text:
infographic of the day
Infographic: Famous Writers Who Hated Each Other's Guts
Author bitchfights are a fun pastime on Twitter, but they aren't anything new. Here are some famous authors who hated each other.
By John Brownlee 1 minute Read
Writers have been slagging each other off for centuries, and this fun interactive infographic courtesy of the Huffington Post is a good primer on just how ugly it can get.
Unlike modern celebrity slagfests, most of the nastier comments slung between literary greats were decidedly one-sided–and often took place after the offending writer was dead. Take, for example, Mark Twain's classic attack on Last of the Mohicans author James Fenimore Cooper. Written decades after Cooper's deaths, it is one of the funniest vivisections of another author's work ever. "There are a lot of daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they're all dead now," Twain wrote in his brilliant Fisking of an essay, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses.
Twain wasn't just rough on Cooper, of course. A notorious literary crank, he also couldn't stand Henry James or Jane Austen. He was almost as cantankerous as Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov, who railed against Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the latter of whom Nabokov sorely hated. Sadly, the infographic does not include his most withering comments about Dostoevsky (from Lectures on Russian Literature), saying, as I recall from reading it a decade ago, that Dostoevsky is the rare Russian writer who sounds just as clunky and marble-mouthed in English as he did in his mother tongue.
J.D. Salinger was the greatest mind to ever stay in prep school.
And the sniping continues. Did you know, for example, that Gore Vidal once said of Truman Capote that he loathed him "the way you might loathe an animal"? Or that Norman Mailer said that J.D. Salinger was "the greatest mind to ever stay in prep school"? Or that Charlotte Brontë hated her own sister Anne's novel Wildfell Hall, calling it "hardly… desirable to preserve"? Or that D.H. Lawrence said that no one could possibly be "more clownish" and "more clumsy" than Moby Dick scribe Herman Melville (Lawrence was also quite rough on Ulysses author James Joyce, calling his work nothing but "old fags and cabbage stumps of quotations.")
The full infographic can be seen embedded in its entirety above. If you think writers getting their claws out is a new thing, hovering over some of these historical deathmatches might give you a delicious new perspective on things.
John Brownlee is a design writer who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. You can email him at john.brownlee+fastco@gmail.com.
PepsiCo's U.S. operations will be powered by 100% renewable electricity this year
Let's hope these key tech issues aren't ignored on tonight's less-diverse debate stage
Low-CO2 food labeling will be the next 'low fat' craze
Employee salaries at a fast-growing startup: What are the going rates?
To get more done in four 6-hour workdays, do these three things


text:
Introduced Helicidae garden snails in Au
Introduced Helicidae garden snails in Australia: morphological and molecular diagnostics, species distributions and systematics
Mark J. Blacket; Michael Shea; Linda Semeraro; Mallik B. Malipatil
There is a large number of Helicidae land snails native to the Western Palearctic, many of which have become invasive species in other parts of the world. In the past, multiple helicid species were introduced to Australia where they can now be major agricultural and horticultural pests. Determining which species have become established is essential for effective biosecurity and pest management. Here we have shown that three helicid species currently occur in Australia: Brown (Cornu aspersum Müller), Green (Cantareus apertus Born) and White (Theba pisana Müller) Garden Snails. A fourth formerly present species, the Chocolate Banded snail (Eobania vermiculata Müller) appears currently to be locally extinct. All four of these species are known to be highly invasive worldwide. Our study assessed the effectiveness of employing DNA barcoding for identification of garden snails in Australia through characterising DNA sequences of the mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase I and nuclear ITS2 loci. We were able to distinguish all four species, as well as other commonly intercepted Helicidae species. DNA sequences and diagnostic images of the helicid garden snails currently found in Australia have been added to the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD), as project AMPH (Australian Mollusc Pests—Helicidae), to aid in the identification of intercepted specimens, morphologically ambiguous individuals, or small juvenile specimens. We also examined the diagnostic morphological characters (juvenile and adult) that can be used to identify these species (including an illustrated key), and summarize relevant systematic and nomenclatural changes. We also provide the first specimen records for Green Garden Snails in eastern Australia, where they were previously unknown and may become a serious plant pest.
Blacket et al., 2016. Rec. Aust. Mus. 68(3): 99–116
MALACOLOGY; BIOGEOGRAPHY; ECOLOGY, TERRESTRIAL
Garden Snail
A molecular phylogeny of camaenid land snails from north-western Australia unravels widespread homoplasy in morphological characters
Systematic position of Trichadenotecnum enderleini (Roesler) (Psocodea: "Psocoptera": Psocidae)
Introduced snails in Australia
There are over 1000 species of native Australian snails and slugs. However, most of the snails and slugs we find in our gardens are not natives.
Into the deep end – snail systematics on the ocean floor
AMRI researchers have started on a three-year project to unravel the mysteries of the turrid gastropods of the Australian deep sea.
Integrative taxonomy reveals cryptic species within Sabellastarte Krøyer, 1856 (Sabellidae: Annelida) and establishes the systematics of the genus
A rapid molecular method to detect the invasive golden apple snail Pomacea canaliculata (Lamarck, 1822)
More on snails and islands: Molecular systematics and taxonomic revision of Setobaudinia Iredale, 1933 (Gastropoda: Camaenidae) from the Kimberley, Western Australia, with description of new taxa
Species limits in molecular phylogenies: A cautionary tale from Australian land snails (Camaenidae: Amplirhagada)
A molecular phylogeny of Rissoidae (Caenogastropoda: Rissooidea) allows testing the diagnostic utility of morphological traits
Deconstructing dendropoma: A systematic revision of a world-wide worm-snail group, with descriptions of new genera (Caenogastropoda: Vermetidae)
Molecular phylogeny and taxonomic revision of the genera Baudinella Thiele, 1931, Retroterra Solem, 1985 and Molema Köhler, 2011 endemic to the coastal Kimberley, Western Australia (Gastropoda, Camaenidae)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A Beaumont man who fatally shot a 63-year-old at his home in 2016 acted under the influence of sudden passion and will spend 17 years in prison, a Jefferson County jury decided Friday morning.
Calvin James Holman, who was originally charged with capital murder in the Dec. 16, 2016, slaying of Raymond Weatherly, was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder following three days of trial in 252nd state District Court. Deliberations began around 4 p.m. Thursday.
Holman, 31, also was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
Holman told police he was hired through an online service to help Weatherly move, and that he shot the man in self-defense during a scuffle. Prosecutors alleged instead that Holman had stolen a gun from Weatherly's home and returned to shoot him after the man gave him a bad review online and filed a criminal complaint over an allegedly forged check.
The gun, Weatherly's widow testified Thursday, had belonged to her.
Prosecutor Luke Nichols returned Catherine Weatherly to the stand to address jurors before sentencing.
"I don't know what to do with myself," she said, telling them that she still lives in the home where her husband was shot three times in the head and once in the abdomen. She found his body later that morning when she couldn't reach him by phone.
She said she stays in the house because a part of her wants to hold on to the last place she saw him, and asked the jury to sentence Holman to 99 years so he "can't do this to anyone else."
Phyllis Marve, Holman's mother, also took the stand, telling jurors that her son was the father of three children ranging in age from 3 to 8.
"My heart breaks for the Weatherly family," she said. "I can't imagine what (Catherine Weatherly) is going through."
Marve said her son "was working hard to get his life together. He was always at church; he never missed church. He was just trying to provide for his children."
She asked the jury for mercy. Holman turned in his chair to face his mother as she stepped off the stand in tears.
"There's never a win in a case like this," Nichols said following the sentencing. "A man's life was taken brutally and the Holman family is going to have to deal with their family member going to prison for a while, so there is no winner."


