TÉCNICAS REUNIDAS is a leading general contractor engaging in the engineering, design and construction of various types of industrial facilities in the sectors of Oil and Gas, Refining and Petrochemical, Energy and Infrastructures. In the last 50 years, the company has designed and built over 1.000 industrial plants, therefore becoming an international reference for the most important producers and sellers of crude oil, Gas and Energy worldwide. Técnicas Reunidas belongs to the select, Spanish stock market index, IBEX 35.
· Managing the work in accordance with the schedules and budgets pre-established for all the Subcontractors. Managing, coordinating and controlling all the assembly phases and for ensuring the compliance of the construction schedule by the Subcontractors.
· Weekly checking, along with the respective supervisors and the Planning Engineer, all of the schedules in order to analyse the Construction situation.
· Complying with and ensuring compliance with on-site Environment and Health and Safety Rules and Regulations.
· Coordination among the different Assembly Subcontractors. Participate in the planning of the Construction, as well as in the development of Subcontractors' programmes personnel, equipment and tools needs.
· In coordination with the Quality Control Manager, ensuring compliance with the projects Quality Assurance Plan.
· Ensure that the construction work is carried out in accordance with the engineering specifications and drawings.
- Experience in a similar position as an Instrument Superintendent. Preferable to have former experience in EPC Contracts in Construction / Engineering companies of the Oil/ Gas field or Power.
- Local contract in Saudi Arabia.
- Work in a Leader EPC Contractor.
- Good Salary conditions according to the experience provided by the candidate.
Fluent English level. - Degree in Engineering.


Fisheries managers are looking at new strategies to cut the deficit, including increasing the amount of aquaculture-based farming.
The United States imported more seafood last year than at any point in its history, and the nation's trade deficit in the sector is growing, federal data show.
There are also some fish the U.S. has imported more heavily in recent years because domestic stocks have dried up. One example is Atlantic cod, which was once the subject of a huge fishery in New England. That industry has collapsed from overfishing and environmental changes.


text:
The Brahmin and the Crooks Story In English
Once a brahmin (holy man) received a goat as a gift after performing a religious ceremony. The brahmin lifted the goat on his shoulders and left for his home.
It so happened that three rogues happened to see the brahmin carrying the goat.
They were very hungry. Seeing the goat, the first rogue exclaimed, "Oh! That is a fat goat. We should get that goat".
"Yes, it would make for a very nice meal for all three of us", said the second one.
"But how can we get the goat. The brahmin is carrying the goat on his shoulders. Am sure he won't gift it to us", said the third one.
"I know how to get that goat. I have a plan", said the first rogue, "Listen to me".
He whispered the plan into the ears of the other two. They would fool the brahmin and get the goat for themselves.
They ducked behind the trees by the roadside and moved past the brahmin, all the while making sure the brahmin did not see them.
A little later, one of the rogues approached the brahmin.
"Oh! holy priest," the first rogue said politely, "I see that you are carrying a dog on your shoulders. I fail to understand why a pious person like you would carry a dog on his shoulders".
"Have you no eyes?" snapped the brahmin, "Can't you see it's a goat and not a dog. I received it as a gift for performing a religious ceremony extraordinarily well."
"Pardon me Sir, but I only say what I see with my eyes. I shall say no more", said the first rogue.
"Clearly, being highly educated isn't everything", the rogue muttered before leaving, making sure that the brahmin heard him.
The brahmin continued on his path, cursing the man for his utter foolishness.
He had barely walked a hundred meters when the second rogue came up to him and said, "Respected Sir, where did you find a dead calf and why are you carrying it on your shoulders? Is it not disgraceful for a brahmin to carry a dead animal? "
The brahmin lost his temper on hearing this. He shouted furiously at the second rogue, "What is happening to everyone? Are you also as blind as the other foolish man I met a while ago? This is no dead calf I am carrying. It is a goat that I received a little while ago."
The rogue pretended innocence.
"Forgive me Sir. I just thought I should let you know what I see. It does not matter to me whether you carry a dead calf or a live goat. Do as you please", he bowed to the brahmin and walked away.
The brahmin was a little puzzled now. He glanced at the animal to ensure that it was indeed a goat and continued with his journey.
Shortly, as planned, the third rogue appeared.
Upon seeing the brahmin, he frowned and said, "Pardon me Sir, are you a real brahmin?"
"Yes, indeed I am. What sort of a question is that?" retorted the brahmin.
"Then, may I ask you how a holy man such as yourself, dares to carry a pig on his shoulders? Someone as holy as you should not even touch this animal, let alone carrying it on your shoulders."
The brahmin became anxious.
Every person that he had met on his way saw a different animal on his shoulders. The first person saw a dog, the second one a dead calf and now a pig.
"What if I am carrying a shape-shifting monster or a goblin who could change forms?", thought the brahmin.
The brahmin's face turned pale at the mere thought of carrying a monster on his shoulder all this while. Scared for his life, he immediately got rid of the goat and ran home as fast as he could.
The rogue called out to his friends. They picked up the goat and left the place, all the while talking about the brahmin whom they fooled so easily.
Moral: All the bookish knowledge in the world is useless without common sense.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Add anonymous function return to array push How can I push the value return of anonymous function into the array. I have tried with this code but it not work. Where was I wrong
for (var i = 0; i < num; i++) {
        //get ramdom color
        // arr.push(randomColor());
        arr.push(function() {
            //pick a "red" from 0 - 255
            var r = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
            //green 0 - 255
            var g = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
            //blue 0 -255
            var b = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);

            return "rgb" + "(" + r + ", " + g + ", " + b + ")";
        });
    }

A: Here's how you could do it:
for (var i = 0; i < num; i++) {
        //get ramdom color
        // arr.push(randomColor());
        arr.push(function() {
            //pick a "red" from 0 - 255
            var r = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
            //green 0 - 255
            var g = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
            //blue 0 -255
            var b = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);

            return "rgb" + "(" + r + ", " + g + ", " + b + ")";
        }()); // Note the two brackets.
    }

Note the two brackets in second last line. They are meant to execute the function right away.
Be careful with such a pattern though. It is easy to confuse the reader with such code. You could rather use something such as:
function getRandomColor() {
    //pick a "red" from 0 - 255
    var r = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
    //green 0 - 255
    var g = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
    //blue 0 -255
    var b = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);

    return "rgb" + "(" + r + ", " + g + ", " + b + ")";
}

for (var i = 0; i < num; i++) {
    //get ramdom color
    // arr.push(randomColor());
    arr.push(getRandomColor());
}

A: No need to complicate this:
for (var i = 0; i < num; i++) {
    //get ramdom color
    //pick a "red" from 0 - 255
    var r = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
    //green 0 - 255
    var g = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
    //blue 0 -255
    var b = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
    var colour = "rgb" + "(" + r + ", " + g + ", " + b + ")";
    arr.push(colour)
}

A: You didn't call these functions inside the loop.

let arr = [];
let num = 3;

for (let i = 0; i < num; i++) {
  arr.push((() => {
    let r = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
    let g = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);
    let b = Math.floor(Math.random() * 256);

    return "rgb" + "(" + r + ", " + g + ", " + b + ")";
  })());
}

console.log(arr);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Anguler2 - Unhandled Promise rejection: No provider for ViewContainerRef! ( In dynamic template ) I am trying to implement dynamic component.
My requirement is, I have three class- LayoutComponent, MenuService and DynamicService.
LayoutComponent is used to call the MenuService's method to perform some basic operation, after performing operation, MenuService's method again call to DynamicService's method for creating dynamic component.
Here is my Plunker with the following error which it gives
Unhandled Promise rejection: No provider for ViewContainerRef! ;

A: ViewContainerRef can only be injected to components or directives, but not to services.
Components and directives get the ViewContainerRef of the element where they itself are attached. A service isn't attached to any view.
What you can do is to inject ViewContainerRef and a service to a component and then in the constructor pass the ViewContainerRef to the service. Every service or component that injects this service can access the ViewContainerRef it holds.

A: In my case, I was using ng2-toastr and it caused the problem.
Calling setRootViewContainerRef() of toastr will solve your problem.
constructor(dialogService: DialogService,
        private toastr: ToastsManager,
        private vcr: ViewContainerRef) {
        super(dialogService);
        this.toastr.setRootViewContainerRef(vcr);
    }


Rare, 20" Sport Portfolio ($10,150 option package new). See below photo list of upgrades included.
Don't mistake this car with other Jaguar XF's on the market. This is a special order only package with options and features not typically found on the XF. Any XF you find for sale with a chrome grille, is nothing like the car you see here. This is a truly stunning car.
3.0 L supercharged V6 / full time AWD - 8 speed auto with paddle shifters.
Accident free former California lease return. New tires, freshly serviced.
An absolutely stunning car, that's a must see to appreciate.
Magnum Motors | Soldotna and Wasilla has been visited 22,502,271 times.


text:
Outsourcers Must Plan Their Chindia Strategy
Industry analysts at Gartner say forward-thinking companies must develop what they call a "Chindia" strategy
If you're considering outsourcing, be sure you have your "Chindia" strategy in place.
Gartner analysts Jamie Popkin and Partha Iyengar examined the impact China and India are having on technology and innovation in their new book, "IT and The East," published by Harvard Business School Press.
"Today China and India are producing some of the world's best-trained computer science and electrical engineering graduates," said Gartner group vice-president Popkin, in a statement. "Far from being simply a source of cheap labor, both countries soon will be able to compete favorably for global business—as India's IT services firms have done—not on price, but on competence and capability."
If Gartner's projections are borne out, China will soon outstrip India. By 2008, Gartner forecasts, China is expected to start generating intellectual property at a rate comparable to that of developed countries. At the same time, Gartner projects, China will surpass the United States as the country whose population has the largest English language capacity. That's capacity, however; in terms of actual comprehension and proficiency, Gartner concedes, China remain a challenger.
Currently, at least three Indian firms—Infosys Technologies Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., and WiPro Ltd.—enjoy global prominence.
By 2010, Gartner believes that as many as eight Chinese IT brands will enjoy international recognition of some kind.
"Whether China emerges as a global leader in science and technology innovation relevant to the information and communications technology … industry is a pivotal issue for you as a business strategist or IT decision maker in Western corporations," Popkin said. "The outcome will influence which global suppliers can establish a strong presence in China for the long haul and which of China's strongest domestic companies can compete in international markets."
With China in ascendance, some offshore handicappers might be tempted to write India off. That would be a mistake, Gartner notes—although corporations do seem to have concerns about a number of India's political, economic, and cultural characteristics, especially with respect to its challenging logistics, bureaucracy, corruption, and leftist political orientation.
Interestingly, Gartner's statement didn't discuss the applicability of many of these same issues—with the addition of a comparatively blighted human rights record and a sporadically hard-line (and generally repressive) political regime—to China. In any event, Gartner projects, most Fortune 1,000 companies have agreed India is worth the effort.
"We also think India is worth the effort when the problems you are attacking and opportunities you are chasing match what India can provide," said Iyengar. "We estimate that the largest IT services providers will add between fifteen thousand and thirty thousand employees annually, on average, for the next several years in anticipation of continued rapid growth in global demand."
What of "Chindia?" According to Gartner, Indian and Chinese IT service firms have already entered into a number of joint partnerships; although such collaborations don't amount to much at present, they do foreshadow just how a "formidable" Chindia economy might develop.
"As China and India increasingly redefine the future of technology and innovation, knowing how to map a course into that future will be a core competency of the most accomplished travelers," said Iyengar.
Stephen Swoyer is a Nashville, TN-based freelance journalist who writes about technology.


