressed as he was in flame-retardant, impact-reactive safety gear, Lex was stewing. But he wouldn't have it any other way. The smell of sweat, the hum of the reactor, the shimmy of the frame, the streak of the landscape: they were all part of the experience, four of the five senses pushed to their absolute limit. And as for the fifth?
"Listen, I think next time we're going to go spearmint on the gum, Preethy," Lex said. "I'm just not feeling this wintergreen."
"I shall make a note of it, Lex, but please try to remember you are testing the Revision 3 hoversled, not the concession stand," remarked the businesslike voice of Preethy Misra across the communicator built into his helmet.
"Hey, I'm a full-service sort of guy. You hire me, you get it all."
"How is the equipment performing?" she asked.
He glanced at the instrument panel. Every section of the cockpit that wasn't populated with controls was covered with digital and mechanical gauges measuring every conceivable metric of the sled's condition. Presently they were color coordinated quite well, each deep into the red side of the spectrum.
"Meters look good," he said, yanking the control stick to the left to coax the vehicle around a turn.
Inertia, even subdued as it was by the inhibition system designed to keep the acceleration from squirting his brain out his ears, shoved him to the side of his seat. Three structure sensors started blaring warnings in response.
"As a general rule we try to keep them in the green, not the red," Preethy said.
"If you're going to spy on the readings across the com system, then why even ask my opinion? I'm your test driver, and I say she's a beaut. Holding up brilliantly."
"And what do you think of the track the surveyors picked out? A worthy third course for our circuit?"
His hoversled rode up a slight incline and lofted, hurdling through the air for several hundred meters before slamming down again.
"What was that?" Preethy asked.
"A minor grading issue. Let me ask, are your track maintenance guys going to clear this off and level it out?"
"There are safety regulations to adhere to. I understand track features such as that will be mitigated somewhat."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. In that case, this is going to make for sort of a tame run," he said. "I'm feeling it. But I'm not feeling it, you know?"
"I'm afraid you'll need to articulate yourself a bit better than that if I'm going to take your recommendations to the engineers."
"Well…" He glanced aside, looking out the right window of his cramped cockpit.
Stretching out beside the roughed-out track was a huge field of natural stone structures, columns of hard stone scoured out of the softer stretches of the landscape by constant winds. The field was dense with them, in some instances leaving barely enough room between for two hoversleds to pass side by side. He grinned.
"I'm thinking something like this," Lex said.
He fired the retrothrusters to drop his speed to something more maneuverable, then tugged at the controls. The sled struggled to keep its grip on the stone and gravel of the field, skidding wide before settling into a new course. Lex blasted through the laser perimeter of the potential course and off into the cluttered field beyond.
"Lex, please stay on the intended track until we've completed the testing."
"We did three laps. Let's just take a little detour for a bit," he said.
"Need I remind you, antics like this have inspired the resignation of no fewer than three insurance adjusters?"
"Thinning the herd, Preethy. If they can't take a little navigational improvisation out of your racers, they don't have a place in the business."
The sled sliced across the landscape and deep into a cluster of stone spires. They swept past in twos and threes, each one bringing a heart-stopping whomp as he charged by with inadvisably little clearance.
He heard Preethy clear her throat over the communicator, then address someone on her side. "Gina, would you please send me the link to the appropriate land surveys for areas surrounding track three? … Thank you."
Lex eased the hoversled into a lazy turn into a denser patch of columns, effortlessly plotting a course between them and thrilling as his proximity warning switched from a periodic blip to an almost constant tone.
"Lex, please bring the sled to a stop immediately," Preethy said. Her tone was still as calm and collected as it had ever been, but vibrating beneath it was a very real tension.
"Why, what's up?"
"Fifteen hundred meters ahead of you starts ore-field 145, one of our larger zinc mines."
"Okay, first off, fifteen hundred meters were gone before you finished talking. Second, what do I care about mines? Those are underground, right?"
"This particular mine has been running since before Mr. Patel's landscape conservation efforts. Mining has been temporarily discontinued there due to geographic instability. Automated boring machines were working quite near the surface."
"How cl—oh jeez!"
He pulled hard at the yoke and tapped a side thruster, narrowly avoiding a yawning opening in the ground ahead.
"What was that?"
"Little pothole. Nothing to worry ab—"
His assurance was cut short by the crackling grind of collapsing stone as the ground beneath him began to give way. He cut off power to the main thrusters and maxed out the repulsors, effectively wrapping the whole sled in the electromagnetic equivalent of a bumper. After a short drop, he slammed down onto a bored-out cylindrical tube.
The natural inclination at this point would have been to stop, but Lex knew when land started to collapse it didn't usually stop right away. He wasn't interested in having several metric tons of landscape land on top of him, so he juiced the thrusters and darted along the tunnel.
"Preethy?" he said shakily.
"Are you hurt, Lex?" she asked.
"No, but I've got a minor criticism of your sled design."
"Perhaps now is not the time for that."
"It's pretty heavy on my mind," he said, his hands dancing across the controls.
"What is it?"
"No headlights."
Ahead, the tunnel was utterly black. He routed some power to the retrothrusters without cutting any from the main ones. It wasn't a very wise decision, since it put terrible strain on the hoversled's frame, but at this point very few decisions Lex had made were motivated by wisdom. The glow from the straining reverse thrusters just barely illuminated the way ahead. What he saw was a fairly enormous tunnel, easily eighty meters in diameter and a perfect circle in cross section. It continued straight at least as far as the eye could see, which at the moment wasn't very far at all. Cracks and fractures all along the ceiling convinced him that continuing forward was the best option, as further collapse seemed imminent.
"Any chance you could—"
"I'm loading the tunnel network layout into your race computer now," Preethy said.
"Much obliged."
A progress bar popped up on one of the instrument screens, rocketing from 0 to 50 percent rather quickly, but then slowing drastically.
"Looks like we've got a little bit of a connectivity problem."
"Our… intended to… transmission through…" Preethy said, her voice eventually entirely swallowed by digital distortion.
Lex glanced at his altitude meter—an odd but surprisingly useful inclusion on a hoversled—and noticed that he was creeping steadily deeper into the negatives. One by one the sensors that depended on satellite data went black or errored out. The map download ground to a stop at 86 percent.
"Right, okay. That's probably enough," he said, tapping the screen. "Satellite connection lost, switching to full."
The navigation system, not exactly the most robust system on the market considering it was designed to report where on a known track the vehicles were, struggled to cope with the task of working out where in the mine system it was. After a few moments, the screen flashed: Recalibration needed. Please decrease speed to zero.
Lex glanced about again. The integrity of this stretch of the tunnel seemed much more secure than what he'd left behind.
"I think I can manage that," he said, dialing back the thrust and bringing the sled to a halt.
The screen thanked him and began to tick through its diagnostic, but without the thrusters to light the way, Lex was left with only the various very angry indicator lights to illuminate his surroundings. No longer pushed to its limit, the vehicle released the pops and pings typical of a device easing down from the sort of mistreatment he'd been administering. Behind it though, he started to pick up a distant sound that didn't sit well. A second or two later, just as the screen switched to the word finalizing, he began to feel the sound. The whole tunnel was rumbling and shuddering. Pebbles and stones started to clatter against the windscreen.
"Time to go," he said, punching the throttle.
His navigation screen now helpfully displayed the cave network, with tiles missing where the data was incomplete. A route to the finish line was plotted, along with a warning: Low-fidelity mode. Position is within a one-hundred-meter radius.
"Oh, great. That's plus or minus the entire tunnel," he muttered. "Can't say I've got a rosy opinion of the nav system, Preethy."
A few seconds of moderate speed seemed to have put the collapse far behind him, but the odd crack or fault running along what little of the tunnel he could see convinced him that the danger associated with too much speed paled in comparison to the dangers associated with too little. Fortunately the boring machines that had processed this hunk of planet clearly couldn't turn on a dime, and cylinders were pretty much the ultimate banked turns, so his journey through the mine was remarkably hoversled friendly. Not only that, but the lack of pounding sun meant the cooling system on the thrusters and in the cockpit could actually dump some heat.
Just about the time he began to genuinely enjoy this novel means of sled racing, he squinted at the nav screen to see what looked like a spiderweb approaching. Several tunnels had crisscrossed this same volume of land, resulting in a long sequence of very sharp angles where they intersected. It was the sort of place where a one-hundred-meter misapproximation of position could send him straight into a wall, and it probably didn't do much good for the structural integrity of the tunnels either.
"Okay. No big deal. Intuition, Lex. We want to go in an… up-ish direction."
A nagging voice in his head suggested he could probably drop the speed to a crawl and inch his way around the turns, particularly since at this point a throbbing engine was more likely to cause a new collapse than help escape one. Overruling the voice of common sense was the much louder and more instant voice of exhilaration, which made the very well-reasoned argument, We're going to do this as fast as possible because it is awesome and we are awesome. It was a voice Lex had allowed to guide an unnervingly large number of his major decisions.
Steering by the glow of his thrusters and the seat of his pants, Lex made six sharp turns in rapid succession. By the time he glanced back at his navigation screen, it was flashing the word rerouting.
"What's to reroute about? I can see daylight up ahead," he said, squinting at the point of light approaching. He cleared his throat and spoke to the computer. "Navigation, advance view in direction of travel."
The system began to track along the path ahead, coming to a narrow line a short distance farther along.
"Stop, zoom."
At his command, the scale adjusted, revealing the label Ventilation. The diameter of that particular tunnel was labeled on the map.
"Okay. Two meters. That's not so bad. The width of this sucker is," he glanced at the clearance chart, "one point eight six meters. Plenty of room."
He dialed the speed down just a hair, mostly by boosting the retrothrusters to give him a bit more light, and scrutinized the tunnel walls for any sign of change. It came rather suddenly, in the form of the surprise that the ventilation shaft was covered with a grating and aligned with the ceiling of the tunnel, not the floor. He yanked the controls and twisted, inverting the sled. It briefly lost contact with the walls of the tunnel. When the repulsors finally restored the induced attractive force that had replaced pesky, unreliable things like tires, he was lined up with the vent, but not quite straight.
The momentum was more than enough to punch straight through the metal grating blocking the vent, but his back end clipped the edge of the shaft, and the dislodged grate caught under one of the forward thrusters. This converted his roughly forward motion to a spark-spewing spiral. Every sensor and gauge either lit up menacingly or failed completely. Grinding metal and whining thrusters produced a deafening din. Dislodged hunks of stone from his graceless entrance to the vent struck his windshield, and the unpleasant aroma of a plasma leak quickly asserted itself.
He wrestled with the steering and got his spiral under control just in time to run out of vent and launch from the stone tube like a cork from a champagne bottle. He landed cockpit down, digging furrows through the bleached stone of the landscape before a few more flicks of the controls got him upright.
Preethy's voice came back to clarity. "Lex! Lex, please respond."
He took a deep breath and spat his gum onto the windshield. "I am A-okay. The Rev 3 is a little dinged up."
"That is not our concern. Please power down. A response team is heading in your direction."
"Sounds good. And Preethy?"
"Yes, Lex?"
"Do yourself a favor and review the video footage from the sled. Tell me folks wouldn't cross the galaxy to see racing like that."
Preethy and Lex sat in an open-air hover cart. It was driverless, consisting of little more than a pair of bench seats facing each other and a rigid awning over them. It looked more like a moving gazebo than a vehicle. Two medics were giving Lex a checkup, but aside from a gash on his cheek from when his head had hit one of the safety harness buckles during the vent shaft escape, he was unhurt.