text:
package com.spike.giantdataanalysis.commons.guava.basicutilities;

import org.junit.Test;

import com.google.common.base.Charsets;
import com.google.common.base.Strings;

/**
 *

 * Guava中字符串的单元测试
 *

 *
 * @see com.google.common.base.Charsets
 * @see com.google.common.base.Strings
 * @author zhoujiagen
 */
public class TestString {

  @Test
  public void charsets() {
    String content = "what's the point?";

    byte[] bytes = content.getBytes(Charsets.UTF_8);

    System.out.println(new String(bytes, Charsets.UTF_8));
  }

  /**
   *

   *

   *
   * @see Strings#emptyToNull(String)
   * @see Strings#isNullOrEmpty(String)
   * @see Strings#nullToEmpty(String)
   */
  @Test
  public void strings() {
    // 在尾部补全
    String result = Strings.padEnd("foo", 10, ' ');
    System.out.println("|" + result + "|");

    // 在头部补全
    result = Strings.padStart("foo", 10, ' ');
    System.out.println("|" + result + "|");
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


(There's really no need to go by this list unless you want to…Joel and I definitely have not). Anyway, here's some more info on diamond anniversary bands in case you are interested in finding out. Typically, diamond anniversary bands are in essence the same thing and have the same look as eternity engagement rings bands. In other words, these bands that symbolize that your commitment will last until eternity. How this is symbolized in the jewelry world is usually through a precious metal band with small diamonds surrounding the ring's circumference. The diamonds can be itty bitty chips or big ol' studs depending on your budget and desire for flash. Other gemstones, such as you woman's birthstone are often used as well, either in isolation or alternating with the diamonds. A ring with small diamond chips will set you back a few hundred….big diamonds will obviously cost a lot more. In any event, most women would love to receive a diamond anniversary ring, so it may be worth shelling out the cash for her delighted response.


Eurostat will present the revised draft guidelines which have been updated following the comments received from DIME and the Steering Group of the ADMIN project. This work forms part of Work Package 2 of the ESS Vision 2020 ADMIN project.
Eurostat will present a new project about measuring and communicating uncertainties in official statistics.
Eurostat will present the progress of the project "confidentiality on the fly", the implementation of a table builder in Eurostat and the perturbation methods to be applied for Census 2021 round.
Eurostat will propose the anonymisation rules for the Time Use Survey.
Eurostat will present on-going work in the field of Big Data and Trusted Smart Statistics.
Eurostat will present how microsimulation used to create flash estimates.
DESTATIS will share its experience and present recent developments in the area of microsimulation.
The University of Trier will present a project on microsimulation.


For wholesale and other inquiries, please contact us by filling out the form.
Please be advised that we do not take phone orders at our cafes in order to ensure quality preparation of drinks on a first come, first served basis. Thank you for your understanding.


I don't understand people that don't moisturise after a shower (as in body not face). I'm a tad obsessed with having smooth, moisturised skin and have been since I was a teenager - very rarely I forget this step and I don't feel right at all!
Part of my smooth skin goals is using a good exfoliator - most of the time I just use exfoliating gloves (which do a cracking job of waking me up in the morning as well), but my husband bought me this little treat when he was in London the other week and it is the absolute ONE.
I love anything coconut/vanilla/shea butter based and this scrub smells so good that it makes me want to grab a spoon and start snacking. I used to work with a luxury perfume brand when I lived in Dubai and the French owners would describe their scents as 'gourmand' because they smelt good enough to eat, and this scrub is the definition of that.
It's quite a thick consistency which feels like a luxury treat for the bod, and the grains are a good size so it feels like they're working but not taking off a layer of your skin in the process.
I've tried to ration myself with this and only use it every now and again but I've failed miserably. It's almost gone, which makes me sad as it's made me look forward to a shower and usually I find showering very boring.I'm gonna have to repurchase, along with the matching moisturiser!
I'm sorry you don't understand me - haha!! This scrub does sound amazing though. I bet it smells delicious!