text:
\section{Illustration: user's recommendations as a graph}

Recommendations on a website take the simple form of a set of
displayed items, for the user to interact with. We propose to go
beyond the collection of this flat item-set, by crawling from each
proposed item, recursively, up to a limited depth $h$ (for
obvious practical reasons). On the canonical example of crawling from an
item web-page (\emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace video), where $k$ other related items are
recommended, and where each item is only recommended once in total, we would
obtain a balanced tree of $n_{tree}^h(k) = \frac{k^{h+1}-1}{k-1}$ nodes.

\begin{figure*}[t!]
  \vspace{-1cm}
  \begin{minipage}{0.495\linewidth}
    \hspace{-1cm}\includegraphics[angle=-100,width=1.4\textwidth]{pics/gaga_nc.png}
  \end{minipage
  \begin{minipage}{0.495\linewidth}

    \includegraphics[width=0.9\textwidth]{pics/gaga_c.png}
  \end{minipage}%
        \vspace{-1.8cm}
  \caption{4-hops recommendation graphs from a Youtube video, new user (left) and returning user (right).}
  \label{fig:graphs}
\end{figure*}

We use the example of video recommendation in this paper. In the
mainstream Youtube platform, we start crawling recommended video
web-pages from a given video (a popular one from Lady Gaga), with $h=4$.
The crawling does not appear to be rate-limited, so we could collect
tens of thousands of web-pages in the order of a minute. We remark that
19 videos are recommended at each page ($k=19$). There are two clear
modes of video viewing in such a system; \textit{(i)} case $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace: a user is new to
the platform, or \textit{(ii)} $\mathcal{C}$\xspace: she is a returning user, and thus has a history on it (recognized by Youtube
through the passing of a cookie by our web-crawler). Drastic
differences occur when building the graphs for both scenario (the two
crawls are separated by only few seconds); $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace:
$n_{\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}}^4(19) = 14,121$ nodes and has $36,435$
edges. In case $\mathcal{C}$\xspace, $n_{\mathcal{C}}^4(19)=8,786$ nodes and has
$24,731$ edges. Both graphs are displayed on
Figure~\ref{fig:graphs}. First observation is that as
$n_{tree}^4(19)=137,561$, there is a high redundancy of
recommendations, within both $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace and $\mathcal{C}$\xspace. Very
interestingly, crawl $\mathcal{C}$\xspace contains around $38\%$ less nodes than $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace.
This has to be interpreted by the recommender system ``knowing'' the
user, and then trying at each video access to insist in the
recommendation of what it thinks is best suited for that user to enjoy.
In case $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace (new user), the
recommender presents videos related to the start one as well, but also
includes in its recommendations videos from different categories
(sport, news, \dots), in the probable hope to gain knowledge faster
about the user by varying its propositions.
Those phenomenons are confirmed by analyzing graph structures: a
search for main clustered components (through the modularity algorithm
with $p=5.0$) indicates $7$ components of size at least $1\%$ of the
graph size for graph from $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace, versus only $3$ for case
$\mathcal{C}$\xspace (\emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace more precise recommendations lead to fewer clusters of
interest for the returning user). Node colors corresponds to components
they belong to, on Figure~\ref{fig:graphs}. Another key difference is
the degree distribution, with $3$ nodes having more than $100$
in-neighbors for $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace, versus $10$ in the second case:
videos assumed relevant by the system are consistently recommended to the returning user.

An immediate conclusion drawn from the structural analysis of both $\bcancel{\mathcal{C}}$\xspace
and $\mathcal{C}$\xspace graphs, is that their topological comparison informs about the
degree of knowledge of the system about the observing user, even under a
limited exploration scope. Having illustrated the possibility for a
user to crawl a recommender system and analyze its output under the
form of a graph of recommendations, we now define two variants of a
general graph model for analyzing recommendations.

\section{Representation for graphs of recommendations}

The aim of recommendation is to propose suited items to users, in the
global set of available items, and based on the freshest information
available for those users. We focus for this model on item-item
recommendation~\cite{handbook}, \emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace other items that are presented to a user enjoying
or reviewing a given item.

Let's imagine the service provider taking a snapshot of the
recommender's system data-structures, so that all operations on those
data-structures are frozen and observable at arbitrary time $t$. From
such a snapshot, the recommendations for a given user-item tuple
$\langle u,i \rangle$, provided by an arbitrary recommendation
algorithm, are observable or computable under the form of \emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace a ranked list of
items.
\begin{definition}[Graph of recommendations]\label{gor} The directed graph $G_t=(V_t,E_t,
W_t)$ is extracted at time $t$, with $V_t$ the set of available items
(nodes), $E_t$ the set of edges (\emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace the recommendations) connecting
some nodes from $V_t$, and $W_t$ the weight of those edges (\emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace their
number of occurrences). Edges are thus $E_t \subseteq V_t \times V_t$,
and gathered from the system data-structures as the union of
recommendation lists for every user from user set $U_t$, at time $t$:
$E_t = \cup^{u \in U_t, i \in V_t} \langle u,i \rangle$.
\end{definition}

The recommender system's working internals, adapting to the inherent
data and user churn on the platform as the time passes by, are
triggering changes on the graph to be observed.

We now introduce the user-centric counterpart of Definition~\ref{gor}:

\begin{definition}[User-graph of recommendations]\label{ugor} The directed graph $G_t(u)=(V_t,E_t)$ is extracted at time $t$, using the same data-structures as in
  Definition~\ref{gor}, with the restriction to recommendations to a
  single given user $u$: $E_t = \cup^{u, i \in V_t} \langle u,i
  \rangle$.
\end{definition}

$G_t$ from Definition \ref{gor} is of interest for service providers,
for instance for estimating user flows among the proposed videos (\emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace
such as in the \textit{random surfer} model over web-pages linked as a
graph~\cite{surfer}), while $G_t(u)$ from Definition \ref{ugor} is of
interest for a user observation of her recommendation outputs (as
discussed in the paper sequel).\footnote{We note that these graph
  structures and their dynamics relate them to \textit{time-varying
    networks} and \textit{time-varying graphs}~\cite{Casteigts2011},
  while their introduced definitions do no fully suit the particular
  domain of recommendation (\emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace no presence of a \textit{latency}
  metric $\zeta$ over graph edges).  }

\paragraph{The dynamics of graphs of recommendations}

While snapshotting data-structures to build $G_t$ or $G_t(u)$ (\emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace
for a target user $u$) is expected to be relatively straightforward
for service operators with full control over their recommender system
(even in the context of distributed data-structures~\cite{snapshot}),
this is more complex for an external observer such as a user of a
platform proposing recommendations.

The observation by a user $u$ of her user-graph of recommendation may
\emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace be conducted through the platform API or by a crawling the service
interface (as exposed in Section 1). Because item/user churn and
recommendation computation on a large platform is expected to occur
quickly, and because a crawl is in essence a sequential
operation, such an observation may differ from a system snapshot
$G_{t}(u)$: \textit{(i)} clearly, the worst case for an observer is
when in between the access to two items, the system has updated its recommendations, thus possibly triggering another state for the user-graph of
recommendations.
\textit{(ii)} Yet, for practical implementation
reasons of the recommender service (most notably recommendation
latency), batch-oriented pre-computations are implemented, rather than
on-demand computation of recommendations~\cite{youtube2010}; this
means that recommendations are updated for instance few times a day,
which leaves the observer with a more stable system to observe. We
assume such a practical scenario for our application based on
observations, in the sequel of this paper.

\begin{definition}[Observed user-graph of recommendations]
$\hat G_{t}^h(u,i)$ denotes a user observation of $G_{t}(u)$, where
  $t$ is indicating the arbitrary time at which the first item $i$ is
  collected to sequentially build the user-graph of recommendations,
  and $h$ is the depth of exploration away from $i$.
\end{definition}
The aim of the observer is thus to collect an observation as close as
possible from a snapshot, by \emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace collecting a $\hat G_{t}^h(u,i)$ with
a small $h$ (thus referring to a local observation around the initial
item $i$, minimizing access to other items), and as quickly as
possible to mitigate recommendation re-computations. In practice, this
is the data we gather in Section 2 by using a web-crawler.

\section{An application for graphs of recommendations: detecting recommendation bias with topology}

A recently discussed topic is the influence of online medias, and
their capacity to shape opinion and user tastes based on item
recommendations. We propose a technical approach based on user-graphs
of recommendations for this question.

\paragraph{Recommender Model}

We consider recommenders that, given an item $i \in V_t$
long with some other type of information like the user profile)
return a score $s_R^i: V_t \mapsto [0,1]$ typically capturing items
similar to $i$~\cite{handbook}. The output of such a recommender
system $R$ is then exploited by a service that selects the subset of
best matching items that will get recommended when a user $u$ consults
$i$ (typically a ranking operation, as exposed in \cite{youtube}). Let $R_i(u) \subset V_t$ be
this set of recommended items to $u$ at a web-page: $\forall j\in R_i(u), j'\in
V_t\setminus R_i(u), s_R^i(u,j)\geq s_R^i(u,j')$. By selecting a
recommended item $j\in R_i(u)$, $u$ enjoys $j$, and in turn gets
recommended items similar to $j$, namely $R_j(u)$.