He brushed his fingers through his brown hair, which he'd cropped to nearly a crew cut to cope with the heat of the racetrack. The long hours on the track had left him a bit sore, but one of the positive parts of his return to racing had been his return to a regular conditioning routine. Stamina was a major factor in any mid-to-moderate-length race, so he'd started upping his exercise regimen, and it had made him a good deal leaner and better toned than he'd been in the three years since he was forced out of racing the first time.
"I do wish you would stop damaging the prototype hoversleds, Lex," Preethy said simply.
Ms. Misra was almost picture perfect in the role of a young female executive. She was stoic to the point of almost being cold in her demeanor. Her complexion and features were distinctively Indian: rich brown skin and straight black hair. She dressed impeccably, but it was here that her executive aesthetic faltered slightly. Quite fit, Preethy enjoyed a set of curves that she seemed aware made concentration difficult for those with an eye for such things. As such she always wore clothing that hugged them just a little tighter, and showed off just a little more of them, than one might find acceptable in the average employee handbook. The outfits didn't look tawdry or cheap by any stretch, but they seemed to have been painstakingly designed to test the limits of professionalism without crossing the boundary. At the moment, that outfit was a tan and black business dress, dark glasses, and dark lipstick. She clutched a datapad to her side, something Lex had rarely seen her without.
"I think it held up pretty well, all things considered," Lex said. "The collision protocols didn't even engage."
"Yes. I'll have a word with the engineers. I rather think that is sign of poor calibration, considering the blood on your cheek."
"There, see? I'm not crazy, I'm thorough. Better we find out this stuff now than when we've got forty of those babies on the track."
"On that we can agree."
"So, listen, about those tunnels."
"I'd warned you not to leave the track."
"No, no, hear me out. I really think those have potential as a racing venue. I mean, you know, lay them out right, map them right. Boost the accuracy on the IMU, but you'd probably have something nobody else has."
"… Interesting. I'll discuss logistics with our infrastructure teams. Perhaps some of the exhausted veins can find new life in that role. Naturally, the insurance team will have something to say about it."
"Bah, they've got something to say about everything." He cracked the seal on a bottle of water and took a sip. "So, you talk to your uncle lately?"
"Mr. Patel called me this morning. He continues to express excitement at the speed at which his racing league is coming together."
"Well, when he put you in charge, I've got to imagine he was expecting top-tier results."
"Your consultation has been invaluable. You're sure you can't stay longer? Two or three more weeks as fruitful as these and we'll be ready to start exhibition races on our first track within two months."
"Hey, I've been here for three weeks straight already. Counting the shorter stints it's been like a month and a half total. If I keep this up, Mitch is going to forget my address."
"You can always have her visit you here. Two whole floors have been completed in the new hotel. The Operlo Racing Intersystem Circuit would be happy to host a journalist of Ms. Modane's caliber."
"Is that what you're calling the league now?"
"Marketing says it tests better than prior suggestions. ORIC is a pronounceable acronym."
"Ah. Trust me, you don't want Mitch coming here. It's sort of a fork in the microwave situation when you mix her with organized-crime types."
"Surely you've informed her that ORIC is an entirely legitimate enterprise."
"Oh yeah. I've informed her. But getting her to believe it is another thing entirely. Nick Patel's name is all over this thing, and in her head, he's nothing more than a racketeering thu… well, you know."
"I'm sure Uncle has been called worse things than a racketeering thug, but I'm hopeful that ORIC will illustrate his commitment to not only legal and wholesome entertainment enterprises, but to bolstering and building Operlo as a tourist destination."
He raised the water bottle. "Here's to hoping."
"If you will be leaving us, we'll need to finalize your payroll," she said. She raised the pad and swiped the screen for a few moments, then presented it to Lex. "Please look over the figures. If everything is in order, approve with a thumbprint."
Lex raised his eyebrows and whistled. "If you're trying to convince me to stick around, this is the way to do it."
"That's what we pay all of our consultants. Are you having financial problems?"
"I've got some debts. I haven't been able to get the delivery or chauffeur gigs back. VectorCorp hasn't been quite so overtly trying to destroy me, but the freelancing gig has gotten very dicey." He touched his thumb to the screen. "This is pretty much keeping me fed until I actually start racing."
"All the more reason to remain on-site to hasten the completion of the league prep and continue to earn your fee."
"I really appreciate it, but again, I'll have to pass. Besides, I don't think Squee is much of a fan of the heat."
The edge of Preethy's lips curved into the hint of a grin. "Well, we can't have an unhappy puppy, can we? By the time we bring you back for the first races, I'll see to it the indoor dog run is finished. When will you be leaving?"
"I guess this afternoon."
"So you have a few hours. Perhaps after you get cleaned up, you'll join me for lunch. We've just finished the bistro in the lobby level, and the chef has arranged a tasting menu."
He shrugged. "Sure, sounds like a plan."
Lex waved good-bye to Preethy as he stepped out of the cart that had dropped him at the recently christened Solar Port near the hotel. It was a series of enclosed and cooled docking ports aligned in a complex grid. Each was topped with a retractable solar array as a roof and existed for no other reason than to ensure the personal ships of high-class hotel patrons weren't hot enough to fry breakfast on if they decided to leave during the day. It was only a short walk to the door of the facility, but Lex opened a silvery umbrella of sorts to shade himself during the trip. Say what you will about the potential unmanliness of parasols, one learns to embrace them when coping with the sun of a desert planet.
Even with the portable shade, he was sweating heavily when he reached the door. The adorable black-and-white ball of fluff known as Squee wasn't making things any better either. His pet passed for a dog, but she was actually a genetic experiment with a custom genome combining fox and skunk traits. The not-quite-right shape of the head and the enormous fluffy tail should have been a giveaway, but the general public could be excused for not leaping to the conclusion that the four-legged critter being walked in the park was a science experiment. The official species name was funk, and every one he'd met so far had a peculiar tendency that didn't seem to stem from either the fox or skunk half of the equation. The little cutie positively loved to perch on the shoulders of anyone nearby. This was doubly so when they were wandering about in the open during Operlo's punishing daylight hours. Probably it was just to spare the critter from scalding her feet on the hot ground, but Lex couldn't shake the feeling that it was actually an act of protest. Having the furry devil about his shoulders instantly made it feel twenty degrees hotter.
When he reached the door, some manner of automatic identification system activated it, which was a blessing because outdoor touchscreens were a recipe for blisters. He stepped into the relative dim of a small entryway with doors on each side. The outer door shut, a glorious blast of climate-controlled air rushed into the entryway, and the inner door slid open.
"Man I love that," he said, lingering in the entryway and maneuvering until he and Squee could each feel the breeze ruffle their hair.
"I don't have all day," muttered a voice.
The guest spoke in a gruff, impatient tone that startled Lex primarily because the only thing that was supposed to be in the bay was his trusty ship, the SOB. Lex slapped the lighting controls, activating high-efficiency floodlights in each corner. They illuminated the sleek black masterpiece of his pride and joy, a ship every bit worthy of his frenetic level of skill behind the controls. Leaning on the far wall, arms crossed and assorted snack wrappers scattered at his feet, stood an odd-looking fellow. Irregular stubble peppered his chin and cheeks, though it refused to grow on a patch of skin on one side of his face. Similar irregularities plagued most of his visible flesh, with bits and pieces looking much newer and much less natural than others. The features gave him a subtly unsettling appearance. Nothing was overtly wrong about him, but lots of things weren't quite right. The most bizarre feature was a single chrome iris in his right eye. He heaved his slightly stocky body off the wall and wiped his fingers on his dark blue jumpsuit. The remnants of some sort of dark red meat stick dangled from between his lips like a cigar.
He was Karteroketraskin Dee, known as Karter by most who dealt with him, and known to be a sociopath and malcontent on the best of days by all who dealt with him. The impatient look on his face suggested this was not the best of days.
Squee hopped from Lex's shoulders and trotted over to Karter, leaping to his shoulders to say hello. The act didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. He simply scratched under her chin and pocketed the remainder of his snack.
"Karter!" Lex said. "What the hell are you doing here? And how did you get in here? This is a private docking bay!"
"Yeah, believe it or not, hotel security isn't impenetrable."
"Since when do you willingly leave Big Sigma?"
"It was under duress. Anyway, I've got a job for you."
"What sort of job?"
"The sort that would motivate me to leave my personal planet rather than risk talking specifics over a com channel, let alone in a hotel parking lot. Now let's go. You've got a job to do."
"No. Absolutely not."
"I didn't ask you if you wanted a job, Lex. I said you've got a job to do. As in, you will be doing a job for me. Ma's been calling you about it."
"Yeah, I know. We chat all the time. But I told her then, and I'll tell you now: I'm not going to be doing any more testing for you."
Karter crossed his arms. "We've got a contract."
"Preethy had her lawyers look at it, and they say I've already fulfilled the minimum requirements three tests ago, so I just have to agree not to do product testing for anyone else until the contract is up."
"What do you call what you were doing in the hoversled this morning?"
"Consultation. And it's not a product, because it won't be for sale," he said confidently.
Karter grumbled. "Loopholes and semantics. I hate lawyers."
"Turns out they're not so bad when they're on your side… and someone else is paying their bills."
"Fine, whatever. Let's get moving. This one might have a time limit, so I want to get on it."
Karter glanced to the SOB. As if reacting to the gesture, the cockpit popped open. Squee excitedly hopped from Karter's shoulders to the fuselage and trotted inside, looking out expectantly.
"Were you not listening? I'm not doing jobs for you anymore. I'm serious, I can't risk that stuff. In less than a year I'll be back in the seat of a hoversled, racing professionally again. This is a second chance I was never supposed to get, and I'm sure as hell not going to spit in the eye of fate by risking my life doing something idiotic for you."
"I've got satellite footage of you taking a hoversled subterranean on a whim."
"I said nothing idiotic for you. I reserve the right to indulge my own idiocy from time to time," Lex said. "Especially in the pursuit of the sport."
"Uh-huh. This is one of those world-saving gigs. Ma said that would matter to you."
A flicker of conflict came across Lex's face. "What sort of…?" He shook himself. "No. Damn it, I've done enough. How many times does one man have to put his neck on the line and do something that no sane person should even consider possible? Call it selfish if you want, but I've got a chance to live the life I was supposed to live before I made the mistake of borrowing money from the wrong sort of people…"
Karter rolled his eyes and adjusted his left wrist. It produced a series of mechanical clicks and dings.
"… The stars had to align for this to happen. A whole new league had to form just because I've been permanently barred from the existing ones for race fixing. If there's karma or whatever, then this is my reward for saving planets the first few times. I mean hell, probably the only reason Preethy and Nick are even doing this is because Operlo is one of the planets I've saved! Find another hero. Go bother Silo again. I—what are you—?"
His unwanted guest thrust his left arm out, and a small panel of slightly too-pale skin popped up from the back of his hand. It produced a hiss and blur. A moment later Lex reeled backward, three sharp pains in his neck.
He felt for the source of the pain and found three small plastic barbs, each the size of a toothpick, stuck into the flesh. He tugged them out to find each tipped with a needle.
"Did you…?" Lex gasped, rubbing the point of impact. "Did you just shoot me with tranquilizer darts?"
"Only one of them was a tranq dart. The other ones were an anti-inflammatory and a seizure inhibitor."
"For what?"
"To prevent permanent damage from punctuation. Because you're coming with me."
"I don't—"
"Period," Karter said.
He stepped forward and grabbed Lex by the collar, yanking him forward while at the same time thrusting his head down. Lex's skull met Karter's, with roughly the same effect as if the racer had run headlong into a girder. The world went black, his last moments of fading consciousness registering the distant sensation of being dragged across the ground.
© 2017 StoryBundle. All rights reserved.