State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington would establish an "observer mission" to replace its representation at the Paris-based agency.
The United States was angered in 2011 when UNESCO members granted Palestine full membership of the body, despite opposition from its ally Israel.
Washington opposes any move by UN bodies to recognize the Palestinians as a state, believing that this must await a negotiated Middle East peace deal.
But US President Donald Trump's administration is also reviewing many of its multilateral commitments, pursuing what he calls an "America First" foreign policy.
Nauert said the State Department had notified UNESCO's outgoing Director-General Irina Bokova of their decision earlier Thursday.
"This decision was not taken lightly, and reflects US concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO," she said in a statement.


text:
<?php

namespace Flowcode\SocialHubBundle\Model;

use Abraham\TwitterOAuth\TwitterOAuth;
use Facebook\Exceptions\FacebookResponseException;
use Facebook\Exceptions\FacebookSDKException;
use Facebook\Facebook;
use Flowcode\SocialHubBundle\Entity\SocialNetwork;
use Flowcode\SocialHubBundle\Model\Exception\SocialProviderNotInitializedException;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerInterface;

class TwitterSocialProvider implements SocialProvider
{

    const PROVIDER_TYPE = 'twitter';

    private $config;
    /**
     * @var TwitterOAuth
     */
    private $connection;

    /**
     * @var string
     */
    private $baseurl;

    /**
     * @var ContainerInterface
     */
    private $container;

    /**
     * FacebookSocialProvider constructor.
     * @param ContainerInterface $container
     */
    public function __construct(ContainerInterface $container)
    {
        $this->container = $container;
    }

    /**
     * Check if it is valid or not.
     * @return boolean isvalid.
     */
    public function isValidToken(OAuthToken $oAuthToken)
    {
        // TODO: Implement isValidToken() method.
    }

    /**
     * Get the auth url.
     * @return string url-
     */
    public function getLoginUrl($params = array())
    {
        $request_token = $this->getConnection()->oauth('oauth/request_token', array(
            'oauth_callback' => $this->container->getParameter("socialhub_host_url") . '/socialhub/connector?type=' . self::PROVIDER_TYPE
        ));

        $url = $this->getConnection()->url('oauth/authorize', array(
            'oauth_token' => $request_token['oauth_token'],
        ));

        return $url;
    }

    /**
     * Get the profile of current user.
     */
    public function getUserProfile($params = array())
    {
        $access_token = $this->getConnection()->oauth("oauth/access_token", array(
            "oauth_token" => $_GET['oauth_token'],
            "oauth_verifier" => $_GET['oauth_verifier']
        ));

        $this->getConnection()->setOauthToken($access_token['oauth_token'], $access_token['oauth_token_secret']);

        $response = $this->getConnection()->get("account/verify_credentials", array(
            "skip_status" => true,
            "include_email" => "true",
        ));

        return array(
            'id' => $response->id,
            'email' => (isset($response->email)) ? $response->email : $response->screen_name,
            'firstname' => null,
            'lastname' => null,
        );
    }

    /**
     * Get the token access.
     * @return OAuthToken tokenAbstraction.
     */
    public function getAccessToken($params = array())
    {
        $accessToken = $_GET['oauth_token'];

        return $accessToken;
    }

    /**
     *
     */
    public function loginUser($params)
    {
        // TODO: Implement loginUser() method.
    }

    /**
     * Call api to post content.
     */
    public function postContent($params)
    {
        // TODO: Implement postContent() method.
    }

    /**
     * @return mixed
     * @throws SocialProviderNotInitializedException
     */
    public function getConfig()
    {
        if (is_null($this->config)) {
            $socialNetworkService = $this->container->get('socialhub.service.socialnetwork');
            $socialNetwork = $socialNetworkService->getSocialNetwork(self::PROVIDER_TYPE);
            $this->setupConfig($socialNetwork);
        }
        return $this->config;
    }

    public function setupConfig(SocialNetwork $socialNetwork)
    {
        if (is_null($this->config)) {
            $this->config = array(
                'app_id' => $socialNetwork->getClientId(),
                'app_secret' => $socialNetwork->getClientSecret(),
            );
        }
    }

    /**
     * Get the app sdk.
     * @return TwitterOAuth isntance.
     */
    public function getConnection()
    {
        if (is_null($this->connection)) {
            $params = $this->getConfig();

            $this->connection = new TwitterOAuth(
                $params['app_id'],
                $params['app_secret']
            );
        }
        return $this->connection;
    }

}


text:
How has the Internet helped boycotters?
April 21, 2022 by Answer Prime
I uploaded the answer to a file hosting. Here's link: bit.ly/3a8Nt8n
hanc̫o̫ςκ was president of congress when the declaration of independence was adopted and signed. he is primarily remembered by americans for his large, flamboyant signature on the declaration, so much so that "john hanc̫o̫ςκ" became, in the united states, an informal synonym for signature. explanation:
1. read the following excerpt from franklin d. roosevelt's "fireside chat 19": on the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the germans in, let us say serbia or norway, us; that a successful russian offensive against the germans us; and that british successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands. remember always that germany and italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the united states at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with britain or russia. and germany puts all the other republics of the americas into the same category of enemies. the people of our sister republics of this hemisphere can be honored by that fact. the true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. when we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. we americans are not destroyers — we are builders. analyze the effectiveness of this excerpt. how does it function within the speech as a whole? how does the structure of the excerpt to convey the speech's purpose and key points? support your argument with evidence from the speech. (10 points)
Also Read : Which line from 'Safari Day in Kenya" contains an example of assonance?
Which synonym best describes the role of a mentor? - January 26, 2023
Which aphorism from poor richard's almanac best reflects the virtue of industry? - January 25, 2023
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Which of the following cannot be considered a benefit of implementing HACCP
Why was the math teacher forbidden to show a movie about calculus?


STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State's Department of Music is presenting its 12th Music and Poetry Program on Tuesday [Feb. 12] at 7:30 p.m. in Old Main Academic Center's Turner A. Wingo Auditorium.
Free to all, this year's "All-American Program" features songs set to the poetry of early 20th century poet Sara Teasdale and late 20th and 21st century poet Billy Collins, along with songs from mid-20th century musicals by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.
Hargrove, a William L. Giles Distinguished Professor Emerita of English, co-founded the collaborative music and poetry program in 2008 with instructor Karen Murphy, the music department's coordinator of collaborative piano.
For the program, Murphy will serve as pianist and Hargrove will provide commentary on the poets, composers, poems and songs using Powerpoint illustrations. Along with MSU's women's chorus Schola Cantorum and guest cellist Anthony Lu, performers include MSU music faculty and students.
Faculty performers include clinical assistant professor Christy Lee, piano; instructor Ryan Landis, tenor; associate professor Gary Packwood, director of choral activities; instructor Jessica Haislip, oboe; and instructor Sheri Falcone, clarinet.
Student performers include soprano Calloway N. Ellis, music education master's student, Prairie; tenor William E. Tiffin, senior music major, West Point; soprano Kaley D. Smith, sophomore music education major, Meridian; mezzo soprano Darbie E. Woods, senior music education major, Vicksburg; soprano Payton Tanner, senior music major, Alabaster, Alabama; soprano Alyssa G. "Gracie" Tew, senior music major, Brandon; baritone John H. Williams, senior music education major, Lake Charles, Louisiana; soprano Nyla J. Thomas, freshman music major, Southaven; soprano Reagan E. Ray, senior music education major, Belden; baritone Daniel K. Joyner, senior music education major, Alamo, Tennessee; tenor Christopher M. Durham, junior music education major, Lynn Haven, Florida; soprano Taylor M. Jenkins, senior music education major, Vero Beach, Florida; soprano Leah A. Boyd, senior music education major, Madison, Alabama; soprano Kailyn E. Naquin, sophomore music education major, Lacombe, Louisiana; Blake Mauldin, junior music education major, Pinson, Alabama, serving as "The Billy Collins Suite" narrator; and soprano Megan Kundel, an MSU student from Starkville.
Established in 1903, MSU's College of Education is home to six academic departments, one research unit and numerous service units. For more on the college and its nationally accredited Department of Music, visit www.educ.msstate.edu or www.music.msstate.edu.


text:
90 Edo APC councillors drag Obaseki to Buhari
Webby October 14, 2020 October 14, 2020
<!– Buhari and Obaseki –>
Buhari and Obaseki
By Joy Odigie/Benin
The Forum of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Councillors in Edo on Wednesday has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on Governor Godwin Obaseki to pay their outstanding salaries.
The councillors made the appeal on Wednesday while staging a peaceful protest in Benin.
They said Obaseki is owing them for five months.
The protesters marched to the Secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists to lodge their grievances.
Spokesman of the group, Mr Emwinghare Osabuohien, said Obaseki asked council chairme to strike out their names from the payroll because they refused to decamp to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with him.
Osabuohien said that their colleagues, who decamped to the PDP, were being paid their monthly salaries regularly.
"We, the councillors elected on the platform of APC in Edo, are here to draw your attention and that of the world to the inhuman treatment and abuse of our right by the Local Government Chairmen on the directive of the governor.
"It will be recalled that in the build up to the Edo Governorship Election, the governor decamped from APC, having been disqualified by the national screening committee of the party.
"Afterwards, he directed that all political appointees and elected political office holders should resign from APC and join him in PDP.
"Today, the world should know that as elected councilors, numbering 90, we have not been paid our salaries since May because of our refusal to join PDP," Osabuohien said.
He said that they found no moral justification to decamp to the PDP and called on President Muhammadu Buhari to come to their rescue.
"We are being denied our right of freedom of association and democratic choice. We are being victimised for not decamping to PDP.
"We are also calling on the Oba of Benin and other well-meaning Nigerians and foreign embassies in Nigeria to wade into the matter.
The Commissioner of Information, Mr Stewart Efe, told journalists that the allegation of non payment of five months salaries to the councillors was false.
Efe said that the protest was politically-motivated and that the Obaseki-led administration does not owe anybody in the state.
Oshiomhole reactants, begs Ortom's for out-of-court settlement in N10bn suit
#EndSARS protest turns violent in Alausa Lagos (Video, photos)
After El-Classico, man goes berserk, stabs friend to death
Four Suspected Boko Haram Members Arrested In Edo
Arsenal Confirm Signing Of Saint-Etienne Defender, William Saliba
Tacha Vs. Tiwa: TeeBillz starts his own 'pepper dem' series
Nollywood actress bags chieftaincy title