In this context, the user-graph of recommendations
  (Definition \ref{ugor}) for $u$ is $G_{t}(u)$, in which
  an edge $(i,j)\in E_t \Leftrightarrow j\in R_i(u)$, at time $t$.
In a system that biases recommendations,
the user is proposed certain items (for economical, or legal reasons
for instance): this translates in \textit{biased edges} toward items
from set $V_t$.

\paragraph{Bias in an observed user-graph of recommendations}

The service officially exploits the recommender $R$ (such as the one
advertised in ~\cite{youtube}). The service may add recommendation
bias in destination to user $u$ for orienting her navigation among
items; this translates into $G_t(u)$ containing biased edges. Let
$E_{t,B}$ this set of biased edges; we thus have $G_t(u)=(V_t,E_t \cup
E_{t,B})$, observed as $\hat G_{t}^h(u,i)$.

We now ask the following question: \textit{having access to $\hat
  G_{t}^h(u,i)$, can user $u$ decide whether a given edge of that
  graph is biased or not?}  Hereafter, we propose a model for
addressing this question, that is based on the small-world parallel
with graphs of recommendations.

\begin{figure*}[t!]
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[]{0.49\linewidth}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{expes/histModel.pdf}
\end{subfigure}%
\begin{subfigure}[]{.59\linewidth}
  \centering
  \hspace{-1.1cm}%
  \includegraphics[width=0.825\linewidth]{expes/histReal.pdf}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Distribution of graph path lengths for the experiments: model (left) and a Youtube crawl (right).}
\label{fig:hist}
\end{figure*}

\subsection{Towards algorithms for tagging long biased edges}
\label{sec:toy-model}

We propose to study potential bias in recommendation graphs, in
relation to the \textit{locality} or not of recommended items.
 For avoiding a formal - and possibly debatable - definition of bias,
 we instead state two of its most probable topological consequences on user-graph of recommendations $\hat G_{t}(u,i)$:\\
\textit{\textbf{Proposition 1} Biased edges impact graph structure}: if the service bothers to bias recommendations to a user, it is because it effectively impacts that user navigation among items. That is, users do not navigate
the same way in an unbiased graph than in a graph $G_t(u)$ containing
biased edges.  Therefore, the existence of biased edges must significantly change the
properties of the observed graph.\\
\textit{\textbf{Proposition 2} Recommenders leverage item
  proximity, and this appears in a graph observation}: most of recommenders exploit some underlying coherence
among the items. Collaborative filtering exploits correlations in
users' tastes: if users enjoying $a$ also usually enjoy $b$, $b$ will
be recommended from $a$ and vice versa~\cite{handbook}. This symmetry
translates into edge locality in $G_t(u)$, captured by \emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace
clustering (as appearing through clusters on Figure~\ref{fig:graphs}). Biased edges might not rely on such property, and
therefore are less likely to produce locality. We also can argue that
if bias actually results in the proposal of usual (\emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace local) items
for a user, she is not likely to consider those recommendations as biased.

In practice, machine learning algorithms associate to each item a
$d$-dimensional vector of features; a recommender then for instance rely on $k$
nearest neighbors ($k$NN) or cosine similarity on those vectors. Recommended items are
thus often close-by in the $d$-dimensional feature space, while we expect biased edges to
point to items that are relatively far in the feature space. Note that this
observation of the effect of biased edges on the topology may relate to services
providing \textit{serendipitous} recommendations~\cite{handbook} (for bringing
diversity to a user); this nevertheless arguably constitutes a form of bias
w.r.t. user habits.

\paragraph{A small-world perspective}

We now propose to identify bias using a parallel to the Watts-Strogatz
``small-world'' model~\cite{watts1998cds}. In that model, nodes have local
connectivity in a given space between them (capturing for instance a
geographical proximity), but also have so called long-range links (capturing for
instance a familial relationship, loosely related to a geographical
proximity). The consequences of these long edges are well known: they
drastically impact average path length. We argue that biased links added to the
recommender output have the same impact: provided
they are \textit{different enough} from the recommender edges, they will impact
the graph structure. To capture this degree of difference, we propose the
following model:

\begin{figure*}[t!]
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[]{0.49\linewidth}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{expes/rocModel.pdf}
\end{subfigure}%
\begin{subfigure}[]{.49\linewidth}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{expes/rocRealAvg.pdf}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Feasibility of tagging biased edges: ROC curves for an edge-betweenness tagging algorithm. Model (left) and Youtube crawls (right).}
\label{fig:ROC}
\end{figure*}

\paragraph{A biased recommendation model}

Our model considers two recommenders: one \enquote{official} $R$, and one used
to issue \enquote{biased} recommendations, $R'$. To model the fact that biased
recommendations may not be completely unrelated to normal
recommendations, we use a tuning parameter $i_{RR'}$ presented
hereafter.  Let $R$ be a $k$NN recommendation system producing $k_R$
items per query ($\forall i\in V_t, |R_i(u)|=k_R$), based on the $p_i
\in \mathbb{R}^d$ feature vector: $\forall i,j\in V_t^2,
s^i_R(u,j)=||p_ip_j||_2$. Let $E_t$ be the set of produced edges.

In addition to its $p_i$ vector, each item $i\in V_t$ is associated with another
$d'$ dimensional feature vector $b_i \in \mathbb{R}^{d'}$, representing \enquote{hidden}
features (profitability, political support, \dots) leveraged to bias
recommendation. Biased edge set $E_{t,R'}$ is produced by a $k$NN recommender with
$k_B$ output using $b_i$. The user-graph of recommendation is then $G_t(u)=(V_t,E_t \cup E_{t,R'})$ in which
nodes have an out-degree of $k=k_R + k_B$.

Features are generated uniformly at random: $\forall i\in V_t:
(p_i[c])_{1\leq c\leq d} \sim U(0,1)$ and $(b_i[c])_{1\leq c\leq d'}
\sim U(0,1)$.  However, to vary the amount of bias, the dependency
between $p_i$ and $b_i$ is as following: let $0\leq i_{RR'} \leq
min(d,d')$. We set $\forall i\in V_t,\forall 1\leq c\leq i_{RR'},
b_i[c]\gets p_i[c]$. That is, if $d=d'=i_{RR'}$, both recommenders $R$
and $R'$ will produce exactly the same results (and therefore
equivalent user-graphs of recommendations). On the other hand, if
$i_{RR'}=0$, $p_i$ and $b_i$ are independent, and so are the results
of $R$ and $R'$.

\subsection{Experiments}

We use three Youtube crawls, such as the one presented as $\mathcal{C}$\xspace (Section
1), from a returning user $u$, and from the same Lady Gaga video (with
around one month delay between each of them).  In the set of Youtube recommendations at each
page, some (around $20\%$) are tagged with the flag ``Recommended for
you'' (whereas other videos simply display their number of views). For the
experiment, we consider those recommendations as part of the biased
set we seek to tag (\emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace the ground truth).  We parameter the model for
comparable topology properties: $|V_t|=8753, k_R=17,k_{B}=2$. We set
$d=d'=5$.

First, we look at the small-world parallel with introduced bias under
\textit{\textbf{Proposition 1}} on Figure~\ref{fig:hist}, where we plot the
path length distribution of respectively one $\hat G_{t}^4(u,i)$ observation (said
biased) where $i$ is the Lady Gaga video, and one $\hat G_{t}^4(u,i)
\setminus E_{t,R'}$ (said unbiased), \emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace we respectively use the
YouTube full crawl, and then remove the ``Recommended for you'' edges
to obtain the unbiased graph.

We note a clear change in the graph properties when biased
edges are present: they shortcut many paths, and then cause a more
compact distribution of lengths, on both the model and the Youtube
crawl. This exact effect of long edges is a well studied feature of
small-world graphs~\cite{watts1998cds}.

Second, \textit{\textbf{Proposition 2}} is examined on Figure~\ref{fig:ROC}. For doing
so, we run a symmetric edge-betweenness centrality~\cite{Girvan11062002} algorithm on $\hat G_{t}^4(u,i)$ graphs,
for that metric is aimed at finding topologically important edges (typically linking clusters). We plot the
ROC curves, representing the probability of biased edges actually ending-up in
sorted top-result of the centrality metric (note that the the Youtube experiment, the plot is the average result over the three crawls).  For the model, independent set of edges ($iRR$=0) indicates the awaited ease to differentiate them, while a bias based on few
feature dependencies (\emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace $iRR'$=1 or 2) also clearly allows for accurate edge tagging. For
Youtube, the heuristic is also significantly above a random tagging baseline, close to the maximum possible (thMax) at the beginning of the experiment (\emph{i.e.}, }%\xspace top-ranked edges are indeed all biased). There is then a plateau regime (following top-ranked edges are mistagged), after which accurate tagging progresses smoothly.
For both
experiments, we conclude that tagging algorithms, to be proposed, have a clear room for providing
accurate results: if one seeks the $4491$ biased edges of the dataset, the edge-betweenness algorithm on
Youtube directly allows to identify close to $50\%$ of the biased set, at $x=12.5\%$.

\section{Related Work}

The usage of graph representations are common in the literature of
recommender systems, for analyzing their \textbf{input datasets}, and
adapt recommender algorithms accordingly. Notably, authors of
\cite{Mirza2003} propose multiple graph representations of input of a
recommender dataset (ratings, users, items): a bipartite graph of
users and items, a \enquote{social network} of users having consumed
the same items, and both the previous graphs with a so called
\textit{recommender graph}. Dataset is assumed to be the resulting of
users activity in the system following recommendations. They show the
approach useful for comparing recommender algorithms as a function of
the pairs of users they are connecting a posteriori.  Authors of
\cite{4072747} propose to build a graph of items, item categories and
users (with edges being the number of times a user consumed an item),
and perform random walks over that graph to find nodes similarities.
The temporality of user preferences (long-term and short-term) are
incorporated with approach in \cite{Xiang:2010:TRG:1835804.1835896} to build an
input (bipartite) graph that is then leveraged by a random walk-based
method to issue recommendations (similar to personalized Pagerank).
Our work differs in that we aim to analyze the \textbf{output} of
recommenders, possibly at runtime. Our models and proposed analysis
rely on a item-item graph representation.