Purpose? Friends & family gathering to enjoy each other's company & delicious food.
Nachos, Tamales, Flautas, Rice, Beans, & Authentic Mexican Drinks!
**All proceeds will benefit Hispanic Ministry & our parish Haiti mission.
Some of our most popular parish community dinners are provided by our Filipino-American community, our Knights of Columbus council, and our Hispanic Ministry. We are blessed that we have people from all over the world in our parish, because we get to know about their cultures through food!
This is the BEST DINNER DEAL IN TOWN!
$7 per plate & MAXIMUM of $30 per family!
Bring others to share in our community blessings!


text:
Govt to bring home OFWs stranded in HK
Published December 22, 2017, 10:00 PM
By PNA
Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano confirmed Friday that Malacañang has approved the proposal of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to bring home some 1,000 Filipinos stranded in Hong Kong in time for the holidays.
In a statement, Cayetano said President Duterte approved the plan that he and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III put together on Wednesday.
About 1,000 Filipinos have found themselves stranded in Hong Kong after the tickets they purchased from Filipino-owned Peya Travel Agency were not honored at the airport.
Cayetano, co-chair of the Cabinet Cluster on Overseas Workers, said the DFA and the DOLE, through the Office of Migrant Workers Affairs (OMWA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), will pay for the workers' plane tickets.
He said Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has placed the Philippine Air Force on standby in case air assets would have to be flown to Hong Kong to ferry the workers home.
At the same time, Cayetano said he has instructed the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong to sue PEYA Travel.
"We also will pursue a civil suit against PEYA Travel to compensate our kababayans for the damages they suffered," he said.
DFA Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola said that under the arrangements with OWWA Administrator Hans Cacdac, the two agencies will split the cost of the roundtrip tickets of the workers.
Affected workers will be asked to issue an undertaking assigning the refund of their tickets bought from Peya Travel to the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong.
Tags: Alan Peter Cayetano, Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Labor and Employment, Govt to bring home OFWs stranded in HK, Hong Kong, Manila Bulletin, OFW, President Duterte
Makati police pursues lead outside NCR to arrest gunman in killing of retiree
ROUNDUP: News in and around Metro Manila (July 16, 2019)
Erap says he did not evict street vendors so that they could have livelihood