text:
15 of the Best Difficult Games and Compare Prices
What are the 15 Most Hardest Games ?
1. MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
Co-op Action Open World RPG Dificult Not Potatoes PC 10/08/2018 CAPCOM Co. Ltd. Steam
Take on the role of a hunter and, with your ever-reliable Palico, battle gigantic monsters in the new world and discover everything it holds secret – all in the name of research. The game was first released worldwide on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in January 2018 before later being released for PC in August of the same year. Monster Hunter: World has been nominated for more than 40 awards, including winning Game of the Year award at the Japan Game Awards and best Co-operative Game at The Game Awards in 2018. It has recently seen a paid expansion, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, that was released September 6th, 2019 and which won the Best Ongoing Game award at Gamescom 2019.
MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD System Requirements
OS: Windows 7 (64 bits)
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.20 GHz, AMD FX-6300
HDD: 20 GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760, AMD Radeon R7 260x
OS: Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 (64 bits)
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz / Core i3 8350 4 GHz, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, AMD Radeon RX 570X
2. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
Hunting Co-op Open World Difficult Not Potatoes PC 10/01/2020 CAPCOM Co. Ltd. Steam
The recent paid expansion for Monster Hunter: World was first released for consoles on September 6th, 2019 and later for PC on January 9th, 2020. The expansion brings with it old monsters of previous games and also the G Rank difficulty of older games, choosing to rename them Master Rank Quests. Since it's release, Iceborne has been nominated for five awards and won Best Ongoing Game at Gamescom 2019.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne System Requirements
3. Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice
Stealth Souls-like Difficult Action Not Potatoes PC 22/03/2019 FromSoftware Steam
Carve your way through an award winning adventure in the latest souls-like action game from legendary developers FromSoftware. Unlike their other games, like the Dark Souls series, Sekiro lacks character creation, the ability to level up stats and has no multiplayer elements. The game is focused on stealth, exploration and combat with particular emphasis put onto boss battles. Though it takes place in fictional areas, some are inspired by real-world locations in Japan with strong references to Buddhist mythology and philosophy. The game has been nominated for over 20 awards and has won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2019 as well as Game of the Year at The Steam Awards 2019.
Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice System Requirements
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760, AMD Radeon HD 7950
OS: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 (64 bits)
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K, AMD Ryzen 5 1400
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970, AMD Radeon RX 570
4. Dead Cells
Action 2D Roguelite Difficult Not Potatoes PC 07/08/2018 Motion Twin Steam
Enter the depths of Dead Cells in a new roguelike-metroidvania game developed and published by Motion Twin. The game was entered Early Access on May 10th, 2017, before being released across all platforms on August 7th, 2018. An iOS port released August 28th, 2019 and an Android port is planned for 2020. The player character is a Prisoner made of a greenish blob of an unknown substance with an immortal head and the ability to possess executed bodies. Though the head is immortal, the body is not and so death results in the head slinking back to the Prison Quarters to begin the descent once more. To tighten the gameplay, the developers looked to the Engineer from Team Fortress 2, taking inspiration from his use of turrets and other buildable items to help strengthen the character's abilities in Dead Cells, forcing the player to use a combination of weapons and skills to progress.
Dead Cells System Requirements
OS: Windows 7+
CPU: Intel i5+
HDD: 500 MB
GPU: Nvidia 450 GTS, ATI Radeon HD 5750
GPU: Nvidia GTX 460, ATI Radeon HD 7800
5. DARK SOULS™ III
Difficult RPG Atmospheric Lore-Rich Not Potatoes PC 12/04/2016 FromSoftware Inc. Steam
Rise as the Ashen One, an Unkindled, and link the fire by returning Prince Lothric and the Lords of the Cinder to their thrones in Firelink Shrine. Dark Souls 3 became the fastest-selling game in publishers Bandai Namco Entertainment's history, selling over 3 million copies wordwide in the first two months of its release. The game features two Estus Flasks for the first time in the series. The first refills hit points and the second refills focus points and is new to the series with Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3 encourages exploration by featuring fewer maps than Dark Souls 2, but making the maps larger and more detailed.
DARK SOULS™ III System Requirements
OS: Windows 7 (64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500 3.1 GHz, AMD A8 3870 3.6 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465, ATI Radeon TM HD 6870
OS: Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10 (64-bit)
CPU: TBD
GPU: TBD
6. Cuphead
Difficult Cartoon Co-op Not Potatoes PC 29/07/2017 Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc. Steam
Play the run and gun action game inspired by 1930s cartoons, full of hand drawn animation, watercolor backgrounds and original jazz recordings. Players can play solo or in co-op as Cuphead and Mugman to fight through levels that culminate in boss fights in an attempt to repay their debt to the Devil. After reaching the Devil and having the contracts they need from those they have defeated, the players must choose whether to give the contracts to the Devil. If they player turns them over they are turned into evil lackeys and the game ends, if they refuse the Devil becomes furious and the player must fight him. Developer, Chad Moldenhauer, hand-drew the animations and painted the background using watercolors, colorizing them in Photoshop. The game runs at a framerate of 60, but the animations run at 24 frames which is a film standard.
Cuphead System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3.0 GHz, AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0 GHz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT, AMD HD 3870
DirectX: 9
Difficult Platformer 2D Atmospheric Indie Not Potatoes PC 25/02/2017 Team Cherry Steam
Forge your own path, explore a vast ruined kingdom of insects and heroes and discover twisted caverns and battle tainted creatures in the beautifully hand-drawn Hollow Knight. The game is a 2D metroidvania souls-like game in the world of Hallownest, consisting of large, inter-connected areas with unique themes. There are multiple endings in the game depending on the player's actions. The first is the Hollow Knight ending, the second is the Sealed Siblings ending and the last is Dream No More, which sees the player fight the moth-like goddess, the Radiance, the true source of the infection. The game continues to be updated and the latest, the Godmaster update, adds extra content, including harder versions of bosses and further possible endings to the game.
Hollow Knight System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E5200
HDD: 9 GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX+
CPU: Intel Core i5
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 560
8. Stoneshard
RPG Strategy Roguelike Singleplayer Difficult Not Potatoes PC 07/02/2020 Ink Stains Games Steam
Play the unforgiving life of a medieval mercenary in this challenging turn-based open-world RPG. Boasting more than 100 abilities, more than 200 equipment pieces and no class or level restrictions, you can truly play the way you want to. Battle against numerous factions, brigands and the undead. Master the health system which features bloodletting and cauterizing of wounds and keep your morale high, as losing your sanity can bring panic attacks and paranoia. Discover new settlements, gather and upgrade your caravan, devote yourself to a deity, discover new cooking and alchemy recipes and embark on an epic campaign that will have long-lasting consequences.
Stoneshard System Requirements
OS: Windows 7 / 8 / 10
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 7600
9. Beat Saber
Difficult Swordplay Action Sports Not Potatoes PC 22/05/2019 Beat Games Steam
Smash your way through an endless number of blue and red boxes to your favourite songs in the most hyped VR game on the market. The game initially released on May 1st, 2018, for PC VR headsets and then November 20th, 2018, for PlayStation 4 VR. Since its release it has been nominated for more than 20 awards and won best VR/AR Game at the Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards 2019. A week after hitting the Steam store in 2018 it became the highest-rated VR game on the platform.
Beat Saber System Requirements
OS: Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10
GPU: Nvidia GTX 960
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060
10. STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™
Action Adventure Star Wars Souls-like Difficult Not Potatoes PC 15/11/2019 Respawn Entertainment Steam
Stay ahead of the Empire in Respawn's third person action-adventure that sees you travel the galaxy as an abandoned Padawan in a bid to rebuild the Jedi Order. Master the lightsaber with a new innovative combat system, develop new Force abilities, meet iconic characters, visit recognizable locations and discover all new ones. Begin a new Jedi story and explore the galaxy however you want to. Avoid the Empire, solve puzzles, overcome obstacles and discover everything the Force has to offer in this wonderful story-driven cinematic adventure.
STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™ System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9GHz, AMD FX-4200
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7850, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
OS: Windows 10 (64 bits)
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz, AMD FX-9370
GPU: AMD Radeon Pro Duo 8GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
11. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Roguelike Indie Replay Value Difficult Potatoes PC 05/11/2014 Nicalis Inc. Steam
Play as Isaac in his bid to escape his religious mother as she attempts to sacrifice him as an offering to her god. Play though randomly generated dungeons and collect a number of items that will improve Isaac's stats. The game has a new graphics engine, offers a more intense experience than the previous game and boasts more than 500 hours of gameplay. The Binding of Isaac is a truly immersive game will have a long-lasting effect on you. You don't want to miss the latest in this wonderfully crafted franchise.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth System Requirements
OS: Windows XP
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo
OS: Windows 7 /
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad
GPU: AMD Radeon HD Series 4650, NVIDIA GeForce 2xx-Series
12. Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
Indie Difficult Psychological Horror Physics Not Potatoes PC 07/12/2017 Bennett Foddy Steam
The game puts you in control of the silent Diogenes who resides in a large metal cauldron and wields a Yosemite Hammer to grip objects and move himself. Developed by Bennet Foddy, the game also features voice-over commentary by Bennet as he discusses various philosophical topics and even provides quotes relating to disappointment when progress is lost by the player. Getting Over It is aimed towards "a certain type of person, to hurt them" and is inspired by Sexy Hiking, a game released by Jazzuo in 2002. There are no checkpoints in the game with the game, putting the player at constant risk of losing all of their progress. Once reaching the top, the game concludes by asking the player if they are recording the gameplay, if the player indicates they are not they are provided with access to a chatroom with other players who have completed the game.
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy System Requirements
OS: Windows Vista
CPU: Intel Dual Core 2 GHz
CPU: Intel Dual Core 2.5 GHz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 970, AMD Radeon RX470
13. Darkest Dungeon®
RPG Roguelike Lovecraftian Difficult Turn-Based Potatoes PC 19/01/2016 Red Hook Studios Steam
Recruit, train and lead a team of flawed heroes in this gothic roguelike turn-based RPG that puts emphasis on the psychological stresses of adventuring. The game features an Affliction system which is inspired by both fiction and historical events, such as by Hudson in Aliens and by the soldiers in Band of Brothers. Darkest Dungeon has a disembodied narrator follow you through your trials and is voiced by Wayne June. The game has a number of difficulty levels such as Darkest, which is the game's normal mode, Radiant, which reduces the campaign length but maintains the difficulty level and lastly Stygian, which gives enemies increased health and forces the player to complete the game in 86 in-game weeks or before losing 13 heroes. Darkest Dungeon has plenty of content and its DLC packs all add extra enemies, quests and heroes to ensure you keep going back into the dark for more punishment.
Darkest Dungeon® System Requirements
14. Celeste
Precision PlatformerPlatformerPixel Graphics Potatoes PC 25 /01/2018 Matt Makes Games Inc. Steam
Play as Madeline and survive your inner demons and make it to the top of Celeste Mountain in a stunning platformer from the creators of TowerFall, Matt Makes Games Inc. The game contains more than 700 screens of hardcore platforming challenges as well as B-side and C-side chapters to unlock. Madeline can jump, climb and perform a mid-air dash. There is an Assist Mode that gives players the opportunity to modify the game's mechanics, such as giving Madeline invincibility, infinite air-dashes or even slowing the game down. Celeste is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, launching on January 25, 2018.
Celeste System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i3 M380
15. XCOM® 2
Tactical Alien Strategy Difficult Potatoes PC 05/02/2016 Firaxis Games Steam
Rebuild XCOM and reclaim Earth from alien rule in the sequel to the award winning turn-based strategy game from Firaxis Games. After player feedback from the first game, Firaxis Games added procedural generation of maps and mod support to XCOM 2. The game offers four difficulty settings: Rookie, Veteran, Commander and Legend for those wanting a true challenge. After beating the game players can enable Ironman mode which deletes the save file whenever the player performs an action, making decisions and death final. XCOM 2 has five character classes, each with their own abilities. These are the Ranger, Grenadier, Specialist, Sharpshooter and Psi Operative. The game also introduces new enemies, including the Vipers.
XCOM® 2 System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6 GHz, AMD Phenom 9950 Quad Core 2.6 GHz
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
CPU: Intel Quad Core 3 GHz
What Is a Difficult Game?
Difficult video games are often targeted towards the hardcore player or a player-base that has a certain interest in the genre it is released. They are not generally aimed at players searching for a quick game or a game to kill some time on, but rather intend to blend frustration with reward.
There is no set genre for the difficult games to fall into, they can be strategy games, like the XCOM games, RPG, such as the Baldur's Gate franchise or even rogue-like, such as Risk Of Rain.
Whatever the genre it is released for, a difficult game will focus on balance and fairness in exchange for the difficulty it offers. The Dark Souls series is famous for both its difficulty and fairness, it gives no guidance to players and lets them choose their own path and their own strategy with failure being more of a learning curve than a dead end.
Frustration is part of the process of playing a difficult game. Games such as Cuphead offer a challenge but gives the player the small hint of hope and belief that the next try will lead to success. It is this careful balance between frustration and success that can make a difficult game addicting.
Difficult games can be for everyone, though they tend to have a dedicated player-base they offer reward in the way of personal dedication, strength and character to continue forward and even complete.
They make us go back to them time and time again, feeling like the next try is the one that results in success, giving us value for money. It is all of these factors that make difficult games popular, and the challenge of beating them is what separates the casual from the hardcore gamers.
This is where Tags come in.
Why Are We Doing a Top 15 most hardest game List?
In the world of hardest Games, fantastic games can be found at incredible prices but you can also be at a greater risk of being left disappointed.
Not all games reach their potential and get a release, unfortunately many games are left abandoned by their developers or are even released in a poor state and are yet still available to purchase on Steam.
Steam is in the business of selling games and sometimes that can mean a drop in quality in order to get more titles onto the Steam Store and available for purchase.
At Allkeyshop, we believe in quality over quantity and because of that we use every bit of data that Steam offers and we use that to provide the most detailed analysis of a game's ranking.
How Do We Get Our Rankings?
Our rankings will take all available pieces of data into account, in particular we focus on the real ratings, real opinions and recommendations of those that play the game.
As a part of our ranking, we ensure that only those that own the game, have it currently available in their library and are logged into their account can vote for their favourite games. This, along with our other data, ensures we have the most accurate ranking system possible.
We only show the top 15 games so that you are not overwhelmed with hundreds of games and swamped in too much data. We plan on refreshing our top 15 each week, but we may change this plan if we find it has a real demand from you, our users.
Allkeyshop is a price comparator site with the intention of giving players the best price possible for the best games available. We remain fully impartial on prices and sellers, displaying both online sites and platforms such Steam, Origin and Epic, and we remain completely impartial on the rating of those games that we highlight in our rankings.
Our rankings are based on our users with no influence from us and we will remain impartial on the ratings and the rankings of all games.