There is a recent research focus on providing tools capable of
assessing the behavior of remote algorithms. XRay~\cite{chaintreau}
proposes a Bayesian approach for inferring which data of a user
profile, given as an input, is associated to a personalized ad to that
user.  Authors in \cite{cscw-nous} propose a graph theoretic approach
to gain understanding on which \textit{centrality} metrics are in use
by platforms that offer peer-ranking services. Work in
\cite{stealing} shows that machine learning models can be extracted by
a user from the cloud platform were they reside. Regarding recommender
systems, paper \cite{Sinha01beyondalgorithms:} exposes the users
perspective on what they wait from recommendation; interestingly,
transparency was already a concern in 2001. Yet, despite a recent rise
of concerns, they are not yet well identified tools to start addressing
the problem from an observer (user) standpoint.

\section{Conclusion}

There are two main conclusions to this study. First, graphs are an
interesting - yet vastly unexplored - tool for analyzing recommender
outputs. Graphs of recommendations may be leveraged by service
operators to compute general metrics about the consequence of their
recommendations to users, in the light of \emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace Pagerank applied to the
graph of web-pages.  User-graphs of recommendations, when observed by
users themselves may also carry information: they clearly display the
item locality a service provides users with; we illustrate this
through the clustering of recommendations to a returning user and
later make the parallel with the small-world phenomenon.

Second, we believe that the representation of user-graphs of
recommendations are of important interest for the growing domain of
algorithmic transparency: if a service aims at biasing some
recommendations, the effects might be witnessed on graph topologies.

We believe these conclusions bring both analytical and algorithmic
interest in the scope of the study of personalization transparency.
Future work includes generalization to other recommender types (\emph{e.g.}, }%\xspace
neural network based), and other applications of those graphs of recommendations.

\bibliographystyle{abbrv}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Sneak peek at 'Year of the Seal' sculpture; May 13th meeting
| How to help | West Seattle news | Wildlife
The image is courtesy of Seal Sitters' Robin Lindsey, who has an update on the sculpture in the works for their "Year of the Seal" project (first announced in January) – and your chance to come to a meeting about it on May 13th:
Seal Sitters' educational outreach project Year of the Seal, made possible by a Seattle Department of Neighborhoods grant, is making great strides. Following a public Call to Artists and Selection Panel review, prominent Northwest bronze artist Georgia Gerber was chosen to create a full-scale sculpture of a harbor seal mom and pup. Georgia is shown here at work on the centerpiece of the project, which is designed to raise awareness about our fragile marine ecosystem.
Harbor seals, year-round residents of Puget Sound, are considered by biologists to be sentinels for the health of our waters. If our water is polluted, so is our marine life, including the fish we eat. The harbor seals of South Puget Sound (including the seal pups of West Seattle) and our resident orcas are highly contaminated with toxins. Litter, storm runoff (pesticides, fertilizers, auto oil, etc), flame retardants and derelict fishing gear in our waters pose grave dangers to all marine life.
Seal Sitters' volunteers are doing outreach to the public, educating about the impact that humans have on our waterways and the conscious decisions we can all make that have a positive impact. We are talking to school kids about Puget Sound marine life and empowering them with ways they can help.The sculpture, which will reside near the Alki Bathhouse, will serve to remind us not only to Share the Shore with wildlife, but to keep our waterways clean and safe for all life that depends on its health.
Please attend a community meeting on Monday, May 13th, from 7-8 pm (Alki Bathhouse). We will present the project and welcome input from the public at that time. Read more about Year of the Seal here on Seal Sitters' website. Seal Sitters needs to fundraise additional monies for the installation phase of the project. If you would like to make a donation, please click here.
8 Replies to "Sneak peek at 'Year of the Seal' sculpture; May 13th meeting"
Rainier May 2, 2013 (11:25 am)
Very nice! Can't wait to see it installed.
Mike May 2, 2013 (11:39 am)
That's some nice sculpting talent!
sc May 2, 2013 (2:03 pm)
with metal theft happening hope these are bolted down really good. Remember they tried to take the metal bears at Brown Bear Car Wash?
Robin May 2, 2013 (3:06 pm)
Seal Sitters is thrilled that Georgia is creating this stunning sculpture. Among her more high visibility works in the Seattle area are Rachel the Market Pig and the Lowland Gorilla family at Woodland Park Zoo. She is a world-class artist – please make sure to visit her website. On Blubberblog, we will follow the progress of the artwork, including the bronze casting in her Whidbey Island foundry. As part of our outreach project to school children, there will be an art and essay contest. Stay tuned for details on that!
Silly Goose May 2, 2013 (9:06 pm)
This is simply a joy to look at! What a lucky community West Seattle is to be able to display a work of art like this!! Love it Thank you!
Katy Walum May 2, 2013 (9:34 pm)
Love Georgia Gerber! Can't wait to check out this latest piece right here close to home.
mb May 6, 2013 (11:01 pm)
Where will these cuties be displayed?
David Hutchinson May 10, 2013 (1:17 pm)
Installation site is in the park, near 59th Ave SW & Alki Ave SW, at the east end of the Alki promenade. Where the sandy beach begins.
WestOfSeattle on WEST SEATTLE LIGHT RAIL: Sound Transit publishes Draft Environmental Impact Statement earlier than expected
Jort on WEST SEATTLE LIGHT RAIL: Sound Transit publishes Draft Environmental Impact Statement earlier than expected
Leo on WEST SEATTLE LIGHT RAIL: Sound Transit publishes Draft Environmental Impact Statement earlier than expected


text:
Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945
Ann-Marie Einhaus
For the first four and a half years of its life, from 1940 to 1945, Cyril Connolly's cosmopolitan, British-based magazine Horizon operated under wartime conditions. This not only entailed dealing with shortages of paper and the absence of many potential domestic contributors on active service, but also difficulties obtaining new material from abroad and engaging in exchange with foreign periodicals. Yet during its wartime existence, Horizon nevertheless engaged regularly with foreign and especially European literature and culture. Moreover, its pages hosted varied debates on what European culture might mean and what the place of Britain and of the writer and intellectual was within a wider European cultural framework. This article scrutinises the European dimension of Horizon and approaches it both within the context of wartime conditions, and in relation to the particular brand of elite cosmopolitanism espoused by Connolly and many of his contributors.
Open Library of Humanities
https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.580
10.16995/olh.580Licence: CC BY
Einhaus_Horizon and Europe_Final accepted version for PUREAccepted author manuscript, 305 KB
580-4674-1-PBFinal published version, 1.54 MBLicence: CC BY
Dive into the research topics of 'Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
European Culture Arts & Humanities 100%
magazine Social Sciences 86%
Wartime Arts & Humanities 79%
cosmopolitanism Social Sciences 52%
intellectual Social Sciences 46%
shortage Social Sciences 40%
writer Social Sciences 37%
European Literatures Arts & Humanities 37%
Einhaus, A-M. (2020). Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945. Open Library of Humanities, 6(2), 23-56. https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.580
Einhaus, Ann-Marie. / Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945. In: Open Library of Humanities. 2020 ; Vol. 6, No. 2. pp. 23-56.
@article{fe8600aab1f54824bfa4bad0c955e810,
title = "Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945",
abstract = "For the first four and a half years of its life, from 1940 to 1945, Cyril Connolly{\textquoteright}s cosmopolitan, British-based magazine Horizon operated under wartime conditions. This not only entailed dealing with shortages of paper and the absence of many potential domestic contributors on active service, but also difficulties obtaining new material from abroad and engaging in exchange with foreign periodicals. Yet during its wartime existence, Horizon nevertheless engaged regularly with foreign and especially European literature and culture. Moreover, its pages hosted varied debates on what European culture might mean and what the place of Britain and of the writer and intellectual was within a wider European cultural framework. This article scrutinises the European dimension of Horizon and approaches it both within the context of wartime conditions, and in relation to the particular brand of elite cosmopolitanism espoused by Connolly and many of his contributors.",
keywords = "Literary magazines, Second World War, editing, magazine culture, cosmopolitanism, internationalism",
author = "Ann-Marie Einhaus",
doi = "10.16995/olh.580",
journal = "Open Library of Humanities",
publisher = "Open Library of Humanities",
Einhaus, A-M 2020, 'Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945', Open Library of Humanities, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 23-56. https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.580
Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945. / Einhaus, Ann-Marie.
In: Open Library of Humanities, Vol. 6, No. 2, 20.10.2020, p. 23-56.
T1 - Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945
AU - Einhaus, Ann-Marie
N2 - For the first four and a half years of its life, from 1940 to 1945, Cyril Connolly's cosmopolitan, British-based magazine Horizon operated under wartime conditions. This not only entailed dealing with shortages of paper and the absence of many potential domestic contributors on active service, but also difficulties obtaining new material from abroad and engaging in exchange with foreign periodicals. Yet during its wartime existence, Horizon nevertheless engaged regularly with foreign and especially European literature and culture. Moreover, its pages hosted varied debates on what European culture might mean and what the place of Britain and of the writer and intellectual was within a wider European cultural framework. This article scrutinises the European dimension of Horizon and approaches it both within the context of wartime conditions, and in relation to the particular brand of elite cosmopolitanism espoused by Connolly and many of his contributors.
AB - For the first four and a half years of its life, from 1940 to 1945, Cyril Connolly's cosmopolitan, British-based magazine Horizon operated under wartime conditions. This not only entailed dealing with shortages of paper and the absence of many potential domestic contributors on active service, but also difficulties obtaining new material from abroad and engaging in exchange with foreign periodicals. Yet during its wartime existence, Horizon nevertheless engaged regularly with foreign and especially European literature and culture. Moreover, its pages hosted varied debates on what European culture might mean and what the place of Britain and of the writer and intellectual was within a wider European cultural framework. This article scrutinises the European dimension of Horizon and approaches it both within the context of wartime conditions, and in relation to the particular brand of elite cosmopolitanism espoused by Connolly and many of his contributors.
KW - Literary magazines
KW - Second World War
KW - editing
KW - magazine culture
KW - cosmopolitanism
KW - internationalism
U2 - 10.16995/olh.580
DO - 10.16995/olh.580
JO - Open Library of Humanities
JF - Open Library of Humanities
Einhaus A-M. Horizon Magazine and European Culture, 1940–1945. Open Library of Humanities. 2020 Oct 20;6(2):23-56. https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.580


A great way to showcase your love of the American dream is by having our canvas printing America flag wall art mounted on your wall in the office, board room, bedroom or dining room. Also, this wall art can serve as a special gift to your boss, friends or colleagues on landmark events. No matter what you want to do with this piece, the main idea is about style, design and beauty. - Comes in 4 pieces per set - Measures 13" X 9"


text:
Q: Latex command line compiler can't find image files, but Gummi can I am trying to compile a latex document in Linux; however, the images are not being found from the command line, despite them being found in Gummi. I am running latex [document_name] from the Linux command line and I am using the following tex code for the figures:
\begin{figure}[tb]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.47\textwidth]{waveplot_norm_ann}
\end{figure}

The image is a png file in the same directory as the latex source file. The error I get when trying to compile is as follows:
! LaTeX Error: File `waveplot_norm_ann' not found.

