I have to confess that I have been neglecting my own personal hair care in favour of learning how to manage Little E's curly locks. Fortunately, I have straight hair which is generally pretty easy to manage. My challenge is finding the time to style it all pretty and visit the hairdressers.
Visit hairdresser and get hair cut short. Really short. Preferably into a bob which requires little attention.
Allow hair to grow out for about 6 months until it reaches Awkward Hair Stage where it is neither long nor short and just looks untidy all the time.
Look untidy all the time until hair grows long enough to tie into a pony tail or until it is convenient to visit the hairdresser.
My utter failure to pay attention to my crowning glory (or haystack, as it was beginning to resemble) has gotten much worse lately due to Baby #3. Pregnancy hormones usually lead to a change in hair growth, quality and texture, which usually leads to most expectant moms sporting thicker, glossier-looking manes. In my case, unfortunately, my hair became both coarse and dry.
This change in texture, combined with the fact that my hair had reached Awkward Hair Stage was really starting to get me down so I was overjoyed when the up-and-coming hair salon, le blanc by mashu, invited me for a haircut-and-styling session (with their Creative Director Masaeki Ueda) and their signature Soda Spa Scalp Treatment!
le blanc by mashu is a well-established (25 years and counting!), award-winning chain of hair salons in Osaka, Japan, with a reputation for not only customising the latest trends to suit each individual's style and natural beauty but is also committed to affordability.
The team of Japanese hairstylists working at the newly opened Plaza Singapura location have flown in from Osaka to establish themselves under the watchful eye of Creative Director, Masaeki Ueda, whose goal is to empower women to style their own hair without breaking their bank accounts. I was surprised to find out that rates for a senior hairstylist at le blanc by mashu starts at a mere SGD$45 which is about half of what other premium hair salons are charging!
le blanc by mashu – a very plush hair salon!
I have to say that the interior of the salon is very welcoming and comfortable! I was ushered to my chair and served a very refreshing cup of green tea, then taken to the shampoo room for the Soda Spa Scalp Treatment.
Now, one of the signature hair services provided by le blanc by mashu is the use of carbonated water or 'tansan' spa water as part of their hair-washing regime. As far as I understand it, every customer will enjoy having their hair washed and rinsed in bubbly 'tansan' water, which is reputed to deep cleanse hair follicles and improve circulation to the scalp.
The Soda Spa Scalp Treatment (SGD$110) is a more intense treatment which is supposed to improve hair quality, reduce hair loss and maintain a healthy, dandruff-free scalp. This involves massaging a large quantity frothy and pleasant-smelling Soda Spa Foam, a mousse containing concentrated carbon dioxide (you can see the pink Soda Spa Foam bottle in the picture above) into the scalp and hair which is then wrapped in a towel and steamed for ten minutes. After the foam is rinsed off with more 'tansan' spa water, Sparkling Spa Shower hair tonic (from the gold bottle in the picture above) is applied liberally to the scalp. This is a fizzy blend of concentrated carbon dioxide with all sorts of interesting herbal extracts including ginseng, ginger, witch hazel and angelica root which feels highly refreshing and energising!
Now, I am quite a skeptical person, so I did a little bit of research into the effects of carbonated water on the skin. We all know that throughout history, people have built health farms around bubbling hot springs and visiting these spas to 'take the waters' has long been touted to have positive health benefits especially for those people suffering from skin lesions. I always maintained that it was the act of relaxing in a steaming long bath and being massaged by warm hands that improved circulation and general well-being.
However, there is evidence that carbon dioxide and carbonated water does have a positive effect on irritated skin (such as in dermatitis or eczema), with the mildly acidic water providing an antiseptic effect and the flushing of carbon dioxide leading to blood capillary dilatation, thereby increasing circulation to the area and stimulating the sympathetic nervous system. It is no wonder that carbon-dioxide lasers are being used in dermatology and aesthetic medicine to treat scars and improve wound healing.
I have no doubt that the soda water has a good effect on the scalp, but I was surprised to see the results of the treatment on my hair. I found that my coarse and dry hair became noticeably softer and silkier after the treatment. It was light, bouncy, and incredibly shiny. Hooray!
Although I was given a canister of Soda Spa Foam as well as sample bottles of Shiseido Fuente Forte shampoo and conditioner (the hair salon only uses Shiseido hair care products and colouring treatments) to take home so as to prolong the effects of the treatment, I decided to use my usual hair products to see how long the salon-effect would last.
Surprisingly, my hair remained at that level of silky softness for nearly 2 weeks – I would wake up every morning, run my fingers through my hair and not feel a single snag or tangle. I didn't even have to brush it.
After the Soda Spa Treatment, I was led back to my plush chair where Mr Ueda inspected the haystack and we chatted about how best to manage the Awkward Hair Stage. Any concerns I had about communicating with the Japanese hairstylists were quickly eradicated as Mr Ueda turned out to be highly intuitive – deducing that as a busy mom, I don't often have time to visit the hair salon or spend a lot of time styling hair.
To my surprise, he didn't encourage me (like most other hairdressers do) to cut my hair short into a simple wash-and-wear bob or pixie crop, as in a month or so it would grow too long and no longer hold its neat shape. His advice was to neaten the ends of my hair (so that it looks less obviously like an overgrown bob, which it was) then allow the hair to grow long enough such that the weight of it would pull it straight and even. Until then, he would teach me how to manage the Awkward Hair Stage.
Here are his tips on how to manage the Awkward Hair Stage.
Perm the lower half of your hair. The ringlets will look cute and bouncy, and because they curl 'every which way', it is surprisingly easy to maintain – just wash, scrunch and go!
For expectant moms who should not be doing chemical perms, just apply a teensy bit of hair wax to the ends of the hair, and use curling tongs lightly on the ends to achieve the same effect.
When blowdrying hair, aim the nozzle of the hairdryer upwards whilst twisting sections of your hair around your finger. This will naturally make your hair curl inwards towards your face and give it more bounce on the top.
Do not blow-dry hair with the nozzle facing downwards or the hair will 'set' against your head and neck so that your hair is flat on top and kinks out at the bottom.
A zig-zag hair parting gives extra bounce to flat hair and looks interesting to boot!
Meimei, the kind folk at le blanc by mashu also gave me two vouchers for another cut-and-styling session with the Soda Spa Scalp Treatment, and I had such a great time there, I am going to give them to you and the Aged P for when you come a-visiting for that Special Occasion later this year! The both of you deserve some pampering!
As for me, I will definitely be visiting the salon again once the pregnancy hormones have worn off – and I'm going to try out that perm Mr Ueda recommended!
P.S. le blanc by mashu is running a special promotion from now until the end of March 2015 – book a Soda Spa Scalp Treatment and get 50% off the price of a hair cut! Bargain!!
Happy Chinese New Year Debs and our readers! Given the season, I've been thinking a lot about Tradition recently and I've been listening to Fiddler on the Roof a lot too.
I was really surprised to note that it is super popular in Japan!
Joe Stein, the man who originally wrote Fiddler on the Roof was once asked how an American audience could possibly understand his own play given that it was "so Japanese".
I guess the themes of tradition, the loss of tradition, interracial marriage and preservation of culture can really strike a chord with any audience. Times are always a changin', after all. I guess I'm glad that we're no longer in such a closed culture that my upcoming marriage with The Boobook and yours with the Barn Owl are no longer frowned upon so terribly.
That being said, how do you balance the traditions of both our culture and the Barn Owl's culture in your family? After all, I'm sure that the Barn Owl has traditions that he holds dear as well and we must not be fooled into thinking that our culture is the only one that counts. I know that J and Little E are learning Mandarin and both have Chinese names, but how do you balance everything well?
In any case, I'll leave you with one last thought. I'm a big fan of the Japanese culture, so here's a video on how to eat sushi.
It goes without saying that rats need exercise and that the most popular form of rat exercise is the wheel. Since rats have fairly delicate paws, it's not suitable for them to be running in a wire wheel. Thus, my rats have a Transoniq Wodent Wheel to run in, a specially designed wheel that is both easy to clean and prevents them from hurting their paws. I bought the wheel and some assorted toys from The Dapper Rat and immediately installed the wheel in the rat cage when it arrived.
Wodent Wheels have a metal base for stability, but if you have particularly robust rats like I do, the wheel shakes when they run in it. The resulting noise is not unlike a neverending hammering against the base of the cage.
After suffering several nights of noise, I decided to secure the wheel to the ceiling of the cage both to increase stability and also to get some peace and quiet. After all, if the base couldn't move, the rattling would stop. So, I went down to the nearest hardware store and requested the smallest available cable ties for the job.
In fact, I was refused sale at the next few hardware stores as well. Some of the salespeople didn't even want to help me or look at me the moment the words "Cable" and "Tie" left my mouth. It wasn't until the third store when I found out why I was being refused sale.
It was because this movie had just come out (link NSFW!). For obvious reasons, the remainder of this post will be behind a cut.
So you may have noticed that both J and Little E are blessed with naturally curly hair. J's hair is exactly the same shade and texture as The Barn Owl's, but Little E's hair is a combination – it's dark and fine, like mine, but it has waves, curls and highlights like The Barn Owl's hair.
J's hair is pretty easy to maintain, as he gets it trimmed short every month or so, but Little E's hair has always been a challenge for me as I have virtually no experience looking after curly hair.
Unfortunately, when asking around for advice on how to fix these problems, I realised that even the Sister Outlaw (whose hair is of similar texture to Little E's) does not have a clue on how to manage her curls.
In fact, we live in a world where sleek, straight hair is considered the ideal. All of my curly-haired friends own straightening irons, anti-frizz potions and go to great lengths to blow-dry and brush their hair straight, quite often visiting hair salons to undergo chemical hair re-bonding treatments to rid themselves of unruly locks.
I personally love Little E's curly hair, which I think is both beautiful and unique. I want Little E to have a good self-image and appreciate the way that she looks, so I have been challenging myself to find out how to best manage and maintain her curly locks. It's been several years of trial and error, but I think I am finally getting the hang of it!
Debs G is contributing over at Life's Tiny Miracles today with a Valentine's Day tribute to lovely husbands put together by the wonderful Angie, so do hop on over and check it out!
In the meantime, Owls Well wishes everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day!
So Little E wasn't the only one who had the opportunity to have a very personal magical experience at DisneyWorld – J had his moment when we were at the DisneyWorld Hollywood Studios, and it lasted long after we returned from Orlando due to the amazing fabulousness that is Disney Customer Service.
When A Becky Lee and I were doing our trip planning for Disneyworld Hollywood Studios, we found out that there was a chance for J to take part in the Star Wars Jedi Training Academy (unfortunately, 3 year old Little E just missed the age cutoff by a few months). Although J has not yet watched the films or the cartoons, he is well aware of Star Wars and knows a little bit about all the characters, so we knew that this was an event that was not to be missed!
So when we arrived at Hollywood Studios, the first thing we did was head straight to the ABC Sound Stage to register J for a place in the academy. We were allowed to choose a time slot for his training, and returned later on in the day to be robed and sabred.
At the training ground, the Jedi Masters gave them some basic combat training and taught them to use their light sabres safely…but who should interrupt the session but the terrifying Darth Maul!
All the little padawans had a turn duelling with the snarling Sith Lord, including J, who had the biggest grin on his face as he parried furiously with his light sabre.
Afterwards, J received a little training certificate which he was very proud of. As for the Jedi Training Academy button, he took it off his shirt and fastened it proudly to his backpack. Unfortunately, with one thing and another (i.e. some vigorous rocking out to a live band), the button dropped off and we couldn't find it.
By this time, the Jedi Training Academy was closed, so there was no way we could get a replacement. J was a little sad about losing the button, but he was quite mature about the whole thing and decided not to let that spoil his day. Seeing him act so reasonably about it made me feel that I should try a little harder to see if we could recover the badge.
In any case, I called up the Disney Lost and Found the very next evening and found out that the button had not turned up. Oh well.
Normally, I would have just given up at this point, but A Becky Lee reminded me not to underestimate the power of Disney's Customer Service!
So, when we visited Epcot Center, I paid a visit to Guest Relations and had a chat with the cast member working the desk. She took down our contact information and said that she would ring up Hollywood Studios to ask them to keep an eye out for it. I didn't really expect to hear anything after that, but I was satisfied that I had tried my best to recover J's lost badge.
Imagine my surprise when this arrived in our mailbox after our return to Singapore!
Imagine the look on J's face when he opened the package to find a shiny new Jedi Training Academy badge inside! He was thrilled to pieces.
Of course, it was not the same one that he had misplaced – this replacement button had his name written in beautiful calligraphy and had stars drawn on it, so it was even nicer than the one that went missing! Thank you Disneyworld!
How A Becky Lee managed to score extra VIP Fastpasses for our DisneyWorld Orlando holiday (and some delicious ice-cream).
A lot of people have been asking us how I managed to score extra VIP fastpasses for the whole family. Well, the answer is both simple and complicated.
On the first day of our Disneyworld vacation, The Boobook and I were engaged in vigorous pin trading and we noticed that the best pins were available at the Disney Vacation Club booths that were liberally sprinkled throughout the park.
Since the Disney Vacation Club is essentially Disney's timeshare program, it was not surprising that the booths were often avoided by other guests. Thus, the cast members at said booths were almost always free, super-friendly and readily available for directions and information.