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Two-time gold medalist Shaun White was just out of medal's reach in fourth place amid more than 30 crashes by contestants in the men's halfpipe qualifying round. One snowboarder crashed so hard her helmet cracked, raising concerns once again about safety during the Sochi Olympics. A number of tumbles on the slopes have led to changes to the courses. Here are a few of the most wince-inducing images from the slopes of Sochi as some of the world's best athletes compete for the gold. And sometimes, the opposing team's coach comes to the rescue.


Copyright 2009 Kevin Winzeler Photography: Athlete, Danial Velasco, runs the 11 mile power lines trail on the North Shore of Kauai, Hawaii, Wednesday, September 9, 2009.
Athlete and trail runner Megan Lund, trains after a fresh morning of snow in Boulder Colorado on a spring morning.
Professional Trail Runner Joelle Ypma enjoys a training run as the snow falls above the town of Boise, Idaho.
Xterra world champion and London Olympic hopeful Max King, enjoys a training run on the flume trail above the beautiful Lake Tahoe area.


text:
Gamma Strike is a set of games originally written for the Commodore 64 and released by Gamesware in 1988.  The bundle included three games (Competition Shootout, Voyager 19, and Alien Team) together with a gun and target peripheral.

Reception
ACE magazine described it as a "novel product aimed at the younger player, who'll probably get quite a bit of satisfaction from it".

References

1988 video games
Amstrad CPC games
Commodore 64 games
Light gun games
ZX Spectrum games
Video games developed in the United Kingdom