Fasten your seatbelts, and prepare to head to the sky using your Uber mobile app... maybe in the next few years. An executive that has been newly hired at Uber could signal that the taxi-hailing firm is ramping up its research on flying cars.
As reported by BBC, former National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineer Mark Moore will become part of Uber's executive team. Moore was hired to serve as director of engineering for aviation within Uber's Elevate division.
Moore has been working on the possibility of making flying cars available in the near future. The former NASA engineer even released a paper around the use of electric propulsion for aircraft.
WZZM 13 reported that Moore is putting his money on Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to execute and lead the development of flying cars. The former NASA engineer strongly believes that Uber is well positioned to be the leader in the vertical take-off and landing on-demand aviation game.
Uber has not been secretive about its plan to venture into flying cars. In October 2016, the taxi-hailing firm released a white paper regarding vertical take-off and landing on-demand aviation. The taxi-hailing firm believes that flying cars will be the perfect response to alleviate transportation congestion on Earth.
Prior to joining Uber, Moore has been one of the key members of NASA Langley Research Center. He was due to receive his retirement benefits in a year before he announced that he will help the taxi-hailing firm in its flying cars quest.
Moore believes that Uber is not aiming to just churn out a prototype flying cars. He thinks that the taxi-hailing firm will actually want to develop the technology that will make flying cars possible and commercially viable. While Uber is optimistic about the future of its project, the taxi-hailing firm warned that it might take several years before a noteworthy development could be seen.
Jobs & Hire previously reported that the Uber CEO recently left President Donald Trump's economic advisory council.