text:
@implementation DifferentTableMappingName
belongs_to_imp(User, user, ARDependencyDestroy)
column_imp(string,title)
mapping_do(
        table_name(different_table_name_with_mapping)
        column_name(title, different_title_name)
)
@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Venezuela cum parte Australi Novae Andalusiae
The item illustrated and described below is sold, but we have another example in stock. To view the example which is currently being offered for sale, click the "View Details" button below.
1640 circa Willem Janszoon Blaeu
Stock# 0023fm
Peter Schenk / Willem Janszoon Blaeu
Amsterdam / 1680
Fine old color example of the rare Peter Schenk edition of Blaeu's map of Venezuela and the Northeastern part of South America.
Includes 2 decorative cartouches, vignettes of various indigenous animals, a compass rose and rhumb lines, etc.
Old Color
Peter Schenk Biography
Peter Schenk the Elder (1660-1711) moved to Amsterdam in 1675 and began to learn the art of mezzotint. In 1694 he bought some of the copperplate stock of the mapmaker Johannes Janssonius, which allowed him to specialize in the engraving and printing of maps and prints. He split his time between his Amsterdam shop and Leipzig and also sold a considerable volume of materials to London.
Peter Schenk the Elder had three sons. Peter the Younger carried on his father's business in Leipzig while the other two, Leonard and Jan, worked in Amsterdam. Leonard engraved several maps and also carried on his father's relationship with engraving plates for the Amsterdam edition of the Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences.
Willem Janszoon Blaeu Biography
Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638) was a prominent Dutch geographer and publisher. Born the son of a herring merchant, Blaeu chose not fish but mathematics and astronomy for his focus. He studied with the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, with whom he honed his instrument and globe making skills. Blaeu set up shop in Amsterdam, where he sold instruments and globes, published maps, and edited the works of intellectuals like Descartes and Hugo Grotius. In 1635, he released his atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas novus.
Willem died in 1638. He had two sons, Cornelis (1610-1648) and Joan (1596-1673). Joan trained as a lawyer, but joined his father's business rather than practice. After his father's death, the brothers took over their father's shop and Joan took on his work as hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company. Later in life, Joan would modify and greatly expand his father's Atlas novus, eventually releasing his masterpiece, the Atlas maior, between 1662 and 1672.
Antique Maps / South America / South America

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Home / Cape Point / Hout Bay (Nearshore & Offshore) Tuna, Yellowtail etc.
Cape Point / Hout Bay (Nearshore & Offshore) Tuna, Yellowtail etc.
Cape Point & its surrounding waters consistently produces fish of all species throughout the year.
There are many inshore banks that can be fished as well as the offshore tuna grounds.
Yellowfin tuna, Longfin tuna, Big eye tuna, Dorado, Yellowtail, Bonito, Skipjack, Marlin and many more.


The mission of the Holocaust Council of Greater MetroWest NJ is to remember the Holocaust and convey its history and lessons. In this context, we address the central tenets of what it means to be a moral and responsible citizen.
Among the programs the Holocaust Council helps plan and facilitate are The Morris Rubell Holocaust Remembrance Journeys and the follow-up "From Learning to Action" annual seminars.
The journeys are one-day journeys to the USHMM in Washington, followed by a visit to the Lincoln Memorial and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. Breakfast and dinner are served on the bus, lunch is eaten at the museum's café and the day is fun but also highly educational and inspiring. The bus serves as a moving classroom and includes both Michael Rubell, the founder and president of Teamworks, Inc. and one or two survivors. The programs are free to schools.
For more information and to apply, please click on the links below.
Unconquered Souls Trailer from IPAK Productions on Vimeo.
Unconquered Souls has it all. It's the story of Anitta Boyko Fox and her family who fled Vienna after Hitler's rise to power and Kristallnacht. It's about survival, migration, resilience in the face of trauma and displacement, entrepreneurship, Zionism, the use of cutting edge science and technologies to assure the establishment of an emrging nation at existential risk, art, romance, and dogs.
Be an Upstander Trailer from IPAK Productions on Vimeo.
Please view our new movie trailer BE AN UPSTANDER: The Fred Heyman Story, a film produced by our own former volunteer intern, Howard Goldberg (with the help of IPAK production company), now a junior at Ithaca College, and Fred's "twin." Film premiere updates will be coming shortly.
Survivors Speak is a program originally developed by the Holocaust Council of Greater MetroWest for the Morris Museum as part of their outreach to schools.
The Holocaust Council of Greater MetroWest created Twin-With-a-Survivor in 2001 to provide B'nai Mitzvah students the opportunity to make personal connections to Survivors who exemplify continued commitment to the Jewish community.
Adopt-A-Survivor is a program "to preserve and perpetuate the N'shamah – the soul and spirit of Shoah Survivors." The program pairs a Survivor with one or more students. The student(s) become familiar with the Survivor's life in order to tell that Survivor's story in a public venue in the year 2045, a hundred years after the liberation of Auschwitz.


When you have been around baseball as long as Bill Buscetto has, you understand the impact an unusual play can have, especially on a team of 14- and 15-year-olds.
"Hustle out, we have to play defense, the game's not over," Buscetto barked Saturday in the Potvin Tournament 15-Under championship game after his team was the victim of a scenario rarely seen in baseball; a triple play off a bunt in the fifth inning.
The Connecticut Rebels responded and held on for a 2-1 win over Groton at Dodd Stadium. The two will play for the championship today at 1 p.m., also at Dodd.
"I thought that was the game-changer right there," Groton coach Jesse Hahn said.
The Rebels had taken a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Aldrich singled and scored on a double by Izzy Davila. Groton tied the game in the third when Shawn Nadeau scored on Aaron Hill's base hit.


a. One thing I did was find one sort of near me (an hour and one half away.
b. It was not exactly the type of group I wanted. It was for children's books even though at the time I had only written adult books, novels, stories and poems. It was an area I wanted to explore. I have enjoyed it and have many ideas for children's books now and have learned so much about writing in general, being my own publicist and marketer and web site owner and web site master. There is a wealth of information among writers and they are all willing to share regardless of your particular genre.
Research the internet. There are many excellent blogs and writers helps. Be aware of those that promise to get you published (they usually want to make money off of you) unlike my blog which has my Write Coach service as a completely free service.
a. Look at information in your genre and other genres you would like to explore. It is all good information.
b. Look for information on form, templates, story boards (this helps set up your story) but do not get locked into someone else's complete process. Feel free to deviate and make your process work but also be able to take some advice and be willing to see that they have and use what makes sense to you.
Write like your life depends on it! The more time you write the better you get, the better you get, the more you increase your chances of getting published, the manuscripts (books, novels, stories) you send in the better chance of winning that "lottery" and the better, and better you get the less of a chance it becomes and turns from an if you get published to a when you get published.
Don't believe all the self-publishing stories you read. Any one will take your money and make your manuscript (novel, book, or story) into a book. Even I could do that with a 100% guarantee. But do you really want to get published that bad or do you want to be good enough to have someone publish you? Sometimes it works to self-publish and only you (and your Write Coach if I'm helping you) arrive at that conclusion and examine all the pros and cons.
3. Write like your life depends on it! The more time you write the better you get, the better you get, the more you increase your chances of getting published, the manuscripts (books, novels, stories) you send in the better chance of winning that "lottery" and the better, and better you get the less of a chance it becomes and turns from an if you get published to a when you get published.
4. Don't believe all the self-publishing stories you read. Any one will take your money and make your manuscript (novel, book, or story) into a book. Even I could do that with a 100% guarantee. But do you really want to get published that bad or do you want to be good enough to have someone publish you? Sometimes it works to self-publish and only you (and your Write Coach if I'm helping you) arrive at that conclusion and examine all the pros and cons.