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Our best deals on Flights to Singapore
Our best flights to Singapore from 1000s of travel agents and airlines
The unparalleled choice available in Singapore has made it a popular tourist destination; in fact, it ranks in the top ten most visited cities in the world. The Singaporean government continue to capitalise on its incredible success (worth an estimated S$25 billion annually), thus, the fascinating island-city has been perfectly honed to offer visitors an unforgettable experience. On planning a trip to Singapore, you will discover countless opportunities afforded by a fusion of cultures, historical genres and breath-taking architecture.
Direct Flights to Singapore
If you are looking for direct flights to Singapore, fly to Singapore Changi International Airport (SIN). With its stunning architecture and vast choice of shops, Changi airport is in itself an experience, and perfect for a bit of last-minute shopping!
When to Visit Singapore
Singapore enjoys a relatively consistent tropical climate all year around, so your trip to Singapore won't necessarily be influenced by the weather. There is a constant flow of business travellers throughout the year and the city is constantly thrumming with people visiting for business and pleasure, however there are some times that are best avoided if you want to beat the crush. National holidays and popular events will see a huge rise in prices, so steer clear of Chinese New Year and, if you want to avoid hordes of British tourists, it may be wise to avoid school holiday times too (if you can).
It may be known for its extravagance and luxury, but a trip to Singapore will expose to you a wealth of cultural influences, richly embellished by both traditional pastimes and advanced technology. Singaporean architecture reflects the city as a whole; contrasting inspirations fuse seamlessly to delightful effect. Traditional buildings nestle alongside gravity-defying skyscrapers; Mosques overlook Buddhist Temples and Chinese architecture competes with that of Little India. However, rather than jarring with each other, these buildings stand together in mesmerising harmony.
A visit to Chinatown is a must: here you will be overwhelmed by the sounds, sights and smells of traditional China. Make your way to Pagoda Street where, at 18.45 every Saturday evening, you can witness the phenomenal Lion Dance. Despite Singapore's penchant for technological advancement, or perhaps because of it, Singapore is a world leader in eco-attractions. The S$1 billion Botanic Gardens are truly breath-taking and an absolute must-see for anyone visiting the city. Just like the architecture, the gardens are awash with contrasts and surprises, including climate controlled bio-domes, sculptures and high-tech Supertrees. Ride the Skyway between the two Supertrees and take in views of the city, and don't miss the spectacular Garden Rhapsody, a light show that takes place between 19.45 and 20.45 every evening.
When it comes to modern Singaporean architecture, Marina Bay Sands is the first thing to spring to most minds. The 55 storey high complex has transformed the city's skyline and offers absolute opulence, even by extravagant Singapore's standards; watch the sun rise from the observation deck and take the plunge in the 200-metre-high infinity swimming pool.
Like its namesake, Singaporeans tend to love or hate the Durian, or Esplanade Theatre. Regardless of your opinion on the 2,000 seat theatre, its architecture is truly incredible, so a cursory visit is advisable. If you are culturally inclined, it is worth checking the programme for a choice of world-class performances.
Due to the mix of cultural influences, your culinary experiences in Singapore are limited only by your imagination! The Singapore Sling is synonymous with this remarkable city. Enjoy your iconic cocktail, made using the traditional recipe created in 1915, upon the Singapore Flyer, the huge Ferris wheel at Marina Bay. Savour the taste of your hand-shaken cocktail as you soar 165 metres into the air. After your aperitif, visit the Singapore Food Trail where you can explore the delights of Singapore. Seating 600 people, the unique dining experience evokes the glamour of days gone past; choose from a range of food fenders, from barbequed seafood, fresh oysters, delicious satay.
If you are spoilt for choice on your trip to Singapore, visit a Hawker Centre, where you can choose from a dazzling array of food from a range of cultures. Hawker Centres popped up throughout the city in the 1970s, in reaction to the government's attempt to move street sellers from the curbs. The result is food markets packed with traditional Chinese, Indian, Malay, Western and Southeast Asian fare. Bak Kut Teh, a tea made from pork ribs and herbs, is a must, as are Chilli Crab, Hainanese Chicken Rice and, for the more adventurous, Fish Head Curry. There are so many choices, we will let you decide which is the best! Whether you are looking for amazing zoos, unrivalled botanical experiences, staggering architecture or world-class food, your trip to Singapore will not disappoint. Your only problem will be packing in the many varied pursuits that the city has to offer, and, of course, leaving…
Are you planning a trip to Singapore? Find your cheap flights to Singapore on Travangelo.


Captain was found, a couple of weeks old, roaming unfriendly winter city streets in 2001. He was a lucky little fella because the nicest couple ever, spotted him and picked him up only a couple of days before a snow blizzard hit Athens. Fast-forward a couple of months—though still back in the day of no Facebook and instantly uploaded pics!—and after a glimpse at the newspaper's Pet Adoption section and a brief phone call, I was on my way to see him. He came home with me on the same day and the rest, I guess, is history.
Cleo, on the other hand, was lucky enough to have been born into a home—namely my parents'—and she was the only ginger among five snow-white fur balls. The minute we set eyes on her (at the time firmly believing it was a "him") we knew she was coming home to be Captain's companion in mischief!
Ο Captain βρέθηκε μικρό γατάκι, τον Δεκέμβριο του 2001, γωνία Πανόρμου & Αλεξάνδρας από υπέροχους ανθρώπους που τον φρόντισαν και μετά έψαξαν κάποιον να τον υιοθετήσει. Kάπως έτσι κατέληξε στο σπίτι μας.


text:
Burton News
Popular Hatton cafe in limbo after issues with planning
It was set to reopen in May after a refurbishment but there were issues
Eddie BisknellLocal Democracy Reporter
George Bunn
The owners have since refurbished the business (Image: Google Maps)
A popular Derbyshire cafe has been left in limbo after a rollercoaster couple of years including extended closure.
The Nose Bag Café, in Uttoxeter Road, between Hatton and the A50, is a popular spot – particularly among cyclists and walkers.
Planning documents submitted to South Derbyshire District Council detail that the café has been closed since September 2019 following a change in ownership and the pandemic lockdowns.
Top Story: The postcodes where covid is rising in Staffordshire
Documents submitted by Stephen Wild, who now owns the business with his wife, say the site has been used as a café since 2005.
However, planning permissions over those years have been disputed and complex, with the couple seeking to clear these up with a certificate of lawfulness filed to the council – but this was refused in May.
This was because the council says it could not be proven that the site had been used as a cafe for 10 continuous years – and as such was not protected from enforcement through long-term prior use.
Council officials said there was a gap in use between 2011 and 2013.
All of this meant the new owners could not reopen in May as intended after a full refurbishment.
They have now applied for continued use as a cafe, along with outdoor seating and a car park.
South Derbyshire District Council will make a decision on the application in the next few months.
Mr and Mrs Wild run a "highly successful butchers in nearby Sudbury: Wilds Butchers, in School Lane, a family-operated business of forty years.
A report written by JMI Planning, on behalf of the couple, says the applicants "are opening the café as a side-line to this business where they can cook and use products made at the butchers in a café setting".
The report calls the cafe a "Mecca" for cyclists, saying: "The café has always been a regular stopping point for cyclists and walkers and these activities have increased markedly during the recent lockdowns.
"The café has always provided outdoor seating areas and are to be maintained and enhanced.
"The applicant wishes to continue the use of the building that has been undertaken for over 15 years. During this time the café has operated successfully and has been profitable, it has always been very popular with cyclists, walkers and locals alike.
"There is no doubt therefore that the proposal will cater for a significant demand especially as the café will be operated by Mr and Mrs Wild and will be serving produce from Wilds Butchers in Sudbury who have a strong reputation for quality products.
"The café was previously a mecca for cyclists and this business will return, whilst the footpath network provides easy access to the café from Hatton and Scropton for both dog and leisure walkers."
The planning application submitted to the council says the cafe would be open 7.30am until 4pm seven days a week and would create four jobs.
Big School Holiday Budget Days Out Guide
With the holidays approaching, we've pulled together some of the best days out around the region that you can take the family on for a budget.
It's a comprehensive guide to keeping the kids entertained through those long six weeks' holidays. With a choice of free, under £10, under £25 and 'blow the budget', there's a day out to suit everyone, for whatever they can afford.
To read the guide, click here
And if you want to be kept up-to-date with all the latest on events coming up this summer, you can sign up for free to our StaffordshireLive daily email alerts. These will come direct to your inbox, and can be signed up for here
Drayton Manor opening date for new Adventure Cove area
When the next heatwave will hit Staffordshire
Scropton


Today's workplace demands high performance of its employees, but that no longer means putting work ahead of everything else. Organizations formerly disregarded the need to balance life outside of work and accepted the fact that productivity suffered as a result. Today's more dynamic, team-oriented organizations require flexible, creative, sustainable performance, the kind that comes with people who know how to balance the urgent demands of work life and personal life without sacrificing either.