Does anyone know why Gummi can find it, but the command line compiler can't?


text:
Derek Descoteau was killed in Chemainus in 2016. (file photo)
Victim's girlfriend testifies on first day of 2016 Chemainus murder trial
"I was soaked in blood from the neck down": witness
Warren Goulding
The girlfriend of Derek Descoteau, who was stabbed to death at a Chemainus residence in 2016, took the stand in day one of the second-degree murder and attempted murder trial for Colin John.
Janelle Guyatt, 18, was on the stand for almost four hours Monday, recalling the events leading up to the death of 20-year-old Descoteau and the attack on her that left her with serious injuries.
A Cowichan Valley Secondary School student at the time of the attack, Guyatt described how she and her boyfriend of a couple months had returned to his basement suite on Caswell Street to have lunch and watch a movie.
"I heard the dog growl and there was somebody standing behind the couch," Guyatt said, under questioning by Crown prosecutor Ken Paziuk.
"He was holding a knife in his hand, above his shoulder. I felt a bad pain at the bottom of my neck.
"Then this shirtless man jumped over the couch and started attacking both of us. Derek was trying to get me out of the way, saying 'don't hurt her' and he attacked Derek."
Guyatt, who was stabbed five times and spent more than two weeks in hospital, enduring two surgeries and faces another procedure in the new year, said it was a chaotic scene in the darkly it room. She made her way outside and screamed for help.
"I'd lost a lot of blood and my arm was useless. I tripped going up the stairs and stumbled and ran to the road. I was yelling for help the whole time.
"There was a lady getting groceries out of the back of her car, she didn't move. I was soaked in blood from the neck down," she explained in a soft voice in the Duncan courtroom that contained about 20 members of her family and Descoteau's family.
"A couple minutes later someone else came down from Caswell and another lady came and she was on the phone. I remember hearing Derek yelling for help."
She told the court how Derek emerged from the house, covered in blood, holding his arm.
"Help, I'm gonna die," she heard him say.
Moments later, the shirtless man she says attacked them in the basement, came out of the house and made his way to where Derek was being attended to in the front yard.
Under cross examination from John's lawyer, Scott Sheets, Guyatt said John, who she had pointed to in the prisoner's box as the man who had attacked the couple, knelt down next to Descoteau.
Covered in blood, John was not aggressive when he was near the fatally injured Descoteau, Guyatt said.
Descoteau died en route to hospital, Guyatt was rushed to Cowichan District Hospital and John was also hospitalized for unspecified injuries.
The Supreme Court trial continues Tuesday and is expected to last three weeks. The Crown expects to call more than a dozen witnesses.
Jamie Koe, other curlers kicked out of bonspiel for being too drunk
Mistrial declared in Dennis Oland's retrial in father's murder


To configure your hybrid or network recorder for remote access and port forwarding, it is highly recommended that the recorder be configured with a static IP address. However it is possible have the recorder connect via DHCP, and still be able to access it remotely.
From the live screen click EXIT, choose "Restart in Windows Mode," and click Ok.
If you have not already done so, log in using an administrator level account to exit the software.
Click on the Start button in the lower left corner of the screen, then click Settings and Control Panel.
Double Click to open Network Connections.
Select the radio button for Use the following IP address.
Fill in the designated IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway.
If you are prompted to reboot the system, click OK.
Click the Windows Orb in the lower left corner of the screen and click on Control Panel.
Click on Local Area Connection and click on Properties.
Start the recorder server software.
Enter login information using an administrator level account.
Verify that Disable Remote Control is not checked.
Note that changes to the default ports can also be made here.
Click Apply, then click Exit Setup.
Note that the directions provided next for configuring a router are generic. If you are not familiar with this process, you should consult the router manual. Other references that might be useful are the manufacturer's website, the manufacturer's support line; or a site like PortForward.com that has how-to-directions for most router models.
Connect to the router through its interface (typically a web interface).
Login to the router with an administrative ID.
Access the Port Forwarding section in the router (some may list this as Port Triggering, Pinhole, Firewall Forwarding, or other terms).
Can be customized; needs to maintain a consecutive numbering range.
Cannot be directly customized; but will always be +14 and +15 from the Center Port.
If you have multiple recorders configured inside a single network and want to be able to access them all from an outside location, the recorders will need to be configured with unique ports.
Recorder #1 is configured to use ports 2100-2106 for Remote Client or Radius, and ports 8001, 3001, 3100 for iDVR.
Recorder #2 could be configured to use ports 2200-2206 for Remote Client or Radius, and ports 8002, 3002, 3200 for iDVR.
Recorder could be configured to use ports 2300-2306 for Remote Client or Radius, and ports 8003, 3003, 3300 for iDVR.
Update port fields to the desired configuration.
Determine the public IP address that your recorder will be accessed with.
From the recorder or another computer on the same network you can go to WhatIsMyIP.com or IPChicken.com to determine your public IP address.
If your public IP address is not a static address, it is highly recommended that you configure DDNS.
Use your public IP address or DDNS address to connect to your DVR from another location.
For iDVR type your public IP or DDNS address into the address bar of Internet Exporter and press enter.
If a port other than the default of 80 was configured it must be enter also (format: "IPAddress:Port" example: 99.99.99.99:8002).
For Remote Client create a new recorder entry and type your public IP or DDNS address into the IP address field.
For RADIUS, create a new recorder entry and type your public IP or DDNS address into the IP/URL field.


Decorate your home with fabric using these four easy ideas.
Glue or sew fabric squares together along three sides to create a pouch. For a drawstring opening, add glue to the top fabric edge and fold it down to make a pocket; thread a shoestring or cording through the pocket. Fill with dried lavender.
Give an old dresser a new attitude. Cut fabric to the same size as the drawer fronts. Adhere material to furniture using spray adhesive or a decoupage medium such as Mod Podge.
We softened up this chair with a simple slipcover skirt. It's an easy job for a seamstress or upholstery shop.
Glue or stitch fabric to a plain throw pillow. Attach ribbon in a crisscross pattern on top with fabric glue.


This sunscreen was specially created for fair skin and areas of the body that are frequently exposed to sunlight. The mineral filters protect the skin from UVA and UVB rays while sea buckthorn and sesame oils have nourishing and hydrating effects.
Apply a generous amount to the skin before sun exposure.
Repeat application several times a day - in particular when swimming or partaking in outdoor activities.
Do not expose your skin to direct sunlight and avoid the midday sun.
Always ensure that you are using SPF that best suits your skin type.
Babies and children must be protected from direct sunlight at all times. It is advised to wear headgear, protective clothing and sunglasses when going out into direct sunlight.