How is it NOT against regulations to take a selfie in the cockpit of a plane? Especially when you are the one flying the damn thing?
As a pilot flying a Cessna 150K aircraft under general aviation rules, Singh was not violating Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations by taking photos in the cockpit. Nevertheless, investigators concluded in their report, "It is likely that cell phone use during the accident flight distracted the pilot and contributed to the development of spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of control."


text:
World / Science & Health
Sierra Leone Ebola burial workers dump bodies in pay protest
FREETOWN – Burial workers in Sierra Leone have dumped dead bodies in the street outside a hospital to protest authorities' failure to pay bonuses for handling Ebola victims, in the latest strike to hamper the fight against the worst known outbreak of the virus.
A spokesman for the striking workers in the eastern town of Kenema, who asked not to be identified, said they had not been paid their weekly hazard allowance for seven weeks.
Authorities accepted that the money had not been paid but said that all the striking members of the Ebola Burial Team would be dismissed.
"Displaying corpses in a very, very inhumane manner is completely unacceptable," said the spokesman for the National Ebola Response Centre, Sidi Yahya Tunis.
He added that the central government had paid the money to the district health management team. "Somebody somewhere needs to be investigated (to find out) where these monies have been going," he told Reuters.
Residents said up to 15 bodies had been abandoned, three of them at the hospital entrance to stop people entering.
The head of the district Ebola Response Team, Abdul Wahab Wan, said the bodies had included those of two babies, and that some had been displayed around the hospital.
Sierra Leone has become the biggest hotspot in the West African Ebola epidemic, which has killed nearly 5,500 people since March.
While the outbreak appears to be coming under control in neighboring Liberia and Guinea, infection rates have accelerated in Sierra Leone, prompting the head of a special U.N. mission on Ebola to admit on Monday that it would not meet targets for containing the outbreak by early December.
Despite pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, and the deployment of troops by the United States and Britain, the weakness of health care systems and infrastructure in the worst-affected countries has complicated the fight.
Health care workers have repeatedly gone on strike in Liberia and Sierra Leone over lack of pay and dangerous working conditions.
Two weeks ago, health workers walked off the job at a clinic in Bo, the only Ebola treatment center in southern Sierra Leone.
strike, pay, ebola, Sierra Leone, burial workers


text:
Q: running Docker nginx cannot find copied files i have a simple nginx Dockerfile which copies local letsencrypt files when building the image
FROM nginx

COPY fullchain.pem /etc/letsencrypt/live/engi.network/fullchain.pem;

COPY privkey.pem /etc/letsencrypt/live/engi.network/privkey.pem;

COPY options-ssl-nginx.conf /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf;

COPY ssl-dhparams.pem /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem;

COPY default.conf.template /etc/nginx/templates/default.conf.template

COPY nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

COPY index.html /usr/share/nginx/html/index.html

however when I run the Dockerfile using compose, I am getting the error [emerg] 1#1: open() "/etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf" failed (2: No such file or directory) in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:30

A: I doubt if this path already exist in nginx image
/etc/letsencrypt/live/engi.network.
First create these paths using
RUN mkdir -p /etc/letsencrypt/live/engi.network/
command

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


In a recent survey by UNICEF in Egypt adolescents expressed that TV is prime source of entertainment for them (75%) followed by meeting friends (more for boys than girls), reading books (25%) and listening to the radio (8% to 10%). Gender and age have a role in defining the percent who participate in the decision making process with more bias to boys and older adolescents. Adolescents' general knowledge about Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) is rather limited. Although as high as 95% reported having heard about HIV/AIDS, their level of knowledge about modes of transmission is not as high and rather weak. Female Genital Mutilation / Cutting (FGM/C) is another critical protection issue that endangers the physical and psychological and mental health of Egyptian girls.
The overall goal of Tdh community based health project is to improve health outcomes through empowering communities to adopt healthier living practices. Specifically the project contributes to increased demand of maternal health services, improved adolescents participation and knowledge of reproductive health and the abandonment of FGM/C.
The project targets children between the ages of 0 to 5 years and also women of reproductive age, adolescents from 15 to 24 and men. The Secondary target groups include community leaders (teachers, agriculture guides, and religious leaders) local policy makers and media professionals. Results show that less than 20% of the interviewed women would like to participate in any community awareness activities/meetings related to issues of their health and/or the well being of their children. Accordingly, the demand creation for the health services or introducing change of any given situation has to come from within the community. Therefore, the approach is led by the concept of community empowerment which should be more successful as a strategic approach to development.
A communication strategy building synergy among the components by raising public awareness about health is used. Several community entry points are used including the water and sanitation program, community schools, upgrade of primary health care units, and / or the FGM/C project activities of the protection program (other Tdh led program). The protection program works on the other hand, in almost the same communities utilizing the CEDPA model of positive deviance. It is a model that is built on the idea of identifying community advocates who opposes the FGM/C practice and become supporters of abandonment efforts within their communities. The adolescent program is also working in the same areas through the youth centers and NGOs to provide life skills and reproductive health information to targeted adolescents in these areas.