How do you honor your identity as a member of an ecosystem?
The quieter you become inside, the more you will pull back a little and remove yourself from the reactive mode that you are in. We all are in reactive modes with each other; I mean, we all have these incredible stories to play out. The quieter we become inside, the more we get established in that witness or the soul.
As you develop this quiet place inside from which you see the unfolding of your life story, you begin to understand how your ego identity is made up of your participation in the web, in a kind of horizontal web that involves your roles and all of your reference groups. They help define your identity.
I used to have a motorcycle at one point, and I also had a Mercedes. This is when I was being a young professor in 1958. The idea was when you rode the motorcycle you put on a black jacket and you look tough. When you rode in the Mercedes you put on a houndstooth jacket and you put your pipe in your pocket, and you had a cap, and you looked aloof. I mean, there were certain clear role definitions. What I used to do was, just for fun, I'd ride my motorcycle with my houndstooth jacket and my pipe, and I'd go to the Mercedes club of America meetings in my boots and leather jacket. They'd hate me because I wasn't playing the game properly.
As you're quiet and you listen in, you see that when you push against fulfilling your roles there's a lot of energy involved, and when you get lost in them there's also a lot of energy involved, so there is an art form in learning how to be a participant in a system of life and honor it.
What does it mean to honor your identity as a member of an ecosystem? What does it mean to honor your identity as a member of a nation state?
I was born a Jew, and yet here I've been Hindu, Buddhist, teacher, bringing Eastern ideas back here to the West. What about my Judaism? Well, in the past five years I've really made a study of it. The Jewish community says, "Ram Dass is returning to the fold." That's their problem, not mine. First of all I never left it. I mean, just because I was doing Hindu practices didn't make me less of a Jew. It was interesting though to see what it meant to honor that part of my genetic identity. What did it mean when my father was ill, for me to reorient my life to live in the basement of that house, in an apartment down there to make sure he was well taken care of? Because I was part of a family? What does it mean for me to be active in a political community, because I'm part of a political structure? You realize it keeps expanding outward when you're part of a humanity.
Finally, the quieter you are, the more you feel yourself tuning into the unique nature of your incarnation. You find yourself in a harmonious way at ease with it, rather than pushing against it or grabbing it.


Happy weekend!!! And if you're super duper lucky like me, happy long weekend!! Monday is Massachusetts' holiday Patriots Day (also, Marathon Monday!) and since I work in Boston, it's a day off for me. Can't complain about that, though I'm sure that just means I'll spend the day working in the kitchen and on my blog instead, something I always welcome more time for. It also happens to be Easter weekend! After missing Easter at home last year (I was laying on a beach in St. Maarten instead… Ahhhh), I'm exited to have my family over for brunch and to do a little egg hunt with my nephews.
Onto my March in meals! I definitely didn't go as much from-scratch cooking in March, but I'm not getting down about it since Chris was out of town at the beginning of the month, we had plans many evenings, and I gave myself a break a few times when I worked late or came home exhausted. That said, we still had some amazing meals, some of my favorites from the year so far and I'm sure a few that will be repeated in the future.
The biggest winners of the month were probably those Coconut Curry Pork Burgers, the Blackened Salmon, and Open-Faced Balsamic Steak Sandwiches. April is off to a pretty good start on the weeknight meals front so far. I have so much more motivation now that I get home from work and it's still light out. On evenings I don't have plans and am home from work at a decent time, I take Winnie for a walk and then get cooking. Heaven!
Soooo, I think it's safe to say that spring is finally here in New England. Especially since it's supposed to be 80 degrees on Easter!! But less than two weeks ago, I put out my new spring doormat and then watched it become covered in snow. Come on!! But I think we're done now. Also, you should note that Target has the most fun doormats right now. I stood in the aisle for about 20 minutes trying to decide which to get. Obviously went with the cactuses, but only because they were sold out of the pineapples I was hoping for.
I also have to share the fun wall I finally decorated in my day job office. I've literally been in this office for 6 months now, but finally found a 10×10 frame in white that wasn't $60 for my macarons print. Also note that my fabulous arrows (an Etsy find!) have since fallen from my wall and I'm in search of a better way to secure them. Little things like this wall have the power to make my work days so much better.
New favorite beer alert! Chris and I bought this one a while ago and completely forgot it was chilling in the fridge until I found it a couple weekends ago. It's from our local brewery Night Shift Brewing and is a blueberry sour. I've always been a big sour lover and this is most definitely my new favorite. It's SO tasty.
Is there anything better than pasta with bacon and an egg on top. NOPE. This carbonara is from Posto in Somerville and was hands down one of the best things I ate in March.
And what would a Friday I'm in Love post be without a few snaps of my pup?? She's currently psyched because her April BarkBox is coming this weekend, but here she is with the sushi she got in her March box.
And stopping to smell that glorious tulips that I have been purchasing every single week since March. Having fresh flowers in my house seriously makes me so much happier!!
And I couldn't resist this one… I mean, come on. Doesn't Winnie make the most glorious golfer?
Without Home Ec, I Would Have Never Become a Professional Chef: Bon Appetit featured this excerpt of Barbara Lynch's new memoir and it definitely made me want to read the whole thing. It also makes me sad Home Ec isn't taught in most schools now. They had just ended cooking classes in my high school when I got there, though I still got to take sewing. And woodworking. Cooking would have been way more valuable than either of those!
Skittles, Champagne And Cigars: A New Generation Of Flavor Pairings: I'm not a cigar smoker and don't love sitting in cigar smoke-filled bars, but I think this idea is fun. Give me champagne and Skittles and maybe I'd change my mind about cigars!
Amazon Was Very Serious About Buying Whole Foods: Imagine?? Not sure that this would ever happen, but interesting to know they were hoping to.
Starbucks Brings Pink Drink to Permanent Menu: All those Instagram photos paid off… Now you can order the Pink Drink whenever you want (Orrr you could always make my version of Starbucks' Pink Drink!).
Apple Pie Oreos are Coming to a Shelf Near You: Y'all know I'm a sucker for new Oreo flavors and I have a feeling I'm going to love this one, odd as it may sound.
These are making me kind of sad that I already have my Easter brunch menu planned for this weekend. Because how much more perfect can you get?? Also, cinnamon rolls that only take an hour?? Count me in! Though I won't be making these for Easter, I'm definitely pinning them for a later date!
Sometimes I think every kind of deviled egg has already been done before… But then I see versions like these and I know I'm wrong! These are so perfect for Easter, but really for any time, especially considering how turmeric is all the rage right now!
I am forever impressed by perfect macarons, but even more so when they're made in ridiculously fun flavors, like these ones. I know caramel apple is more of a fall flavor combination, but I think it's delicious any time and since I recently spotted these, I couldn't resist including them in my roundup.
And that's your Friday I'm in Love post for April! I hope you all have wonderful weekends filled with nice weather, family and friends, and delicious food. Be sure to follow me on Instagram to see what I'm whipping up for Easter brunch (and probably 100 stories/day of my dog)!
11 Responses to "Friday I'm in Love #12: Springtime Cheer"
Thanks for trying my stuffed peppers!
So glad you liked the burgers! Everything else looks delicious!
Woohoo for a long weekend! Thank you so much for linking to that book…it's next on my reading list. We had Home Ec in middle school where we did cooking, sewing, etc. but who knows if it's still in the curriculum now. And I'm definitely feeling the inspiration to up my welcome mat game!
Yay for a day off! We had Friday off so that was pretty awesome to have a three day weekend 🙂 You had a delicious month and that carbonara looks sooooo good! My pup got the sushi themed Bark Box too (though, his toy is in a little rough shape – he love to take the stuffing/squeaker out of them). That golf pic is hilarious 😀 !!!
Yay for long weekends! Oh my goodness, so many yummy meals! Everything looks amazing!
I'm glad you had the day off! How fun for you!!! My brother in law ran the marathon today. I heard it was quick warm! I hope your Easter was perfect! Thanks for sharing all these links.
Hope you had a great Easter weekend. All the meals you made last month look really good!
So glad you liked the steak sandwiches…my husband and I can't get enough of them either! Also…how cute is that doormat?! Adding it to me list of things to get on my next Target run!
Those meals look amazing – thanks for sharing… Winnie is BEYOND CUTE, but I know you already know that… Have a great day!
That doormat and your wall are perfection!!! Your puppy is always so cute!