A Conversation with Sébastien Roux | The Bottom Line "The Drawing Center"
On April 16th, The Drawing Center will present a listening session for Inevitable Music by the French composer Sébastien Roux. Roux's electronic score was created by translating Sol LeWitt's instructions for wall drawings into instructions for music. In the context of The Drawing Center's exhibition Drawing Dialogues: Selections from the Sol LeWitt Collection, which opens April 14th, Roux's music will highlight the link between drawing and musical notation demonstrated by a number of works on view.
This week, as Roux prepares for his performance, Curatorial Intern Allie Wilkinson takes a few moments to learn more about his process and the influence of LeWitt on his work.
Sébastien Roux, Inevitable Music, Variations on Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing #260 LP, 2014.
Allie Wilkinson: Describe your first encounter with Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawings. In that moment, did you know you would translate them into music?
Sébastien Roux: I first discovered Sol LeWitt's wall drawings at Dia:Beacon in 2010. [Dia:Beacon's] exhibition features thirteen wall drawings conceived between the late 1960s and the early 1970s. At that time, I was very interested in graphic notations (such as the first notations by Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, etc.) as well as "musical" paintings by Paul Klee, Mondrian, etc. This interest led me to develop the principle of "sonic translation." Sonic translation consists of using an existing work (a novel, image, film…) as a score for a new sound piece. When I saw LeWitt's wall drawings, I immediately saw graphic notations. On the train ride back to New York, I had the idea to make them audible.
What makes LeWitt's artwork "translate" so well into music?
During one of our first conversations about LeWitt's work, Béatrice Gross told me that LeWitt was a great music lover. He would spend his afternoons listening to music (everything from Bach to contemporary music). Moreover, he supported composers such as Steve Reich by purchasing their first scores (which, to this day, are in the LeWitt Collection). He also collaborated with Philip Glass for Dance by Lucinda Childs.
Thus, we can imagine that music influenced his work. For example, the formal structure of Bach's The Well- Tempered Clavier, which rigorously explores all major and minor keys, is echoed in LeWitt's Incomplete Open Cubes, in which he identifies all 122 variations of a three-dimensional cube with different sides missing. For these reasons, and many others, music is present in LeWitt's work.
Steve Reich, First version of reductions from Drumming, 1970. Graphite on staff paper, 12 x 9 1/4 inches. © Copyright 1971 by Hendon Music, Inc. Revised, © Copyright 2011 by Hendon Music, A Boosey & Hawkes Company. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Shown by Permission for the Exclusive use of The Drawing Center, 2016.
In your opinion, what is the link between artist and composer?
I think of what Alvin Lucier wrote: "I have often thought of LeWitt as a musician." It's an interesting analogy. Just as the composer writes a score that will be played by musicians, LeWitt gives a series of instructions to the draftsman who will execute his drawing.
How do you choose the sounds you use? Do you attempt to echo the form of a line with the form of the sound?
For a good number of his wall drawings, LeWitt uses simple forms and primary colors. To create a sonic analogy, I used simple electronic sounds, basic elements of electronic music vocabulary, namely: sine waves, saw tooth waves, square waves, and white noise.
The "straight lines" are continuous sounds, the "broken lines" are pulsed sounds, and the "not straight lines" are sounds with vibrato. The lines that go up are ascending sounds, the lines that go down are descending sounds, and the horizontal lines are stable sounds.
Michael Benjamin Vedder (pictured here) and Tim Wilson drawing Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #1271, Scribbles 12 at The Drawing Center for "Drawing Dialogues: Selections from the Sol LeWitt Collection," opening April 15th.
Why did you choose to include a voice component at the beginning of each piece?
Presenting the score affects the listener in two different ways. One the one hand, the listener might try to imagine the piece a priori and then compare that with what he or she hears. On the other hand, knowing that there is only one compositional gesture, the form of the piece given by the translation, the listener knows that there is nothing else to expect but this one score. The listener does not expect a succession of gestures or effects that will revive his or her attention. The listener can therefore fully immerse him or herself in listening to the sound, without trying to find compositional clues.
By presenting the score orally, sometimes even indicating the length of the pieces, the listeners know what to expect and can be at home with pieces that have a wide variety of run times (from 15 seconds to 15 minutes).
Finally, the intervention of the voice creates pauses for the listener, who can relax his or her "musical attention" for a few seconds.
Sol LeWitt created hundreds of wall drawings. Can you explain how you chose the wall drawings you reference in Inevitable Music?
For the listening session at the Drawing Center, I chose Wall Drawings #43, #260, and #422.
I chose these drawings for the beauty, simplicity, and quasi-mathematical rigor of their formulation, and for the admirable visual result.
As with most of the tracks of Inevitable Music, my starting point is the list of instructions given by LeWitt, rather than the drawing itself.
What interests me with Wall Drawing #43 is how the instructions, "All Two-Part Combinations of White Arcs from Corners and Sides, and White Straight, Not-Straight, and Broken Lines," describe an ensemble rather than a drawing created sequentially: uniform dispersion, maximum density. Also, the use of simple motifs: straight lines, primary colors and black. Wall Drawings #260 and #422 are sequential; they aren't ensembles like #43. They start with a set of simple forms and explore all the possible combinations. Then, #260 explores all the pairs, and gives rise to a uniform piece, while #422 proposes all the combinations, from the most simple (one-part) to the most complex (four part) and takes the form of an accumulation, a crescendo with an abrupt ending.
Drawing Dialogues: Selections from the Sol LeWitt Collection is curated by Claire Gilman, Senior Curator, and Béatrice Gross, Guest Curator and LeWitt scholar.
Allie Wilkinson, Curatorial Intern, is a New York-based artist, independent curator, and educator.