text:
Lithovorisaur
A Weird West Adventure
The PCs were promised an absurd sum by a shipping magnate to serve as protection aboard a solar sail ship shipping a herd of Maiasaur. Especially strange since so many of the beasts already roam the West.
Out of nowhere, pirates attack! While the main body armed with six-shooters, repeating rifles, and sabers distracts, the pirate captain severs the mast with his laser sword and an elite band raid the dinosaur hold. When they return carrying a small wrapped bundle, all the pirates immediately withdraw to their nuclear turbine steamship and sail away.
Rogue Wave!
Out of nowhere, a huge rogue wave hits and its all the PCs can do to keep aboard the ship and keep it intact until the ship's driven onto a beach.
The shipwrecked PCs and sailors find and cut down a tree to replace their mast. Wild beasts, hostile natives, poisonous plants and animals plus limited tools to aid in the task increase the challenge.
In the distance, the pirate steamship lies reefed. If any PCs take the time to investigate, they find all the crew dead, many from laser slash burns, their slagged sabers and wet, non-functional guns strewn about the broken deck. The ship's steam-turbine life raft is gone. If the PCs don't investigate, they see the life raft drop free and chug away.
While the mast is being cut, dragged ship-wards, and erect, the ship's captain reveals the herd of Maiasaur was merely cover for the Lithovorisaur egg in the hold. The bizarre, ultra-rare rock-munching beasts lay eggs whose shells contain veins of pure gold. The eggs alone are worth small fortune, a living Lithovorisaur worth a large one.
Chasing after the life raft, the PCs find it beached near a small herd of saddled Maiasuar, several sets of tracks heading inland. Mounting up, they soon see the pirate captain riding on the distant horizon with several spare mounts.
Dino-chase
The pirate captain is wily and cunning, leading the PCs through a maze of sharp rocks, narrow defiles, and steep cliffs. Falling rock, rattlesnakes, and a flash flood complicate the pursuit.
If they catch up to the captain, he finds high ground, slays all but one of his beasts for extra cover, and tries to force them into laser sword range. If losing the ensuing fight, he leaps onto his last mount and rides it to death if need be to make his lair.
After the close-range fight, the PCs recognize him as notorious bandit leader Burncut McSlash. This must have been a brief jaunt into piracy upon somehow gaining word of the Lithovorisaur.
Bandit Lair
The approaches to the lair contain quicksand, dynamite traps, rusty barbed-wire triplines, and the like. Inside the lair, Burncut lets loose with his Gatling gun until it runs out of ammo, then takes the fight into the narrow, dark, twisting tunnels full of dead-ends and pitfalls which he knows intimately.
Victory?
When defeated, Burncut's dying action is to cut the Lithovorisaur egg open to deny it to the PCs. The suddenly-hatched Lithovorisaur - in spite of it's sudden transition to the real world - is fully functional, mean, hungry, tiny, fragile, crazy-hard to catch, and can bite through almost anything.
The attempts to catch it without killing it in the depths of the dark, wet, sprawling, unstable, trap-laced bandit cave will likely become a mini-adventure on its own.
PCs have several options afterwards in addition to selling the still-valuable broken egg.
Raise Lithovorisaur, an extremely challenging and dangerous task on its own compounded by attacks, thefts, and raids by bandits, Lithovorisaur magnates hostile to new competition, and the like.
Sell the baby Lithovorisaur to the magnate for the promised payment plus a bonus round of hazard pay.
Sell the baby Lithovorisaur on the open market - if they can keep it alive, contained, and not stolen until then
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The Island Time Forgot (A D&D adventure - but easily adaptable to a few different systems/settings)
Dinosaur Island exists in mostly uncharted south seas of the setting. Shrouded in literal mist and proverbial legends, it has been visited on and off for nearly a century by adventurers and poachers seeking to explore the island's mysteries and/or capture dinosaur specimens for sale for exotic zoos or to populate the weird dungeons of paranoid wizards and the like.
While the island was cut off from such dinosaur bandits by the emperor's navy for many years, the crumbling empire has shortened its reach, and while soon lost, when recently rediscovered only natural obstacles to approaching the islands (sea monsters, shoals, whirlpools, etc…). For a time, Captain Esmerelda Konti, a buccaneer leader and acclaimed hunter, was regularly leading her crews to the island and exploring more and more deeply and returning with more dinosaurs and strange artifacts, but recently she and her crew have not returned.
The PCs are hired to hunt down and arrest Esmerelda Konti by some agency of the empire trying desperately to maintain economic and social control in the imperial periphery (mostly hiring mercenaries to do state work).
Alternatively, some other politician may make a separate deal with the PCs to bring back some specimens for sale to inflate the imperial coffers (or their own).
The PCs are dinosaur bandits themselves, sent by a rival poacher hoping to get rid of Konti's organization and open up a new dinosaur pipeline.
After a bunch of sea encounters from a random list (or DM choice) leading to the island, upon arrival the PCs by whatever nautical means they have of arriving will have to find a way to carefully survey the waters around the island because of hidden rocks and sandbars and some aquatic dinos. If they do not, there is a significant chance of running aground and maybe also ending up trapped on the island. Of course, they may have magical means of getting on shore without the ship getting too close or the need of a launch.
If they do a full circuit of the mountainous jungle isle, they will find a ship's mast sticking up out of a lagoon, where the water is deep enough to have swallowed all of Konti's ship. Atop it in the crow's nest is Sid Sackville the lone survivor of Konti's crew. He is half-mad from starvation and will have run out of water the day before the PCs arrival.
He explains that he and the others tried to flee after Captain Konti was killed or captured (stories among those who fled varied, and Sid was not there) while exploring another ship discovered half-buried atop a distant hill. He explains that a group of dinosaur-like creatures emerged from ship and attacked. Their leader seemed to be able to control or command dinosaurs and a great Mosasaurus scuttled the ship from below before they could escape. All the rest of the crew is dead unless there are some survivors on the island. Sid does not know and will try to convince the party to leave immediately and take him with them. He will even surrender to arrest, if they agree. He is so maddened and fearful from his experience, however, that he will (ineffectually) fight or flee if not the PCs do not agree. He will not want to guide the PCs to the mountain, but will do his best to point it out and draw a map if sufficiently calmed and brought somewhere safe (like the ship the PCs arrived on, anchored way of shore).
If the PCs have a way of getting some height or a spyglass, they may be able to spot where the other ship is by its mast sticking out of the rocks.
The island itself should be something Jurassic Park or Skull Island (from King Kong), with a harrowing journey of two to three days to the ship where Konti may be beset by dinosaurs and dire beasts of various kinds.
Expedition to the Peaks
The ship itself is an ancient spelljamming galleon (or if the DM wants, just some one off unique magical ship meant for traveling between world/planes). Its entire crew also died on impact, but the lone survivor—Ashrozo—is a dinosaur-man, the returned evolved descendants of the island (which are probably not native to this world anyway). The DM can use draconian, dragonborn, lizardfolk, of some other related creature type for represent these - but they should look like different dino species, but humanoid. He was in suspended animation until accidentally awaked by Konti on one her missions, but she did not notice until she returned and found him ready.
By recovering The Golden Egg, an artifact of his people through which they were supposed to accomplish their original mission, Ashrozo has been able to continue. The egg, when placed in a clutch of other dino-eggs make them hatch into the evolved dino-men. The egg itself does not hatch but goes dormant until re-fertilized by one of the evolved kind in an elaborate and weird sexual ritual.
The ship is buried beneath centuries of dirt and rock, but the entire is mostly intact, creating a mini-dungeon.
As they approach the top of the peak, they will begin to encounter the fast-evolved dino-men. However, they have not gotten the same kind of training and exposure to the egg as is usual, thus have had a rough transition. They sometimes spontaneously and painfully transform back, leaving them angered and aggressive. Even when remaining in evolved form, their intelligence seems dim compared to Ashrozo.
Captain Konti is still alive and is a captive of Ashrozo. Ashrozo is kind a dino-monk - part of a religious order sent out to shepherd his people and ready the cosmo for their ascendance. He wields the Sol Blade, a laser sword of radiant power that works like a light saber (so he is a dino-Jedi).w
Ashrozo is not necessarily evil and will negotiate for help to free his ship or communicate with his people. However, if he is helped and allowed to go his own way (agreeing to let the PCs take Konti, though he originally hoped to bring her back to his people for punishment for selling their legacy), eventually groups of intelligent dinosaur bandits will begin popping up in places around the world, beginning their slow take over and beginning to establish their own nation and recruiting other draconic creatures to their side. And eventually, the world will have another rough transition when more evolved dinos return as reinforcements—filling in for the collapsing human empire.
WHEW! I wrote that in one long spurt and did not get a chance to re-read. I apologize in advance.
I wrote it all in-browser to save time. 35 minutes in, I hit the wrong key on my keyboard and wiped it all out and had to retype it. Rough.
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My dog decided that between 2pm and 3pm was the perfect time to start running around and barking wildly - getting herself worked up to the state where I am the only one who can calm her. sigh.
I recorded it. ~36 minutes is where I hit the wrong key, wipe everything, and start retyping it all. One hour wasn't short enough to be a challenge I guess?
Wow, two entries already.
Guess I shouldn't be surprised that with such a crazy list of ingredients, the entries are quite zany as well. And I like it!
I am especially surprised how large in scope both adventures are. These are not short 1 session adventures, but campaign material, both of them. And there are a lot of locations and encounters too!
I like how central the golden egg is to the plot in Lithovorisaur, plus I love the word Lithovorisaur. The adventure is very varied and crazy, but comes across a bit linear in places, and I'm not sure if I like the ending. I do like that there are multiple choices in the aftermath of the adventure.
The Island That Time Forgot comes across as less linear. What I like best about it, is the more coherent plot, the multiple plot hooks, and the ending that leaves some interesting choices for the players. I tend to have a bias towards plot and sandboxy stuff, and this one feels more suitable for an open exploration focused campaign.
Iron Sky said:
I have done that while writing my PBP games in-browser. It is infuriating. I feel your pain.
Spoiler: Reflection
For a full three minutes I was gonna write an adventure for a Thundarr the Barbarian RPG (the laser sword and dino-bandits felt fitting), but then I realized developing a whole setting/game - even the few sentences necessary in this format - was too much.
I also considered making it another Spelljamming adventure and making it a dinosaur planet!
I forgot to include so much because I didn't get a chance to go back and add it. For example, the sol blade was supposed to be connected to sun worship and the dinosaur need for hot sun-filled environment. Oh well.
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Judgement for Round 3, 3rd-Place Match: el-remmen vs. Iron Sky
Well, this was fun. With one-hour, you know you're in for a different form of adventure, for sure. Most likely a first draft. Ingredients that are less developed than they otherwise might be. And, dare I say, likely a tendency toward more cinematic adventures over richly-complex and socially-in-depth ones.
Do these assumptions hold true in this match? Let's take a look:
In "Lithovorisaur" ("Lith"), we have a ship mast which is intentially destroyed by the main villain in furtherance of his schemes. It is a necessary step in the movement of the adventure.
In "The Island Time Forgot" ("Time"), we have two ship masts, both echoing each other's purpose; they are essentially signposts to point out where the adventure is. I think their implementation here is better for the adventure than the one in "Lith," but the actual ingredient is probably not as strong, so "Lith" 1, "Time" 0.
"Lith" gives us a dino-riding bandit who is trying to steal a dinosaur. This is the primary antagonist and, thus, a significant presence in the adventure. Pretty good.
"Time" gives us some dinosaur-poachers who are the basis for adventure, but only present in parts. It also gives us some dinosaurs that are trying to dominate the world, which is nice, but they, too, are only a part of the whole.
Usually, I'm pretty wary of ingredients that get multiple forms. Unless they are trying to reinforce a theme, it usually comes off as a lack of conviction on the part of the author that their ingredient is well-used. And that's usually a well-placed concern.
So, are the two uses in "Time" establishing a theme? What would that be? Let's see. The poachers are taking dinosaurs (that already don't belong, though the poachers can't know that) and taking them elsewhere. And, in so doing, activate the threat of the evolved-dinosaur infiltration.
If the theme is "banditry leads to bad things" we would expect to see that the evolved dinos' efforts also lead to something worse, but we don't. If the theme is "everybody is a bandit in one way or another" I think the first of the three hooks suggests otherwise. Maybe there's something there, but I'm not seeing it. "Lith" 2, "Time" 0.
"Lith" gives us a lone survivor of a wrecked ship who is the primary (lone) antagonist of the adventure. I'm not so sure how important it is that the survivor has no living allies, but the survival part is enhanced by the fact that the wreck happens during the course of the adventure.
"Time" seemingly gives us two lone survivors. The minor NPC, as it happens, is not actually the lone survivor of his scuttled ship, but that gives room for the actual lone survivor, the dino-Jedi, to fill the role more comfortably. He's a great NPC. Part antagonist, part ally, and all concealed villain. It is important that he is a survivor of his ship's wreck, but the fact that he is the only one seems less so. Further, that wreck happened (long) before the events of the adventure, so I have to lean toward "Lith" again. "Lith" 3, "Time" 0.
"Lith" has an egg that's actual value is tied in with it's material and the fact that it is an egg very much matters to the shape of the adventure. This is good.
"Time" has a very flavorful macguffin. The imagery really fits in with its role, but its color/material is of no import. And neither is its form, really. Why not have a nutrient bath do the evolving? Classical music? Mad science(!)? "Lith" 4, "Time" 0.
"Lith" provides us with a rough transition in the form of a rogue wave that wrecks the PCs' ship. It comes out of nowhere (being a rogue wave) and pretty much just moves the adventure along to the next part. Which is, in itself, a rough transition.
The missed opportunity, here, is that the adventure had already established that the steamship has a nuclear turbine. Its destruction (by some means, ideally brought about by the PCs' actions) could have caused the wave and help tie things together (also hint that the steamship is wrecked), but the adventure seems to indicate otherwise.
"Time" has two rough transitions. The first of these is the unstable evolution of the dino-mobs that the PCs need to get through. The second is the take-over of the world through them. I think these two are sufficiently linked to say they support each other. "Lith" 4, "Time" 1.
"Lith" gives the laser sword to its antagonist, who uses it to quickly cut through the PCs' ship-mast, and in a cinematic climactic battle. This is very cool. And, yet, it contributes to a pretty big problem that this adventure has, but I'll get back to that.
"Time" has a laser sword that, as far as I can tell, has no importance in the adventure at all. "Lith" 5, "Time" 1.
That looks pretty one-sided, but I will note that a few of the better ingredients in a pair were only marginally so. My initial assumptions are so far pretty well supported.
Adventure TIme:
The most interesting thing about the hook in "Lith" is that it isn't true, and the PCs don't find that out for a while (although, they may have a hint at the start, if they know enough about the world). The stakes of the adventure come about incrementally with each new turn of events.
"Time" gives three varied hooks that are each pretty good and lay out initial stakes pretty well. Unfortunately, the actual stakes of the adventure probably aren't going to be known until long after it concludes. I find that very intriguing, but it's probably not all that great for the DM running the game.
It would be better if there were ways for the PCs to find out parts of the dinos' plans along the way, both to increase the uncertainty of how to interact with the villain, and just to enhance a sense of investment in the outcome. Still, probably better than "Lith" in this area.
Adventure Shape:
"Lith" is an action-packed, cinematic adventure that takes its PCs from one set-piece to another. It looks, at least on the surface, like a lot of fun.
That checks out with my initial assumptions.
I also really like the options laid out in the aftermath section.
"Time" has some of that, but it doesn't really detail any of it. Instead, it gives us opportunities to explore, some interesting NPCs to interact with (through diplomacy, other social means, or, possibly, violence). And it gives us an unexpected twist that changes the assumptions of the world. There is some surprisingly complex and rewarding gameplay, here.
Which is better?
"Lith" is uncharacteristically linear for @Iron Sky. This isn't necessarily a problem, in the right context, but I think there are a few things that are working to enhance the problems that its linearity is going to introduce.
First of all, this adventure's unique setting assumptions seem to want it to be a one-shot, which is fine. But those same assumptions make me think that it wouldn't really work unless it also used pre-generated characters.
Here's why: In a world with laser swords and gatling guns, if the PCs can choose the equipment that they start with, they are going to choose those things!
What happens if the pirate captain and/or the elite squad get killed while raiding the PCs' ship?
What happens if the pirates' steamship gets shot to bits with a gatling gun?
Or the life raft?
Or the dinosaurs?
The answers to each of these questions could be a lot of fun, but the adventure completely fails to help the DM figure out what those would be.
On the other hand, "Time" is pretty solid in form and function. I do think it could use some tightening, but, despite initial appearances, I think it would be far easier to run than "Lith."
Well, maybe not, but that's only because I'm confident in the improvisational skill that I'm pretty sure "Lith" would require of me. Unless, as indicated earlier, all of the PCs start without the nifty weapons.
@el-remmen gets my recommendation for 3rd-place in this tournament. But I want to point out that, despite my criticisms, 1-hour is an insane challenge (which I have never personally faced, by the way — I suspect that I would be far too slow a writer/thinker to manage it).
I am genuinely impressed with the quality of both of these entries, and, in Iron Sky's case, the 25-minute rewrite makes his entry all the more impressive.
Last edited: Monday at 3:51 AM
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Off the record, I was very disappointed that @el-remmen never even referenced a dryad-ghost. I mean, come on! It was right there!
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Off the record, I was very disappointed that @el-remmen never even referenced a dryad-ghost. I mean, come on! It was right there
I thought of it, but wanted to avoid leaning on an idea that was already potentially cribbed from somewhere else.
Spoiler: Huh
Feel a bit like Rob Stark... win every battle/ingredient then lose the war. Especially since I seem to have lost over... hypothetical equipment options?
In fantasy games where enemies fly dragons and wield staves of power and PCs can pick their starting gear, why don't PCs just start with that equipment? In a modern campaign where enemies might have Apache attack helicopters and nerve gas, why don't the PCs just start with those? In scifi games where enemies have command sentient nanoswarms and Star Destroyers and PCs get to pick their starting gear, why don't the PCs start with those?
I've lost in many more judgments than I can even count, but this is by far the one that puzzles me the most, especially with a 5-0 ingredient lead which I think is the best ratio I've ever gotten on any IronDM.
Maybe I misread and the actual question is: what happens if the PCs get that lucky critical-hit headshot on the captain in the first encounter? If that's the problem, I totally get it and it's the main reason I run games that are completely improvisational/sandbox games but equipment?
Okay. I'll clarify my position. Despite the 5-1 ingredient split, i didn't find that most of them were significantly better (although a couple definitely were). It's a deceptive 5-1. In context, very nearly 3-3.
And when I weighed that against the structural issues I found in your entry, it made things tough. Those issues would (very likely, in my estimation) be pretty impactful to the experience of running the game. To be clear, the technological assumptions I called out are not the root of those issues, they are just one of the ways things could get derailed.
Fundamentally, your entry was very linear through a large part of it and there were a lot of points where things could easily go off course. And I'm talking about things that need to happen to get the adventure to it's next step, like the pirates succeeding in their initial raid, the pirate captain surviving the raid, the steamship surviving the raid, the life raft surviving the escape, the pirate captain's dino surviving long enough for a chase to happen.
(The laser sword and gatling guns seem like they would make each of those things more likely to get derailed, but it could still happen without.)
No doubt that would all get cleaned up with a second draft, but this version offers the DM nothing in the way of guidance if any one of those things happens. So, yeah. I had to go the other way.
Nevertheless, I remain sincere in expressing my admiration for the entry you put forth. Its cinematic and exciting through-line still looks like it would be a blast; I just know I'd have to prepare some contingencies.
And, I'm going to reiterate this more for the peanut gallery than for you, but I'm serious when I say, I do not believe I could do anywhere near as good a job as you did in one hour, let alone twenty-five minutes!
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These are quite fun! I'll have a judgment up tomorrow
I have read both. Pretty sure I know how my judgement is going to go but won't be able to finish it until this afternoon.
Spoiler: Gotcha
Thanks for the clarification and I definitely agree with you about its linearity. If I'd had 25 minutes to edit rather than rewrite, I probably would have added things like: "if the captain is killed, replace him with a lieutenant of roughly equal power" and "if the steamship is destroyed, it doesn't really matter since the rogue wave will throw it onto the reef anyway" and "the life raft is too far away to hit with personal weapons". The captain did bring several mounts for the chase, but yes, his mount could have been killed again at the last stretch.
Other things I would have added were multiple pursuit options like "shortcut through the maze of rocks vs safer, longer way along the canyon rim" and "strain the sails to keep the life raft on the horizon" vs "play it safe and calculate where he's likely headed."
In my original draft I also even mentioned that he'd try to make his lair, but if he had to stand and fight he'd cut the egg open there and dump the mini-adventure of collecting the Lithovorisaur into whatever location they were at. He'd also be carrying a map to his lair so they could still enjoy delving/looting it. Didn't make it in the rewrite time.
Regardless, @Rune, thanks for clarifying, judging, and comments for the peanut gallery.
This 1-hour version was fun and challenging in a quite different way. Given my time constraints now-a-days too, it was much easier to fit in.
Judgement for Third Place Match: Iron Sky vs. el-remmen
Well, these are both really fun. I'll save the more detailed comments for after the ingredients. I'll be referring to these adventures as "Litho" and "Island" respectively.
The ship-masts as landmarks to travel across the island in "Island" between the two shipwrecks is a pretty clever usage of this ingredient overall. "Litho" has the pirate captain cut down the mast of the PC's ship to scuttle it. There's a paragraph under the "Pursuit" heading that seems like it should've been earlier in the adventure, and it kind of muddies the timeline around this. There was more than way to scuttle the PC's ship (and note, the adventure does not allow the possible that the PCs can save their vessel), but the Mast ties in with another ingredient (Laser Sword) so that helps it a bit.
I'm disappointed that both entries generally use this ingredient to create bandits who steal dinosaurs, rather than dinosaurs who are bandits. "Island" tries to sneak this in at the end but it doesn't really work. In either case... yeah, both entries have bandits, and those bandits steal dinosaurs, and they play a central role in the adventure.
I'm not particularly happy with how either entry uses this. "Island" features two actual survivors. Sure, we're led to believe, for a while, that Captain Konti didn't make. But she also had been hyped up through most of the adventure, and I never believed for a second she would have died off-screen. So, that gives us... two survivors, which if I'm doing my math correctly is not a lone survivor, so "Island" doesn't actual feature this ingredient. "Litho" gives us a captain that's also a lone survivor, but he's only the lone survivor because he murdered all the rest of his crew. That makes him lone, yes, but it also doesn't really make him a "survivor" so much as a "murderous backstabbing a-hole". He's not really forced to "survive" anything himself.
MacGuffins! One has magical evolutionary power for... reasons, and the other is full extractable gold for... reasons. Of the two I think "Litho" definitely does a better job of pulling this off in a way that makes it make sense to be both golden and an egg. It of course makes the egg valuable, and the creature that hatches from it (and thus, presumably, capable of producing more eggs) even more valuable. It serves the adventure well, and it presents a clear and meaningful choice for the PCs at the end. "Island's" egg has no reason to be gold at all, and only symbolic reason to be shaped like an egg.
A "rough transition" is, by its definition, rough. Having the egg sliced open certainly qualifies as traumatic... or at least it would have been had the lithovorisaur not been perfectly fine hatching in that manner. There's no consequence to it the action, and had the pirate captain not sliced the thing open it wouldn't have really changed anything at all (the egg could have begun hatching on its own, after all). It seems to be a moment that exists solely to satisfy the ingredient. "Island's" uses are far more clever and interesting, but they don't seem to be as directly relevant to the PCs in this case.
Laser swords are super cool. And they're cool here, in this adventure. The laser sword plays a more central role in "Litho", and it ties directly into several of the other ingredients, strengthening together an overall weak set (Ship Mast, Rough Transition). But it doesn't ultimately feel like a necessary piece. One the other hand, the laser sword in "Island" may as well be any other type of weapon, or no weapon at all, considering the PCs aren't likely to fight Ashrozo. On the other hand, dinosaur jedi are frakking awesome.
As I said, these are both very fun adventures. "Litho" is a bit more railroad-like than "Island" (both have a fairly linear plot structure, I'm referring here instead to the PC's not being able to stop getting shipwrecked.) That said, it opens up at the ending with the PCs essentially getting to decide their own reward, and the potential ramifications of their choice. "Island" is a bit more open-ended in its travel but about as linear in structure until the end, when the PCs essentially have to decide what to do with Dino Monk and his people (to say nothing of the complications Captain Konti can provide if she gets loose). It's a gonzo twist with a surprisingly deep moral quandary- what to do about allowing a new advanced sentient civilization to grow and flourish in the world. The adventure offers little advice in the way of alternatives, which is a weakness of the piece overall, but one can infer that that Ashrozo might be convinced to keep his people contained the island, or perhaps find a way to fix his Spelljammer/vessel so they can travel to find a more appropriate home (or perhaps even help them find their original home, considering it is implied that the regular dinosaurs aren't native here either).
These two adventures are pretty even overall. That said, I think that "The Island that Time Forgot" edges out @Iron Sky's "Lithovorisaur" slightly on ingredients and just a little bit more in terms of the overall quality of the adventure. It's just a little bit more open-ended in its structure and conclusion, and just a little bit more interesting in its set pieces. So that is my pick for the winner of this match and @el-remmen for 3rd place for his competition. We'll see what our other judges think!
e: Adding the names of the contestants.
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Judgment for Round 3, Third Place Match @Iron Sky vs. @el-remmen
This match, for third place this (last) year gives us two experienced contestants doing it old-school: six ingredients, one hour, no word limit.
Our first entry, Iron Sky's Lithovorisaur (hereafter Rock) is billed as a Weird West adventure. This gonzo, dinosaur-filled chase sequence is packed full of goodness, but I find myself trying to figure out what system would work with it. Deadlands? Spirit of the Century? Cadillacs and Dinosaurs? Dragonball? Can I come back to this later?... I'm going to come back to this later…
Our second entry is El-remmen's The Island that Time Forgot. The title is not all that creative, but it does conjure forth warm memories of other stories, including the classic Isle of Dread. Does the entry do anything new? We might come back to this as well…
The weren't a lot of rules to follow this go-around, excepting get it turned in on time, so both entries followed the rules. Let's dive right into the ingredients.
Spoiler: Ingredient Use
Our first ingredient, lovingly supplied by the malefic magnanimity of the judges, is that of Ship Mast. With sadness I notice neither of the entries had the mast be haunted. Moving on past the cold embers of past sorrows, let us consider how they have been used. Rock has the mast broken, in need of being repaired. Unimaginative, but passable. So what does Island give us? A mast sticking up out of water marking where a ship sank… and a marker for direction. I am going to give this one to Rock.
The dinosaur bandits of both entries are bandits intent on stealing or poaching dinosaurs or, at least a dinosaur egg. Island elevates itself though by hinting at off-world dino-sapiens who have taken up banditry and world-plundering if the PCs make the wrong choices. But this is, unfortunately not actually part of this adventure. It's a story for elsewhen. I am going to give the nod to Island on this one, but really think the dino pirates should have been actually in the adventure! How much cooler would that have been?
Lone Survivor is likewise used a little stronger in Island. In Rock, the villain is the lone survivor, though as the text hints that he murdered his own crew, I am not sure this is the right wording. Island gives us a lone survivor as a clue, which is cliché, but still moderately stronger.
Both entries have really good uses of the Golden Egg. It is probably one of the strongest ingredients in both adventures. The golden egg of Island is an artifact with the powerful ability of giving sentience to dinosaurs. Which is really, really neat… except, did we just invent draconians? Maybe the go-bot equivalent of draconians? Dinonians? The egg in Rock, on the other hand, laid by a rock eating dinosaur, which just happens to have rich veins of gold in it… Literally a dinosaur that lays golden eggs. And then to have it hatch, and having the PCs dealing with a rock and metal eating little bundle of vicious cuteness. That's just golden. So to speak. I am giving full points to both entries for this ingredient, but I do like Rock's just better I must confess, it's just more fun.
The use of rough transition in both entries is very different. In Rock it is a giant wave which turns the adventure from being an ocean adventure to being a land adventure. In Island it is the transformation the dino-beings are undergoing. Both have some weaknesses, but I am going to give full points for both.
On the other hand, in both adventures the ligh… laser sword is the weapon of choice of the primary villain. That's as much of a wash as could be. Neither is a particularly strong usage, but both are passable, and equally so.
As I tally scores, Island has the barest of edges, point wise, but we are going to have to look a little deeper to see if the lead is good enough to win.
So let's move on and critique the adventures themselves.
Spoiler: Usability and Appeal
Both of these adventures had only an hour in which to be crafted. We could go easy on them, but this isn't Aluminum DM,… So let's start with the negative, especially when it comes to useability.
Rock has a few problems. The chase sequence is too long and drawn out. The whole matter of the dead pirate crew is contrived, as is the villain getting away. The villain's name, even for a light setting, doesn't feel right. And the cracking open of the egg is clumsy. Why isn't the baby dinosaur cut in half? How about having the egg shell, besides having gold also have traces of vibranium, unobtanium, adamantine, or whatever magic metal the setting has, so that energy weapons bounce off? The laser sword rebounds, but not before cracking the egg shell.
This isn't the biggest problem with the entry though. It is called a weird west adventure, but I have no idea what system it is meant to be run in? It is not Deadlands. I don't recall a weird west setting with this level of gonzo in it. It reminds me a bit of the world of Dragon Ball (not the story-line, but the setting). If there is actually a game system with such a setting I would like to know about it.
But what about Island. Island has a few problems as well. Firstly, its derivative. I already mentioned the draconian connection. The island itself is straight from Land that Time Forgot. There's not a lot of new stuff here. Even the villain is a straight up jedi riff. All of that is forgivable though if done right.
The second problem though is that it buries the lede. We have a decaying empire, dino-poachers, and a new race of uplifted saurian. And then suddenly we have a spell-jammer? Right there, we have a major problem, unless spell-jammers are already a known. But otherwise, it's a major jump in theme and tone. Once you introduce that sort of thing into a game, it kinda trumps other issues. A new race of dino-people. Cool! But a ship that you can fly to other planets… that's a whole new world right there!
And then there is the presentation. We have a lot of story. I'm not sure we have as much adventure outlined. There's a few things to do, but mostly it seems to me that it is the opportunity for the PCs to discover a story, rather than a chance to really shape a story.
But what about appeal?
Island has a lot going for it, appeal wise. Dinosaurs are always fun. The whole new race of dino-men provide an interesting discovery. I could see it being a fun adventure if it was fleshed out and developed a bit more.
On the other hand, we have Rock. I don't know what setting it is meant for, but I really want to find out. And if there isn't one yet, there should be. It sounds like straight up fun. There's a few problems here and there which knock it down a point or two, but then we get to the image of a rock eating, metal chewing dinosaurling, and all that potential for cute hilarity, and you just know that everyone involved would be having a great time.
What is our final verdict?
The end-score is actually a little closer than I thought they would be when I first read through them. But in the end, I am going to have to go with fun. My judgment, for the reasons stated above, and based on my semi-arbitrary scoring system, is that Iron Sky's Lithovorisaur makes him the winner of this match in my estimation.
Let's take a moment and see if the other judges have weighed in...
They have, and my judgment is the one odd out... So congratulations to El-remmen!
Lithovorisaur (Rock)
Ship Mast 1.5
Dinosaur Bandits 1
Lone Survivor 1
Golden Egg 2
Rough Transition 2
Laser Sword 1 (total 8.5/12)
TOTAL SCORE 23.5/30
The Island Time Forgot (Island)
Ship Mast 1
Dinosaur Bandits 1.5
Lone Survivor 1.5
Laser Sword 1 (total 9/12)
Reactions: Gradine, Iron Sky, el-remmen and 1 other person