for 2020. Anti-gun nut Mark Kelly announces a run against the place holder in McCain's Senate seat.
Gonna take a lot more than their previous Ruble record, in IA in '14.
They'll have that one to defend too. Haven't a clue how the recent soap opera stuff is playing inside the gates.


Soneva Fushi, in the Maldives - is the first of the Six Senses group of properties to implement a programme to offset its guests' flight emissions. The first step will make Soneva Fushi carbon neutral by 2008, and then ramp up to the next step which will result in Soneva Fushi being carbon free by 2010.
The resort is a main contributor to the Six Senses Carbon Offset Fund, which initially will support the Converging World project. This project establishes alternative energy production methods - such as wind turbines, in communities of developing countries before they become dependent on energy from fossil fuels. The first initiative is in Tamil Nadu India, and has the potential to be implemented in the Maldives and other locations.
However, this is just the beginning of the Six Senses Zero Emissions Objective commitment to sustainable development and to the environment. In addition to developing climate-sympathetic accommodations which use local materials, as well as reducing some food transportation energy by growing fresh produce in its own organic gardens, the resort has gone one step further in its commitment to the environment. It engaged the British environmental engineering and design consultancy, XCO2, in early 2005, to move towards powering the entire Soneva Fushi property with zero-carbon energy. The project is under the leadership of Mr. Juergen E. Seidel, Six Senses group director of property maintenance.
Both XCO2 and Six Senses put emphasis on the gradual replacement of finite energy carriers such as fossil diesel, with renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and tidal power, and deep sea water cooling. The initial feasibility study resulted in a three-stage strategy for reducing diesel consumption for energy, cooling, lighting and water efficiency. For example, by initially adding energy and heat recovery systems as well as reducing wastage and loss, up to 30% of the current energy used is expected to be saved.
Initiatives that have already been carried out, or are about to be, are making further use of the island location. Seawater intake from boreholes and/or deep wells for a reverse osmosis desalination plant with an energy recovery pressure intake system would be expected to reduce 30% of energy usage with a 40% water production increase.
As innovators in creating architecture and décor using natural materials, Six Senses Creative team is working on energy efficient architectural designs that provide additional roof ventilation, cross ventilation, and passive and active cooling. High-R insulation materials, and double glazed windows with low radiation glass that allows less ultra violet rays to pass through, would be incorporated. Additionally, the use of biodiesel - derived essentially from coconut meat - is being considered, not only as a fuel for the fleet of water craft, but also as an alternative to diesel fuel imports for back-up and residual electricity needs at the resort. Land vehicles could be converted to battery power or fuel cell units.
The ultimate goal is to achieve a 50% reduction in greenhouse gasses by January 2008 and to use no fossil-fuel-derived energy sources by 2010.
Some of the technical solutions - either singularly or in combination - that will enable the resort to reach these targets include power generation with tri-generation (power, heat and steam recovery). This system will recover waste, heat and use this to provide all the resort's hot water requirements. Furthermore, the steam generated will be channeled to an absorption chiller that will produce 7oC water. The water will be used for air-conditioning the buildings located near the power house.
The guest villas could be air-conditioned by using deep sea water cooling, (DSWC), which makes use of the chilled water from 300 meters below the tropical surface waters—where the seawater is 11.5oC, whilst solar hot water and solar photo-voltaic can be generated at Heart-of-House areas on roofs of host housing. Additionally, small and medium wind turbines can be used as direct feed power supply.
Future possibilities that are being considered for the 2010 zero carbon emission goal are the installation of a large wind turbine on the neighbouring island of Eydhafushi that could generate energy for the resort while also supporting the community of that island as well. Solar, tidal and wave technologies which could also be used as an asset for generating power, heat, and steam/cooling for air-conditioning are also being considered.
In summation, in its quest for integrated and sustainable energy management, Six Senses Resorts & Spas is dedicated to energy innovations that will enrich and sustain the environment. Its flagship resort - Soneva Fushi - is the initial proving ground.


I think I love food...wait, I KNOW I love food. It is quite obvious here, isn't it? And breakfast, well I have to admit...breakfast out is right on the top of my list. On a trip to Connecticut yesterday, my friend Lisa and I went to Advanced Powersports USA in Griswold CT to pick up a spare key for my snow machine. While we were there, we asked the gang if there was a good breakfast place nearby. Are we ever glad we asked!
First of all....this place had bottomless bloody mary's and mimosa's!!
Had we known before heading out the door, we would have brought a driver. ;o) Since we couldn't stay and find the bottoms....we stayed long enough to enjoy a delicious breakfast.
Thanks to the friendly staff for serving our morning fuel!
We gotta go here again !!! It was awesome !!
Yes we do! :) Thanks for commenting Lisa.


Recycling not only benefits the ecosystem, it benefits our economy.
According to the United Nations, 70 million tons of clothes are consumed each year worldwide. For example to be able to make a pair of denim jeans 793 gallons of water are spent, since the cultivation of cotton requires a lot of water. 70 to 100 million trees are logged each year for fabric and rubber. If placed end-to-end, those trees would circle the earth 7 times. Recycling clothes should be a necessity as we are contributing to the improvement of the environment.
We do not intend to tell you that there is something wrong on buying brand new clothes, we only want to show you that it might be fun to recycle and reuse semi-new clothes to create the look you're looking for. That way you help your pocket and the environment.
The term "Do It Yourself" (DIY) is the ability to fix things yourself, so that way you get what you want by saving money, is a fun method, using your own imagination, learning and discovering skills that you probably didn't know you had. It is a form of auto production, a way to create and reuse materials that are accessible to you. We see the term "Do It Yourself" everywhere, tutorials on video and on different social networks encourage us to start creating our own "Do It Yourself" projects. Im pretty sure you have seen that majority of women can be hours upon hours browsing the category DIY on Pinterest imagining which garments they will remodel.
THRIFT STORE DISCOUNT semi-new clothing stores are the best option to start recycling and applying the new trend of Do it yourself." In these stores of semi-new clothing you will find vintage trends that can be modify to new fashionable clothes at affordable prices. Don't worry if some of the clothes you see don't fit your current fashion trends, imagine how amazing your new recycled creations will turn out to be.
Follow our advice on how to transform THRIFT STORE DISCOUNT clothing on to clothes that will reflect the latest fashion trends.
1.Do not focus on clothing size, there is always a way to modify them to fit your needs.
2.Use your imagination and choose fabrics that will always be on trend for example, stripes, polka dots, animal prints and flowers, with these you can create from a new costume clothing design up to a new and modern cushion cover.
3.Do not worry if the garment is slightly discolored, remember you can always dye clothing to revive colors.
4.Don't forget that you can add your personal touch by changing buttons or redoing necklines.
5.Don't limit yourself to a season for example, you can always convert a long sleeve to a short sleeve or pants into shorts.
With these Tips in mind we look forward to your visit to THRIFT STORE DISCOUNT.