text:
Subscribe and buy!
Metaphorosis Magazine
Beautifully made speculative fiction
A Final Resting Place – Matt Hornsby
Home Story Science fiction A Final Resting Place – Matt Hornsby
It came from Vaya Pseftaki
More about Erik Goldsmith
Science fiction / Story 20 September 2019	 28 July 2020
The lander sloped down from orbit towards the jagged peninsula that leaked westwards from Earth's great landmass. Salzmann's eyes tracked across the surface as they broke the cloud cover. It stretched brown-green to the limits of his vision, shorn of angles and straight lines.
He heard Nguyen grumble under her breath as she wrestled with the command console, urging the craft towards a suitable landing site. When he had offered to co-pilot, she declined, and told him that if he wanted to help, he could kindly get out of her line of vision and shut the hell up.
So, he watched the foliage swirl beneath him from the window as the ship buzzed above the thick carpet of trees like some parasitic wasp hunting for a bare patch of flesh in which to lay its eggs. Eventually, Salzmann saw the ground begin to clear, the forest opening into a broad plain.
His bones rattled as Nguyen brought the craft into contact with the Earth. For the first time in years, after so long dropping through the void, the solid mass of a planet now held up his feet and everything beneath them. Sunlight hit the window, flooding his eyes.
Nguyen killed the engines and the systems stuttered into silence.
They stood, listening and looking at the readouts covering the interior of the command cabin. The lander had been specifically designed to explore new worlds, had been rigged with paraphernalia to detect weird alien life. It was ironic, Salzmann thought, that the tools should get their first real usage on Earth.
But for the soft, insistent signature of the Amritsar far above them in unmanned orbit, there was nothing. No radio activity, no electromagnetic signature, no communication on any bandwidth nor any residue of technology. The world was bursting with organic matter, but people appeared to have gone.
"What now?" said Salzmann.
"Narrow down the possibilities." said Nguyen, eyes still fixed on the console, as if waiting for some lagged signal to jerk into life.
"There's no one here," said Salzmann. "The way down was empty. No orbital stations, no elevators, no cities, no roads. No people."
Nguyen started to talk, but she trailed off, something catching in her throat as she spoke, and she put her hands to her face. Salzmann waited for her to start again. He felt a physical discomfort he had not felt since being revived on Napier.
"You're upset, Captain," he said.
She snorted.
"Shut the hell up. Shut your damn mouth."
He felt his skin bristle. She stared at him, sclera dappled red.
"Yes, I'm upset, Salzmann. Aren't you?"
Salzmann shrugged. "We knew what we were signing up for."
"I signed up for a reason," she said, shaking her head. "Maybe you didn't. Maybe this was just a job for you. I could believe that. But I wanted to make a difference. I thought we could save something."
She had been one of the programme's first recruits, he knew. An early volunteer for a one-way ticket to Napier and a role in building humanity's new home in the stars. Salzmann had come later, when they had found enough purposeful leaders and started selecting volunteers with 'atypical' personality characteristics. Even when the rest of the crew was still alive, before Napier, no one could match Nguyen's drive. She was staring at him. He angled his eyes to the floor.
"Jesus Christ," she said. "If it's just going to be the two of us, we're going to need to find a way to get along."
He raised his eyes. "Yes, Captain," he said.
"So, technician; How do we narrow down the possibilities?"
"We should get out, start a survey. Instruments can only tell us so much."
She grunted. "What about environmental diagnostics? We don't know what's out there."
It didn't seem like anything was wrong with the environment. The opposite, in fact.
"We can run a test or two," he said, "if that will make you happy."
Nguyen's face hardened again. "It won't make me happy, technician. It will contribute to the damn mission." He returned his eyes to his boots. Nguyen groaned. "It's time to get with the programme, Salzmann. The situation is serious. I'm starting to think you'd be more use to the mission back in the pod".
He tried to return her stare. His last time undergoing stasis should have been on Napier. Waking up from that had been hard enough. He could still vaguely recall the sick, sinking feeling as he went back under again for the return journey to Earth, a journey that was never supposed to happen. Nguyen had brought him out again a week ago, as the Amritsar was passing Mars. He could still taste the cryptoprotectant, cold and chemical, on his tongue.
"I'm going to run remote tests," she said. "The full suite. You run diagnostics. And make sure the crew got down in one piece."
Salzmann ran his hands gently over the doctor's eyes, cold and crystalline like fat marbles. They were open. He wondered if the man had woken up, just for a moment, before the devitrification went wrong. Or maybe the vitrification itself had malfunctioned, and after making the long journey from Earth and those few dark months of wakefulness on Napier, putting the processes in place to make the planet liveable, he'd only had minutes in the planetary stasis crypt before his body shut down. The doctor hadn't made much of an impression on Salzmann when he'd been alive. He thought the man's name had been Silva, but then it might have been Singh, or Simpson.
The doctor's eye moved.
Salzmann jerked his hand away.
No; it was the light – the long-absent light of Earth – creeping in through the hold door and playing against the glassy eyeballs. The doctor was dead. Nguyen had wanted to close his eyes, out of some sense of martial honour, but it was impossible without smashing the man's whole face into shards, and that would hardly be an improvement. It had been Nguyen who had insisted that they return the other forty-eight colonists to Earth for 'proper burial'. Salzmann would have been happy leaving them on Napier, in the ruins of humanity's miserable, failed, efforts there. But Nguyen was still the captain, and Salzmann was still the assistant technician.
He returned to the viewing deck. The deep green of the grass and trees outside seemed unreal after years of nothing but the grey of the ship, the blackness of space, and the sick reddish-brown of Napier. He could see birds flitting between branches, insects hovering over flowers in the field. It looked like summer – not the oven-like season of his youth on Earth that roasted the fields brown, but the bustling green summer of history and books.
Nguyen was up in the command web. He could see things from her point of view. She made no effort to hide her resentment of him for being the only other colonist to survive. Some part of him resented it too, or at least found it offensively unlikely. He pictured himself cold and glassy in the hold of the lander, his life-systems suspended interminably after a century of stasis. It seemed much more probable than him being here, now.
He could parse from the readouts that she had ordered to the Amritsar to scan for approaches from outside Earth's orbit. That was a long shot. The ship was the first of its kind, and given the controversy of the Napier programme, had seemed likely to be the last. But they had been gone a long time. Salzmann imagined a shoal of ships swimming back through space towards their ancestral home, like the wild salmon that had once slunk in the cold corners of the Earth, before his birth. Perhaps they would come. Or perhaps the Amritsar would be like the last of those fish to go extinct, waiting in silent solitude at the head of the stream for the return of companions that never came.
This new Earth was a different place. Life wasn't hiding here, chased into corners and holes. From the windows of the lander he could see it: grass, trees, flowers, birds, bugs clustering on the windows. The environmental diagnostics had concluded without detecting a hazard. It was time to deepen the survey. Salzmann quietly opened the lander doors and stepped out.
The forest presented Salzmann with an organic mass that offered no admission; a barrier of rigid branches, hardwoods and softwoods packed thickly above ferns, tangled shrubs and the rotting carcasses of fallen trunks. He walked along its boundary. Beyond the tree-wall there was a stillness. At the edge of perception, he could hear the slow drip of water on leaves and the twitching of invertebrate life in the leaf-litter.
The sky above was pale, inscrutable as to its intentions.
He closed his eyes, listening again. A new sound reached him. Even faint as it was, it was unmistakeable; the movement of water. He turned his head to pin down its origin. It seemed to bounce between his ears and the riot of textures at the wood's edge. A water source would be useful.
Branches and leaves dampened the sunlight as he walked. His pupils dilated, and his breath quickened. The undergrowth cracked and groaned beneath his feet. He came to a rocky channel that led downhill; a dried-up stream-bed. He followed it, glancing from side to side in response to the sounds of the forest. Plant matter rustled. Light and darkness shifted in the distance.
He had known a different Earth. Endless fields of biofuel crops, solar arrays, and turbines, rolling across continents slashed by fat grey roads. The concrete termite mounds of hab-blocks, the stasis bunkers filled with corpses awaiting some distant reincarnation. He was not sure that he had ever really smelled the wet, chlorophyll-charged air of a forest like this. Now, as it surrounded and pressed down on him, it seemed more familiar than his memories of the blistered cities he had lived in. Like something he had always carried inside him.
It was hard to say when the forest became the river. The trees gave way to short thickets of scrub, which then became grass. Beneath Salzmann's feet the ground began to soften and yield. The grass thinned as the soil grew softer, and then it became low dunes, peppered with flecks of tangled weeds. Little white birds, previously invisible against the sunlit sand, fluttered up into the sky as his boots crunched towards them. He kept walking until he reached the point where the dunes became an archipelago of tiny islands, before they subsided entirely into the broad body of water.
He found a raised bank and sat down. The water lapped at the river's rough edges, and the birds wheeled overhead, squawking and cawing. Sitting still, he became attentive to the constant, low buzz of insects. As his eyes grew accustomed to the sun, he began to see them. Bees crawling in and out of the purple sand-flowers. Flies, little more than black specks, tracing senseless arcs in the air; beneath him and all around him, ants proceeding in multitudes across the dunes.
Salzmann had been a child when Napier was discovered. He remembered the excitement clearly, marked off against the dull loneliness and awkwardness that had characterised his upbringing. It was probably what had made him want to be a scientist: news reports visualising jungles roaming with fantastical alien fauna, the spectrographic reports showing hard evidence of organic life in a distant solar system, people called 'astrobiologists' speaking on television. This was a turning point in humanity's understanding of the universe; mankind was not alone. An infinite number of worlds bearing an infinite number of lifeforms, scattered across the galaxy, waiting to be discovered. Humans' ambition as a species would not have to end with their own, dying planet.
At first, Salzmann had wanted to be an astrophysicist, hunting the skies for new worlds to settle. Then enthusiasm waned with the years; the more people strained their eyes at the sky, the less life seemed apparent. Our baseline shifted back. Napier was the exception, not the new rule. It hung there, across the void, A container for all hopes, its atmosphere unsullied with the signature of the civilization that clung heavily and insistently to the Earth.
Trillions of dollars and vast quantities of human capital had gone into the terraforming programme. Plans for Mars, long deemed impractical, were finally retired. The great scientific endeavour of a generation became the settling of human life on a world orbiting a different star. Salzmann's own training in the new interdisciplinary science of terraforming absorbed his entire life. His personality, the thing that had always held him back, finally worked to his advantage. Then, on Napier, after decades of travel in stasis, they woke up to a toxic rock that alternated between burning and freezing, home to no more life than a thin coating of microbial mats and soupy ponds, respiring limply.
They had been trained to deal with that eventuality; that was what the terraforming programme was for. They were ready to go into stasis again, this time for longer, as the programme executed, seeding Napier's systems with the ingredients of a world fit for large, naked mammals. Salzmann still remembered Nguyen shaking everyone's hand before they went back into their vitrification chambers. He and she had woken up to another nightmare. Everyone else had not.
All along, they could have had this. Underneath their feet, the Earth had been waiting to be reborn. Life – real life, wild and uninhibited – had been hiding in the forgotten places, ready to burst forth and gorge itself on the sun and soil.
So much had been wasted. But now Salzmann was here, and he let the warm wind fill his lungs and the low cries of flying things fill his ears. He felt an energy he had not felt before, his sinews and muscles adapting, reverting to the environment in which his DNA was forged. Everything was gone now, except this. No time, no money, no Assistant Technician Salzmann. He let it all go and let himself be.
The impossibility of it pulled him back. There should have been something – some ruined cities, blasted battlefields, or at least the outlines of roads and fields running across the landscape. Not like this, as if humans had never been here at all. They hadn't been gone that long. He was sure they hadn't.
He shifted on the sand and small stones. It wasn't right that he was here, he knew. It wasn't his place. He should have been glassy and lifeless, entombed with the others. Nothing made him special enough to be here.
Something moved on the other side of the river; something large.
Salzmann stood. He held himself perfectly still, his body tense as taut wire. On the other bank, he saw two shapes emerge from the trees and walk down towards the water. The two creatures were bulky, four-legged, shaggy things. They reached the water and lowered their horned heads to drink; more were joining them now, emerging from the trees. Their soft lowing rode across the river on the wind. He scanned the far treeline, anticipating with a twisted gut the emergence of some cowherd or wrangler.
No-one came. Some of the beasts, their drinking finished, began to wander back towards the forest. They were wild creatures, moving under their own command. Salzmann relaxed for a moment. Then, as the herd hastened back towards the trees, another thought came. Where there were herbivores, there would be carnivores. Instinctively, he threw his head back over his shoulder.
There was nothing there but the gently waving grass and the trees beyond. The sun had gone down, and the humming of insects had quietened. A thrill of fear ran up Salzmann's spine. He gripped his multitool tightly and began to retrace his steps to the lander.
Nguyen was outside, dressed in hazard gear. She held a torch in her right hand, mobbed by a cloud of moths. Something else was in her left hand; Salzmann couldn't make it out in the darkness.
"Where the hell did you go?" she said between her teeth.
"I was surveying."
"You don't just go for a stroll, Salzmann. This is still an Expeditionary Force operation, and I am still in command. Do you understand me?"
She was shaking. He couldn't tell if it was anger, or fear, or something else.
"It's incredible, isn't it?" said Salzmann.
"What did you find?" she asked, suddenly snapping her gaze level.
"Fresh water. And, just…this. So much life."
"Signs of technology?" Her eyebrows arched. He shook his head. He didn't expect her to understand.
"No, nothing. Everything is gone."
She banged a fist against the lander's hull. The noise brought a cloud of small birds fluttering up out of the grass.
"Don't you get it?" Nguyen said. "We could be all that's left."
She looked away from him and leant against the ship, as if she were now making sense of the implications of that fact. The light shifted, and Salzmann realised what she was holding in her other hand. It was her sidearm, a compact titanium pistol. He wondered if he had been in line for a battlefield execution, punishment for the crime of risking his own life.
Nguyen had not left Earth in the same way he had. He had gone to Napier to leave people behind. She had gone there to save them. She had expected to build something new. He decided he should say something.
"Captain," he said, "Just because you were responsible for the deaths of the rest of the crew, I don't think you should worry so much about me. You shouldn't blame yourself that they died, even if you were the responsible person."
Nguyen swivelled around and sunk a heavy blow into his gut with her knee. His breath sucked out and he doubled over into the dewy grass. He reached a hand out to support himself with Nguyen's leg, but she stepped away and let him fall.
"Fuck you, Salzmann," she said. "I didn't fail. You were meant to turn Napier into somewhere we could live. I did my job. I'm still doing it."
Even if Salzmann had wanted to say anything, he had no breath to say it with.
"I'm not giving up," she said. "We're taking this thing back up in the air. We're going to carry on looking. Everything can't just have disappeared."
She stepped back into the lander. The trees and grasses thrummed with the rattling of insect membranes. Above him, the stars wheeled against the blackness.
They had been conducting their aerial survey for forty-eight hours. Nguyen had reverted to her clipped captain's manner, dispensing orders to Salzmann with a studied disinterest as if they were back in the training facility. Salzmann complied in silence. He could still feel her eyes on him, watching as he worked. She seemed to be waiting for him to break the deadlock. Perhaps she wanted an apology. For surviving, for not being someone else. She would be waiting a long time if she did. He was very comfortable keeping his mouth closed.
The survey itself had taught them precisely nothing. Multiple-vector imaging, subsurface scans and all other observations revealed only overgrown wilderness. They gathered resources; organic material to feed into the lander's bioreactor and give the solar cells a rest. The corridors had begun to fill with logs and foliage.
"There is something else we could use as fuel first," he suggested, tilting his head towards the cargo hold.
Nguyen ignored the comment at first, as he expected.
"We're suspending the operation," she said a few minutes later. "The least we can do is give them a final resting place."
The hill she had selected for the crew's barrow was topped with a plateau of copper-tinged soil. As they hacked at it with their entrenching tools, it crumbled into fat, stoneless chunks. Even so, Salzmann felt his body scream at the labour. The stasis-entombment had rendered him brittle, as if the muscles and tendons inside him had fused into a single lump. Nguyen was the same, he could tell, her teeth clenching and the sweat dripping from her back as she worked.
The grass around them writhed with arthropod life, a feast for the chattering squadrons of small birds that danced among the blades. In the distance, herds of herbivores wandered and grazed across the grass. Salzmann felt the red earth cling coldly to his hands, and the heat of the sun on his face. He strained his eyes towards the horizon; at every angle it rolled into mystery, a chaos of growth and twisting earth. Everywhere there was movement in the stillness.
After digging two graves, they took a break. Nguyen went silently back into the lander. Salzmann sat for a few minutes, then began to dig again. He shifted a metre of earth, then stopped. There was something in the soil. It was angular, hard, and inorganic. He stared at it for a moment. His back groaned as he knelt. The object was cold and smooth. Delicately, he shifted more earth away with the tip of his tool. The thing was small; a disc that fit comfortably within the palm of his hand. One surface was irregular with engravings.
The object was undoubtedly metallic. He couldn't be sure of the alloy; some melding of iron, copper, and zinc, he supposed. Around its perimeter ran a string of symbols, in a carefully consistent, blocky lettering. At its centre was a figure, long and bipedal. The broad contours of its face gave it a likeness to a human being.
Nguyen re-emerged from the lander, and he slipped the disc into his pocket. His tongue quivered with intention, but his mouth kept shut. He was sure that Nguyen knew more than she was telling him. Why shouldn't he have a secret of his own?
When Salzmann practised field biology as a student, he had worked with soils that were practically dead, whole clumps falling through his fingers inert and lifeless. Here, the Earth was animated. Every blow into the loamy brown ground brought annelids and isopods to the surface. Their writhing and scuttling delighted him.
The disc sat heavily in his pocket. Like him, it didn't belong here. It was part of an older world that had been swept away. How it had been swept away didn't matter. A new, bountiful era had been born, geological in its ambition. There were no laws and no systems except the swirling gases in the sky and the endless chains of minerals filtering through the Earth.
Soon, within the timescales of this new era, he would rejoin that chain, would become part of that world. Each of the three times Salzmann had gone into stasis, he had been terrified of the process failing, that he would spend eternity as a vitrified husk. Now it felt almost calming when he thought about being down in the Earth, with the worms and ants pulling him apart, along with the rest of the Amritsar's crew.
Nguyen was leaning on her shovel, looking sadly at the bodies in front of her. The ship's pilot, Hernandez, and Chief Technician Gunnersson, Salzmann's old boss. She exhaled deeply.
"I owe you an apology, Salzmann. I haven't reacted well to this. You deserved more of me as your commander. Maybe we can start again?"
He nodded. Even where they were, despite everything, Nguyen was trying to be a leader. It made him feel uncomfortable. She carried on talking.
"You were right, it's incredible. The way life has reasserted itself. Even as a non-specialist I can appreciate that."
"All it needed was for us to get out of the way," he said.
"We'll do better, when we get another chance," she said. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he could tell she wasn't looking for a response. She had something else to say.
"I shouldn't have said what I said. Blamed you for our failure on Napier. That was wrong."
Salzmann shrugged.
"We did fail, though."
"Yes, but not in the way that you think." She looked straight at him. "Our mission to Napier was never about terraforming, not really. Everyone at the strategic level understood that the terraforming technology wasn't advanced enough to succeed, and the chances of finding liveable conditions laughably remote. We were set up to fail."
Salzmann paused to consider this. He had never really believed that the terraforming would be successful, but he had the submissive quality and fatal indifference to trust that his superiors did. It was gratifying to know that he had been right.
"We were always meant to come back here," he said.
Nguyen nodded. "We were an insurance policy for human civilisation on Earth. Napier was a staging post."
It made sense. The Napier system was far enough away. They would lie in stasis for centuries, millennia, as long as it took – letting the terraforming process run in the small chance that it would succeed. Then, when it most probably all went wrong, they would wake up and travel home across the void. They would never know how long they had been asleep.
"You knew this all along?" he asked. He could see irritation work its way back onto Nguyen's face, before she made a conscious effort to wipe it off.
"I knew that things would be different. But I didn't expect everything to be gone so completely. And I thought that there would be more of us." She gestured towards the bodies scattered outside the lander.
Salzmann now understood what she had meant. We'll do better, when we get another chance. Nguyen was a fighter. The mission had faced setbacks, but it was not terminally compromised. She had found the willpower to face up to what must be done. His stomach shifted in unease.
"It's going to get dark again soon," he offered, trying to shift her focus before any more revelations emerged with which he would be required to engage emotionally. "Should we try to bury a few more of them?"
"I have a better idea." she said.
It took a while to carry each corpse out and pile it at the bottom of the hill. The heap of death was incongruous against the backdrop of the plain; a blot of orderly human destruction soiling the wilderness. Nguyen descended towards it, testing the flame of the plasma torch as she walked.
The funeral pyre lit up quickly and burned with a power that neither of them had expected. They sat and watched the sky grow dark and the flames grow brighter. It was a waste, thought Salzmann, for those bodies to have lasted so long, and now to be disassembled so completely and quickly under the influence of oxygen and heat.
Nguyen and he were both silent. When the pyre had cooled to embers, she rose to go back inside.
He waited for the lander's shutter to close, then carefully pulled the strange metal disc from his pocket. It was dusk and, the light was thin. Hundreds of bats swooped across the sky, their wingbeats a soft pattering. From somewhere – he could not tell if it was near or far – he heard a low feline growl that quivered in his bowels. He moved closer to the lander.
Taking his multitool in an overhand grip, he held the object closer to his face, bringing the text into optimum focus. Salzmann couldn't read it, but he understood something about it. The writing was wrong; not with the neutral meaninglessness of a foreign language, but a quality of deep and burning incomprehensibility. As if he could never understand even the way of understanding it. As if it would not reveal its meaning to him even if he studied it for another hundred thousand years.
A frisson ran over his skin. He held the object at arm's length. From the centre, framed by the impenetrable scrawl, the lanky figure looked up at him. He saw it more clearly now. Its arms were outstretched, its face the three wide circles of two eyes and mouth; somewhere between screaming, questioning, and accusing. It was basic, but not artless or primitive.
Steps rattled on the lander's loading ramp. He slipped the disc back into his pocket. Nguyen was leaning against the entryway. She looked smaller than she had before. She sat down beside him again.
"It's funny," she said, "I knew all along that this was what could happen. I signed up for it, like you said. It wasn't easy, when we woke up on Napier, finding everyone dead except you. I'm a soldier; I dealt with it. But somehow, I thought it wouldn't be just the two of us. That we'd come back, and everything would be like it was before. The future, but the future of a past that I knew."
"It could have been worse," said Salzmann.
"Exactly," she said. She leaned back on the grass, propping herself against a rock. "We could have come back to an asteroid field. Or a radioactive tomb world, or a burning second Venus. But it's not. It's perfect. As if it was waiting for us."
He stayed silent. A stream of decisions and consequences began to suggest itself. The range of possible paths had been broad when they brought the lander down. Now he could hear only one thing in Nguyen's voice. They would start again, like she had said. He saw the lander repurposed into a shelter, solar rigs running at full, rough awnings flying out from hatches propped open. He imagined himself as a hunter, whittling bows and spears and wearing the skins of beasts. The hides of animals splitting under his knife, the blood flowing out and the richest meat torn from the bone.
Nguyen hated him for surviving. She probably always would. Not just because of that, but for who he was, who she was. It wouldn't matter. She had been given a mission and a set of objectives, and she would complete them, even if it meant settling down with Salzmann. His skin prickled at the thought.
The lander had been designed to transport up to twenty individuals; with only two, it was roomy enough for both passengers to have their own quarters and choice of bunks. Compared to the sweeping scale of the world outside, however, it felt to Salzmann like a cell within which he could barely move. He had been worried that Nguyen would try and come in, but she kept her distance, and he lay in silence on the mattress, still in his overalls. As his eyes circled the slats above him, the meaning of things had become clear.
He lowered his hand into his pocket and withdrew the metal disc. He understood what was wrong with it now. He saw the completeness of the cycle. Mankind had already died. Twice, at least, maybe more times than that. The world he had known in the infancy of his now geological lifespan had been wiped from the Earth. From the ashes of that death had risen the unfathomable makers of his disc. Perhaps there had been others in between, coming and going without leaving as much as an artefact. He saw the future. He and Nguyen would be the parents of another epidemic of humanity. Their children and their children's children would multiply; and his descendants would once again strip the world of its life and fatten themselves on its bounty, until the sickness passed, and they too went extinct.
The thought was unbearable, almost bringing tears to his eyes, until his realisation. There was a way he could stop it, if he had the courage. It was in his power.
He left the lander early the next day. Fog was quickly clearing over the plain. It mixed with the charnel ash of the colonists' mass grave to leave a wet smell of death in the air. To the East, in the direction of the rising sun, the plain began to climb into low, forested hills. He headed towards them.
As the sun filled the sky ahead of him, the land began to heat. With it, the chorus of the living planet rose its voice. On top of the constant chatter of birds began to be layered the insistent humming of invertebrate life; and above this the shuffling, grunting mass of the herds that ranged across the plain. He had not appreciated before how far they stretched, only picking out small groups against the waving grasses. He walked for an hour past a single, mixed herd of hoofed beasts. They turned their heads to watch him as he passed.
He thought about the world at it had once been; the lost civilisations that had sprawled vainly across the face of this planet. On the herds of buffalo and antelope he imposed a city, spires and chimney stacks erupting from the plain and stretching towards the clouds, slums and suburbs rolling themselves out across the grasslands like a terrible carpet, flattening all life before them. Over the din of the wilderness he recalled his faint memory of the city's sounds; the voices of humans and machines raised against each other in permanent anger. He imagined the air thick with particulate matter and the water slick with oils, a cocktail of nitrates pumped clean of life. It could happen again, he thought. Because of him, it could happen again.
He looked back across the plain. The lander, perched on its mound, was just a point through the haze of the shimmering heat. He wondered if Nguyen was still asleep.
"I'm sorry" he said aloud, into the savannah.
He began to walk again. The forest began to close around him, stifling the sun and softening sound. At a narrow stream, he stopped. He tossed his multitool into the water and watched it sink and roll along with the current, knocking against rocks and branches. Then he carried on. The ground rose. He scrambled upwards over rocks, scrabbled up banks.
He had known what he had to do since last night. Now it began to seem real; or at least as real as it ever could. If it had all been down to him to do it, he would not have been able to. But there was something easy about this way. He just needed to keep walking, and nature would follow its timeless pattern.
He wasn't sure that he understood what he was doing any better than Nguyen would. But every breath he took of the life-drenched atmosphere, every footstep that sent small things scurrying into the shadows; they were all the argument he needed. This was how the world was meant to be. There was only one thing that was wrong. He was in it. They were in it.
The moment came quicker than he expected. In a clearing, the shape was hunched and mottled against the trees; by the time he was close enough to see it, it was too late to do anything, even if he had wanted to. It had probably been following him for hours. The feline shape, coiled and muscular, brought a clanging peal of fear from his genetic memory. It was aggressively real, the vegetation parting around it.
The leopard's low growl echoed through his organs. For a minute it stood still, watching him and waiting, ears twitching. It took one pace forward, then another. Then it began to move; accelerating in seconds from statue-still to death dash. It hit Salzmann like an asteroid colliding with a young moon. Instinct took control, writhing and screaming, sending the forest around him into panicked flight. As everything around him ended, he saw and smelt the earth, rich and red with his blood. He would be a part of it again.
Matt Hornsby
B. Morris Allen
Editor and publisher of the vast Metaphorosis empire.
View all posts by B. Morris Allen
I enjoyed this. I like a post-apocalyptic story without the heavy science. I also enjoyed the different and unexpected ending. The morality of it. The stupidity too. Survival of the fittest is mankind's imperative, as is King of his domain. But it was a bold step to take.
Trish Nankivell
24 September 2019 at 15:32	1 year ago
Leave a Reply to Trish Nankivell	Cancel reply
Sign up for our weekly e-mail on the latest story, reviews, and posts.
©2020 Metaphorosis Magazine
Back to Top Twitter
Hear about new stories and posts every week!