Barnes, P.D. ; Franklin, G. ; Quinn, B. ; et al.
Phys.Rev. C54 (1996) 2831-2842, 1996.
Axis error includes +- 2.3/2.3 contribution.
Axis error includes +- 2.6/2.6 contribution.
Polarization and spin correlation coefficients.
Atherton, H.W. ; Celnikier, L.M. ; French, B. ; et al.
Phys.Lett. B30 (1969) 494-497, 1969.
Phys.Atom.Nucl. 57 (1994) 1680-1692, 1994.
Atherton, H.W. ; French, B.R. ; Moebes, J.P. ; et al.
Nucl.Phys. B69 (1974) 1-14, 1974.
35.4 event/mub data sample used.
Differential cross section was fitted by 2-slope parametrization: D(SIG)/D(T)= CONST(N=B)*EXP(-SLOPE(C=1)*T), T<=T0, D(SIG)/D(T)= CONST(N=B)*EXP(-SLOPE(C= 1)*T0)*EXP(-SLOPE(C=2)*(T-T0)), T>T0.
Barnes, P.D. ; Birien, P. ; Bonner, B.E. ; et al.
Phys.Lett. B246 (1990) 273-277, 1990.
Normalized Legendre polynomials of fits to data. Lambdabar Lambda data from Barnes et al., PL 189B (87) 249.
Bachman, L. ; Bogdanski, M. ; Jeannet, E. ; et al.
Nucl.Phys. B263 (1986) 458-474, 1986.
Data containing only 2 VEE0 events.
Data containing both one and two VEE0 events.
Oh, B.Y. ; Eastman, P.S. ; Ming, Ma.Z. ; et al.
Nucl.Phys. B51 (1973) 57-76, 1973.
Nuovo Cim. A23 (1974) 610-617, 1974.
LAMBDA AND ALAMBDA POLARIZATIONS ASSUMED EQUAL. SPIN CORRELATIONS ALSO ESTIMATED.
Jacobs, S.M. ; Kirsch, L.E. ; Moore, S.C. ; et al.
Phys.Rev. D17 (1978) 1187, 1978.
FORWARD HEMISPHERE TOTAL CROSS SECTIONS NOT INCLUDING CHARGE CONJUGATE REACTIONS. CORRECTED FOR DECAY BRANCHING RATIOS AND FOR BACKGROUNDS.
APPROX 55 PCT BACKGROUND SUBTRACTED.
FORWARD LAMBDA PRODUCTION. APPROX 36 PCT BACKGROUND.