Start with spray painting your lids. Some lids are already silver or gold, in that case no need to worry about this step. Mine were all different colors, so I opted to paint them silver. Make sure to let the lids dry completely before moving on to the next step. I didn't, and then had to do a little touch up.
While you wait for those to dry, you can decide what trees and miniatures will work best in each of your jars. I like to get an idea of whats going where before I start gluing things into place. When your lids are dry, go ahead and hot glue the trees and figurines onto the inside of the lid.
We're almost done! Now all you need to do is put some snowflakes into your jars. You don't need a lot. If you put too much your trees will disappear, so start with a little and go from there. Once you've done that you can screw the lid on and ta-da, you're own little snow globe!


text:
Q: Will a tight long-lasting loop in a Thread slow down the other Threads substantially? My basic question here is if an intense loop (not sure the technical term? standard loop? - but a loop that doesn't yield anything, no Thread.sleep() is being called - is just fine and dandy as far as the other threads are concerned.
I tried an example, and it seems to work - although it spits out so much text that it's hard to know exactly what is doing. But the main thing I was looking out for was if there were any delays, and there seemed not to be.
So I would just like confirmation that code like this, without calling any Thread.Sleep() is fine and won't cause unnecessary delays to the other threads of the java application.
public class TestThreadStability implements Runnable {

private final String name;

public TestThreadStability(String name) {

    this.name = name;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    new Thread(new TestThreadStability("a")).start();
    new Thread(new TestThreadStability("b")).start();
    new Thread(new TestThreadStability("c")).start();
    new Thread(new TestThreadStability("d")).start();
    new Thread(new TestThreadStability("e")).start();
    new Thread(new TestThreadStability("f")).start();
    new Thread(new TestThreadStability("g")).start();
}

@Override
public void run() {
    while(true) {
        if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("a"))
            while (true) {
                // this is ok? it doesn't adversely affect the other threads much?
            }
        else System.out.println(name);
    }
}

}

A: Yes, it will cause delays if you are running the program in a single core.
Why you don't you notice it? threads are scheduled in a round-robin basis, which means that if there are 4 threads running at full speed, each get 25%.
If you have 1 full-speed thread, and 3 other very-little-work threads, the full-speed thread will work most of the time, but will be forced to yield to allow the other threads to do their work.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Support independent, student-run journalism.
Your support helps give staff members from all backgrounds the opportunity to conduct meaningful reporting on important issues at Stanford. All contributions are tax-deductible.
Support the Daily
$5 $10 $25 $50 $100 $500 $1,000
Make my donation a monthly donation.
High School Summer Internship
Speakers & Events
Men's Swimming & Diving
Women's Gymnastics
Women's Swimming & Diving
Men's Rowing
Women's Lightweight Rowing
Women's Rowing
Letters to the Community
Critic's Pick
Rock musical "Next to Normal" hits all the right notes
Courtesy of Matt Lathrop.
by Katie Straub — May 22, 2014 May 23, 2014 2 Comments
Open the director's note of the Next to Normal program to find the following instruction from director Allison Gold '15: "Open yourself for the next few hours, and let yourself feel everything."
These are pertinent words for any audience member about to see "Next to Normal." The musical follows the ups and downs of suburban mother Diana Goodman, who struggles with the destructive effects her bipolar disorder while trying to maintain the glossy sheen of "a perfect family." As illness pervades her life, Diana's family becomes torn to pieces, and all characters in the musical try to cope with issues of grief, depression, drug abuse and suicide.
It's a trying show, one that will put an audience and its cast members through the wringer. Yet Ram's Head and the Stanford Theater Lab's production of "Next to Normal" hits the necessary notes for a powerful production.
Immediate strengths of the production are seen quickly and clearly. From the first number, we witness impressive vocal work from the entire cast. Robert Poole '15 as the family's son, Samantha Williams '17 as the daughter, and Peter Kurzner '17 as Natalie's boyfriend are vocal standouts in their solos, but group numbers in particular are sung with a force and skill that bring goose-bumps to the skin. The set and lighting are creatively imagined by Keenan Molner '15 to transform the Elliot Programming Center into a new world. We watch as we move from kitchen to hospital to school and even to dream worlds, all punctuated by lighting to fit the feel and emotion.
But an important triumph of the show is the realistic range of human emotion seen in its characters. Given the plotline, the show is often solemn and serious, but this production does not miss on opportunities to demonstrate for characters to exhibit delight, compassion, fury, sarcasm and even dark, grim humor. And it all feels real.
Part of this, of course, is written into the show itself. It's a "rock musical," fueled by strong pop singing, thumping bass and twanging guitar, and the lyrics often demonstrate a surprising realness in the character's struggles. Some are heavy: "Do you wake up in the morning and need help to lift your head?" sings Diana, or Natalie sings "Some days I think I'm dying, but I'm really only trying to get through." But others are more off-handed and even humorous, "Living on a latte and a prayer," sings Dan, the father, and "These are a few of my favorite pills," they all sing, in chorus.
This may appear flippant at first, in the face of such large issues. But, owed perhaps in equal parts to talented acting and smart direction, characters occupy the stage with an energy and honesty that is as deeply human in their struggles to survive— we sympathize and relate to them.
In particular, Megan Gage '15 plays Diana with a striking instinctual ferocity. Her manic highs are stunning; she is her most natural on stage when crawling around floors or literally tangoing with her psychopharmacologist. Her approach to Diana is often sarcastic and fiery, making her feel appropriately alien to her family and the audience. When she drops into rare moments of true despair, her performance is moving. Brady Richter's '15 characterization of the father is at times campy, but comes from a place of authentic exhaustion and depression that feels right. The list goes on— an important authenticity is regularly detected at the heart of each of these characters. It is this commitment to humanity that makes the audience able to "feel everything" and meet Gold's request.
Next to Normal shows this weekend, May 22-24 at 8pm, in the Elliot Programming Center. Admission is free. The show was sponsored by (among other organizations) Stanford's Psych One program, to integrate arts and academics through the depictions of mental illness in the arts.
Contact Katie Straub at kcstraub "at" stanford.edu.
We're a student-run organization committed to providing hands-on experience in journalism, digital media and business for the next generation of reporters.
Your support makes a difference in helping give staff members from all backgrounds the opportunity to develop important professional skills and conduct meaningful reporting. All contributions are tax-deductible.
$5$10$25$50$100$500$1,000
Tags:Allison GoldElliot Programming CenterNext to NormalRam's HeadRam's Head Theatrical Societystanford theater labStanford Theater Laboratory
Katie Straub
© 2019 The Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation.
Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme by TSD Tech Team
Privacy Policy | Mobile App
Support The Stanford Daily when you shop on Amazon.