No smoking on buses, inside transit facilities or within 20 feet of the opening of a window or door at transit facilities.
Eating and drinking is permitted provided that you dispose of the waste from eating or drinking.
No standing in front of the white or yellow "standee" line, in doorways or stepwells while the bus is in motion.
No unnecessary conversation or interference with bus operator for safety reasons.
All electronic devices in use require the use of headphones. Amplified music is not allowed on buses or at transit facilities.
No large objects that cannot be held by the passenger placed under seat or out of the aisle way is allowed on board the bus. Bicycles, surfboards and strollers are permitted inside all JATRAN vehicles provided that they do not constitute a hazard towards other passengers. Bicycles are allowed inside buses at the discretion of the bus operator and as space permits.
All animals brought on board must be in an approved pet carrier, except properly documented service animals, which are trained to assist individuals with a disability as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). No animals that are uncaged or unmuzzled shall be allowed to ride the bus.
No signs or advertisements may be placed on board vehicles or facilities controlled or owned by JATRAN. If you are interested in advertising, please visit our advertising page for more details.
No illegal activity of any kind shall be tolerated on board buses or at transit facilities.
Shoes and shirts are required to ride buses.
Not paying the established fare or misuse of transfers, passes, tokens or tickets with the intent to evade fare payment are illegal.
Up to five shopping bags, luggage or packages are allowed. Bus Operators cannot assist in carrying packages. These items must be stowed under the seat, in the passenger lap or out of the aisle way.
Have exact change ready as the bus operator cannot make change and no refunds are provided for overpayment.
Yield the seats in front of the bus for seniors and persons with disabilities as identified by a decal posted.
Holding of meetings or ceremonies is prohibited on buses or at transit facilities.
Use of a transit facility or bus for sleeping, camping or general use in lieu of regular housing is illegal.
Improper use of the waiting area as a cooking, washing or toilet facility is illegal.
Children under the age of 9 may not ride JATRAN buses or services unless accompanied by a fare paying passenger age 16 years old or older.
A person who commits an assault or battery upon a transit operator with a deadly weapon or presents the ability to use a deadly weapon is subject to a felony.
Passengers must have a destination when riding JATRAN buses. Passengers will be allowed two complete round trips on JATRAN routes to allow for a passenger to access their appropriate destination. Passengers that do not have a destination or exceed the two round trips may be requested to leave the bus by the Bus Operator at the nearest transit center or major transfer point.
JATRAN or its transit operations contractor reserve the right to refuse service to and/or suspend passengers who demonstrate disruptive and unsafe behavior or violates any of the rules and regulations presented above.
These rules are enforced and some are part of the Mississipi Code. Violation of these rules may result in Bus Operator, law enforcement officer, transit operations contractor or City of Jackson official not permitting the passenger to board the bus, imprisonment and/or a fine.