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Our opinion: Gov. Scott rightly signed needle exchange bill
Our opinion: Gov. Scott rightly signed needle exchange bill Our opinion: Gov. Scott rightly signed needle exchange bill Check out this story on tallahassee.com: http://on.tdo.com/1RuUbmp
Published 4:26 p.m. ET March 27, 2016
Florida finally has a tightly controlled needle-exchange program to combat the spread of blood-borne diseases.(Photo: Patrick Reddy/The Enquirer)
It's taken four legislative sessions and some serious compromising, but Florida finally has a very limited, tightly controlled needle-exchange program to combat the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases.
The law signed last Wednesday by Gov. Rick Scott is not an endorsement of heroin, nor does it represent a retreat by law-enforcement or medical agencies. Rather, it acknowledges the reality that fear of infection is not going to stop junkies from doing something that can already kill them, and is an effort to keep addicts from spreading diseases to their sex partners, fellow drug users and family members.
Senate Bill 242 was sponsored by Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, and Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation, to create a pilot program in exchanging clean needles for used ones in Miami-Dade County. Florida leads the nation in new HIV/AIDS infections, especially among intravenous drug users, and their part of the state is the eye of that health care hurricane.
The exchange will be run by the University of Miami, with tight controls. Every hypodermic syringe or other type of needle must be accounted for, and it will still be a crime for any clinic staffers — however well-intentioned — to start swapping out needles on their own. They will be dispensed one at a time, one dirty needle coming in for each never-used needle going out.
Demographic data will be compiled, to help public health officials learn more about who is using such drugs, but no one need fear that their names will be reported to the cops, parents or employers.
Also important, the needle swap will provide an opportunity for users to get information about the dangers of what they're doing, available services, drug counseling and rehabilitation programs. Preventing the spread of disease is Job One, but helping the junkies get clean is a close second purpose of the program.
There can be a central location for the exchange, or a secure medical van to take the needles to places where poor people don't have transportation. Tellingly, the bill provides that no state or local money may be used to buy needles, so UM will have to get some grants or raise outside funding for the program.
The Department of Health will receive annual reports on the program, which expires in mid-2021 unless reauthorized by the Legislature. If it works, it could go statewide, even before five years pass.
The Infections Disease Elimination Act has already been adopted by Kentucky and Indiana, and the Republican-controlled Congress last year lifted the ban on federal funding of local needle-exchange programs. The Florida Medical Association, American Bar Association, U.S. Conference of Mayors and Service Employees International Union — representing 55,000 current and retired nurses, doctors and other health care workers — are on board.
"This will save lives, plain and simple," Joy Fishman, whose son died of a heroin overdose, testified during a House committee hearing during the recently concluded session. "I am relieved that we can finally begin this important work."
Aside from the prohibition of using any taxpayer money for the exchange program, there were some other signs of political squeamishness among legislators and the governor. In the House, 20 members voted against the bill, and two opposed it in the Senate. But 90 representatives and 37 senators voted for it, indicating that public health can trump the anti-drug fervor of conservative lawmakers.
Scott, who came to government from the hospital business, obviously understands health care on a massive scale. But he didn't put out a press release in signing the new law, or even mention needles.
His office simply listed it among nine bills Scott had signed, describing it with one line, "An infectious disease elimination pilot program — This bill establishes a pilot program at the University of Miami to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases."
No mention of just how the bill does that. No mention of giving away needles. Well, at least he didn't allow it to become law unsigned, as he could have.
Health benefits aside, we can see how some politicians in an election year might not want to be associated with anything an opponent might spin as being soft on drugs. In the selective half-truth world of attack advertising, some well-financed campaign committee can go on TV, or send out mass mailings, shouting, "Your senator voted to help junkies get their spikes — what next, Senator, crack houses in the schools?"
Don't doubt it. We've seen smears just that distorted.
But it's not like kids are going to start shooting up, just because they can get free needles. Nor are addicts going to stop using if they can't get a clean one. Given the public-health costs of HIV or AIDS treatment, not to mention the family tragedy and personal suffering, preventing a few new infections is well worth the effort.
We understand the concern; Florida can't have just anyone handing out needles to anybody who wants them. But we hope the Miami needle exchange works, big time, and that early feedback will embolden next year's session to authorize more exchanges in other cities.
"First, do no harm," says the physician's creed.
We don't see how implementing a needle exchange might do more harm than ignoring the spread of HIV and other blood-borne diseases.
Read or Share this story: http://on.tdo.com/1RuUbmp


The Halloween decorations near the university really impressed the kids and we dawdled along soaking up the sunshine while admiring the impressive university buildings.
After lunch at Five Guys, we headed back to the hotel to drop off James and Harriet while I took the older kids down to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. It was so inspiring to see the kids ask questions and take their own photos of the exhibits. It wasn't too crowded and we had hours to roam the various floors at a leisurely pace.
The blue skies lured us outside and we walked through the park, eating icy poles and enjoying our last day in the nation's capital. We then rode the Carousel on the National Mall, the only carousel in Washington DC. Built in 1947, it has appeared in several movies and the kids loved it so much that I let them ride it twice.
We walked back to the hotel and the kids were absolutely exhausted and fell into bed early. We zipped up the suitcases completely satisfied with our 6 days in DC.
We stayed at the Sofitel Washington DC.
We used Uber to get around the city.
We ate at Shack Shake, Five Guys and District Taco.


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AI Closer to Mimicking Human Abilities (and Musk's Fears Called Out) – This Week in Artificial Intelligence 12-26-15
Daniel Faggella Last updated on November 29, 2018
Last updated on November 29, 2018, published by Daniel Faggella
Daniel Faggella is the founder and CEO at Emerj. Called upon by the United Nations, World Bank, INTERPOL, and many global enterprises, Daniel is a sought-after expert on the competitive strategy implications of AI for business and government leaders.
1 – Elon Musk Nominated for 'Luddite' of the Year Prize over Artificial Intelligence Fears
The Information and Technology Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, has nominate Tesla's Elon Musk for its annual Luddite Awards. This announcement ironically comes after several innovative achievements, including TeslaX's announcement this past week of successfully launching and returning a rocket to Earth. The Luddite Award is handed out to the person who the group considers most set on holding back the introduction of new technologies. The nomination is linked to Musk's, Gates' and Hawking's warnings about the existential threats of artificial intelligence. Other nominees include "advocates seeking ban on killer robots" and "States limiting automatic license plate readers".
(Read the full article at The Guardian)
2 – Google Plans New, Smarter Messaging App
Google is hard at work behind the scenes on a messaging and chatbot service, as it tries to catch up with Facebook and other rivals in the already competitive domain. Messaging apps and chat bots have historically been a weakness for Google, which has had lukewarm success with apps like Google Hangout and Google Messenger. While a Google spokeswoman declined to comment, a source close to the matter stated that Google's Nick Fox is leading a development team. In October, Fox's offer to buy 200 Labs, Inc. was declined by the small startup, which specializes in building advanced, responsive chatbots. Those close to the source stated that Google is looking to build something similar.
(Read the full article on The Wall Street Journal)
3 – Artificial intelligence startup Arya.ai raises $750k from YourNest, VentureNursery
Arya.ai, a Mumbai-based AI startup, has raised $750,000 in an initial round of funding from VentureNursery and YourNest Angel Fund. The company, which creates deep learning algorithms and other sophisticated tools for developing AI systems, will focus the funds on new products. Cofounder and CEO Vinay Kumar said,
"Using AI, developers can build applications that can solve most complex problems. However, the biggest pain point in building reliable AI applications is solving multiple challenges they encounter in the process,"
According to Kumar, Arya.ai works across several industries and is planning to launch into the automobile, military, and defense industries.
(Read the full article on VCCircle)
4 – Darwin: a Neuromorphic Hardware Co-Processor Based on Spiking Neural Networks
Researchers at Zhejiang University and Hangzhou Dianzi University announced a mutually developed Darwin Neural Processing Unit (NPU), a neuromorphic hardware co-processor that more closely mimics neural networks in primitive brains. The NPU, which uses complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology (used for creating integrated circuits), is compared to a simple animal brain that supports up to 2048 neurons, 4 million synapses, and 15 synaptic delays. The pioneering effort is based on the desire to build a more effective and energy-efficient. The team plans to use the Darwin NPU as a Processing Element in a Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture, hoping to scale from thousands to potentially millions of neurons.
(Full article on Zhejiang University News is no longer available as to this article update on September 2017)
5 – Machines that Learn like People
A research team from MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research has theoretically proven that their model of an object-recognition system can makes accurate determinations of visual objects based on only a few examples, a feat still dominated by humans. Their findings will be published in the journal Theoretical Computer Science, which follows a previous paper published in October that demonstrates how their model aligns with empirical evidence about how the brain works. The hypothesis has important implications for bringing today's machine learning to meet the level of primate visual systems, a function that could help produce much more powerful AI.
(Read the full article on MIT News)
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Students Develop Talented AI, and Leaders Assess Human Role in Creation – This Week in Artificial Intelligence 08-15-15
1 - Humans, Not Robots, Are The Real Reason Artificial Intelligence Is So Scary
Imagine that, sometime in the future, a criminal entity was to steal one of Google's self-driving cars, strap an automatic weapon to the roof, and reprogram the car to drive around and target people. This shocking image of the potential dangers of autonomous weapons - in the hands of ill-seeking humans - is what makes the idea of artificial intelligence downright terrifying. While we're not close to developing human-like artificial intelligence that has the ability to "take over the world", world governments, including the US, China, and Russia, are all developing autonomous drones and other AI weapons, presenting an immediate danger to the general population. While the Future of Life petition to ban AI weapons was issued in the face of this threat, there have not yet been any lasting policy decisions made by the UN.
AI Keeping it Better Than Real – Upticks in Communication, Medicine, and Automation – This Week in Artificial Intelligence 10-03-15
1 - Apple Acquires Artificial-Intelligence Startup VocalIQ
Apple announced its purchase of VocalIQ Ltd., the U.K.-based software developer that is working natural language AI for better interactions between humans and machines. Initial application is Apple's virtual assistant Siri, which will help improve voice command learning and response. The technology could potentially be applied to future technologies such as autonomous cars; VocalIQ last year worked with General Motors Co. on a voice-control systems for cars' navigation and entertainment systems.
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These stainless steel puzzle pieces are hand stamped with "you're my person" on each puzzle in papyrus font. These keychains make a great gift for you and your favorite person, these could be for couples or best friends or anyone who is important in your life. Looking at this puzzle on your keys you will immedtley smile and think of the person who you share this with. Makes a great affordable practical gift you will both use every day! This listing come with a set of 22g stainless steel puzzles that are about 1 x 1.5 inches.