Having her feet up and crocheting by noon with a G&T in hand and a Labrador by her side is Stephanie's romantic dream of life in a Bed and Breakfast.
After many years of travelling and living out of a backpack she returns to the UK after popping to Bermuda for a two week holiday and staying for 16 years.
Whilst watching a game of rugby in Bath, she spontaneously decides to buy a Bed and Breakfast.
Come Sleep With Me is an insight into some of the shenanigans that happen behind the scenes in Bed and Breakfast land.
It's about a laundry mountain, Roman Centurions, Chintz, geraniums and an Orangutan rehabilitation centre in Bukit Lawang.
Woven into the mix are stories of humanity and adventure across the globe.
She shares stories of Thai police with brandy snifters, green fairy dresses and ghosts that complain about the toilets.
There are stories of love and kindness, nuttiness and unruly feral children along with the story of the man who slept with his gun.
This isn't a book about how to run a Bed and Breakfast business.


So it's the beginning of November and I'll bet you a whole ream of paper that many of you are first timers with National Novel Writing Month. Or what we old-timers like to call NaNo. And the more I thought of the NaNo experience, the more I thought about my recent trip to New York. And what I thought was gee, Cathy, what a great metaphor!
I think we should call you the Queen of Metaphors!
Well,Cathy, you have inspired me to continue with my project. You are such an inspiration.
And Linda, I'm glad you're continuing with your project! You have too great a voice NOT to!
Your comparison of New York and NaNo was brilliant! It's great to read that you will be returning to the Big Apple so you can see and do the things you missed.
Anyway...Would you believe this is the FIRST time ever I'm going to do NANO?! I always thought it sounded like a crazy idea, plus the fact that I don't write fiction, but this year I have a jump start on my muse, and I heard there is a "personal" category...but so far haven't located it on their site. If you know anything, please help!!
Cathy--My comment is going to be brief because I'm 800 words behind.
I'm glad you had fun in NYC and I hope NaNo is fun for you. You took a bite out of the Big Apple, and now you're biting into creating a novel.


Simplify your modern look this season with the Report Farrel espadrille slide sandal! Man-made upper. Slide-on design. Open toe. Man-made lining. Lightly padded footbed. Cork-wrapped midsole. Man-made outsole. Imported. Measurements: Heel Height: 3 4 in Weight: 6 oz Product measurements were taken using size 8.5 width M. Please note that measurements may vary by size. Weight of footwear is based on a single item not a pair.
A look that slides on and kicks off without a fuss, the clean Farrel flats from Report are sure to be a weekend go-to.
Neva is a sassy ankle-strap flat sandal to pair with shorts or your favorite sundress. Manmade upper Work or play, Nicole is sophistication, quality, comfort, and effortless style.