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Q: Facebook taggable_friends returns json picture URL, but URL is invalid I get a json back from Facebook when using taggable_friends:
{"id":"aaifpxqtnzaoxzj1htqpj3mx4xbjlipvuvch9muqueia1ic2xr3iqv1ouyisuk9ob8xknuwb1rk5poy92stj6oho1aiowst6lcx6dsz32pzibw",
"name":"jan pietersen","picture":{"data":{"is_silhouette":false,
"url":"https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-1/c22.22.276.276/s50x50/1002729_391175754325150_673656636_n.jpg?oh=
0f95c73655a7d1ba4d0a9b7418cb00a0&oe=5593eb6a&gda=1431088369_3978aa4d6e53a85856463087f4b37e93"}}}
I get the picture URL from this string that looks like this:
https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-1/c22.22.276.276/s50x50/1002729_391175754325150_673656636_n.jpg?oh=0f95c73655a7d1ba4d0a9b7418cb00a0&oe=5593eb6a&gda=1431088369_3978aa4d6e53a85856463087f4b37e93
That doesn't work because when checking on Facebook it should look like this:
https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-1/c22.22.276.276/s160x160/1002729_391175754325150_673656636_n.jpg?oh=0203e560f071eb42dcf6bdec99a74e1b&oe=55583D9F&gda=1432062559_2c1d594d9b7c6ff542e47d169d3b670f
Anybody a clue what I am doing wrong?
Andy.


What would the losses from the 1999 storm look like now? RMS has previously simulated the 1999 event using techniques from the RMS Australia Severe Convective Storm model to apply spatial noise to the size of the hail reaching the ground. We computed ground-up losses to our Industry Exposure Database for each of 200 realizations of the event and generated a distribution of losses which has an expected loss of AU$4 billion (US$2.87 billion). The latest trended loss from the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) is AU$5.6 billion (US$4 billion) which fits comfortably inside our loss range.
Trending losses is far more complicated than it sounds as uncertainties compound over time. We have not trended the loss, we have run multiple realizations of the event over today's exposure.
It is important to note the range of these losses from these realizations. Large hail can fall in the harbor, on golf courses and parks without causing loss or it can fall just a few hundred meters away on tiled roofs with very expensive consequences. This variability explains why it is so difficult to estimate losses accurately immediately after an event. Further, it demonstrates how a "repeat of the storm" is not the same as a "repeat of the loss".
Since 1999, the market has debated the return period of the loss from this event. Ten years ago in our retrospective, we concluded the event was not a "once-in-a-lifetime" event from a hazard perspective and we agreed with other authors the loss return period was "decades" and certainly "less than 100 years". Such estimates were supported by other historical events, notably the New Year's Day hailstorm of 1947. Today we have another significant historical datapoint for comparison.
On December 20, 2018, Sydney was hit by another band of severe storms. Perhaps being so close to the Christmas holidays, the event escaped the intense media attention it would otherwise have garnered. Smashing roofs and windows, just two days after the storm, the ICA declared the incident a "catastrophe" and reported the industry had already received 25,000 claims. A fuller summary of the event written a week after the event can be found here.
What did the losses look like? We simulated 200 realizations of the December 2018 event on the RMS Australia Industry Exposure Database, and the expected loss is approximately AU$2.2 billion (US$1.57 billion) with a range from under AU$1 billion to over AU$4 billion.
Other sources including the three-month progress report from PERILs at AU$633 million (excluding motor) and press releases from large primaries, it is almost certain final losses will exceed AU$1 billion. Some analysts expect losses to reach AU$2 billion, in line with the expected ground-up loss from our simple simulation.
As mentioned previously, the final loss from events such as these is very sensitive to exactly where the large hail fell, so it is important to consider the loss distribution and not simply the mean. It seems likely the expected loss from December 2018 will be roughly one-half of the losses from April 1999. It is also important to note the overlap in the loss distributions for the two storms. A "lucky" repeat of the April 1999 event would not cause as much loss as an "unlucky" repeat of the December 2018 storm.
Comparing the expected losses for 1999 and 2018 against our Industry Loss Curve confirms our hypotheses from ten years ago. The 1999 loss is large, but nowhere close to the maximum credible hail loss.
Sydney experiences losses of AU$1.5 billion every decade or two, as evidenced by the events in 1947, 1990, 1999 and 2018. With tiled roofs continuing to be popular in the city, these will continue to be damaged by large hail. And if Sydney-siders can therefore expect insured losses in excess of $1.5bn every decade or so, it is very likely that children at school in the city today will see at least one 1999-sized loss, or larger, in their lifetimes.
Analysis provided by Sanjna Sethi, Alpana Das and the RMS Noida Knowledge Center plus Rohit Mehta and Callum Higgins.


This is a story of a very special young woman entrenched in street life here in the Tri-Cities. She is a survivor and definitely a character, we can call her Megan. She won't deny that she is addicted to drugs or struggles with mental health issues or that it's holding her in the lifestyle. We have helped her several times to access resources for treatment, shelters etc. The wait lists for some of these places are so long that it's hard for her to keep calling and hoping to get in for weeks on end. When and if she gets in she will stay from a couple days to a couple months than leave for one reason or another. While to some people it may be discouraging that it doesn't seem to stick, I can't help but shake the thought that one day she might just have a shot at a long fulfilling life. She is young and when you wipe the sadness and the drugs away you can see how beautiful she is. I don't think that she has ever had a semblance of normal life. Megan knows the reality of her situation that people die on the streets or even worse, just exist. I will never forget the winter of 2006; the snow fell as hard as she did. I was at city hall as usual giving out coffee . and snacks when she plunked down shivering beside me. Even with a blanket wrapped around her and the body heat of her junkyard dog she was on the verge of hypothermia. I am usually the one who is a stickler about keeping a professional distance but that night my heart broke for her. She looked at me with sad exhausted eyes and said, "Please just sit beside me and give me your warmth". I let her huddle up next to me and gave her some coffee. One thing I have noticed about Megan is she never gives up and I admire that. I know any day we could get a call asking for help again. That is what we are here for, that's our job. Sometimes it takes a long time or never happens but when our clients are ready and willing we help them. I think we all need someone who believes in us no matter where we are in life; someone who will never give up, and stand by our side. I know that for Megan, I plan to be there, because tomorrow is when the miracle could happen. In the mean time I will be here to listen and hopefully she won't feel so alone.


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Sina Habibian
3 May 2017 / Data Science
How to Prevent Overfitting
Suppose that you are using a machine learning model to fit a feature set and predict outcomes. Training the model on your full data set is a bad idea as it could result in overfitting. This is because the model will adjust the parameters and hyper-parameters until it finds an optimal combination, molding itself to your data points and losing the generality needed to predict new results.
To prevent overfitting, a standard approach is to divide your dataset into two pieces: a training set and a test set. The model is first trained on the training set (comprising perhaps 70% of the data) and then it's performance is tested on the test set (the remaining 30%).
Now suppose you've gone through this process and your model performs poorly on the test set. You cannot simply modify the model parameters so that they better fit the out-of-sample data, as this would again result in overfitting.
Nor can you train multiple models and choose the best-performing on the test set as your choice going forward. You will have implicitly made a judgement based on out-of-sample performance by doing so. This also constitutes overfitting, albeit at a higher level.
So the question is: how do you improve your model if it performs poorly on the test set?
A part of the answer is to divide your full dataset into more pieces. You could divide the training set into it's own constituent training and test sets, iterating on the model until you are ready to measure performance on the out-of-sample. Moreover, you could set aside a part of the data as a validation set and use that pick to between models. In this case, you would train multiple models on the training set, verify and compare their performance on the validation set and pick the best one, and finally test the performance on the test set.
After all this, what if the model still performs poorly on the out-of-sample data? Are you doomed now that you've used all your data?
Most would say that if the out-of-sample failure gives you a new idea, you are not at fault for designing a new model to test that hypothesis. Or that if you change the input features or something similarly fundamental, that's ok too.
The problem is that if you go through this process enough times, you are bound to find a model that fits. Creating a feedback loop between out-of-sample performance and model design, even if design changes are fundamental, could constitute overfitting over time. Understanding this boundary and knowing when you're at fault is perhaps more of an art than a science.
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Contrarian Beliefs Lead to Outsized Returns
It's easy to follow trends and chase the latest shiny object. In tech over the last few years, industry hype has followed anonymous messaging apps to blockchains to chatbots, with many others in
Reasons to Join a Coworking Space
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