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Andritz Oy, Varkaus. Feacibility studies for civil works. 2018–2019.
Neste Engineering Solutions Oy, Baltic Connector Oy, Inkoo. Project engineer. 2018–2019.
Boreal Bioref Oy, Kemijärvi.Pre-construction works of Kemijärvi biorefinery. 2018.
Kemira Oyj, PoRe-project. Construction management, Construction manager. 2018.
Neste Engineering Solutions Oy, Venator Oy, Pori. Project engineer, Civil works supervisor, Mechanical works supervisor. 2018.
Stora Enso Oyj, DP 2, Enocell, Uimaharju. Construction works civil supervision. 2018.
Lahti Energia Oy, KYVO3-project. Project management, construction management and supervision. 2017–2019.
Metsä Fibre Oy, Äänekoski, Innovation Center. Project management and civil works supervision. 2017–2018.
Outotec (Finland) Oy. EPC/EPCM tendering prosess. Office Construction Manager. 2017–2018.
Stora Enso Oyj, Flash dryer -project, Kaukopää, Imatra. Project management and civil works supervision. 2017–2018.
Forestal Oriental S.A., Taurus, phase 1, Uruguay. Pre-construction works. 2017–2018.
Fennovoima Oy, Hanhikivi. Cost accounting for administrative buildings. 2017.
Fortum Power and Heat Oy, Mäntyluoto ash handling. Monitoring of construction work, safety coordination. 2017.
Fortum Power and Heat Oy. Post-calculation concept development for CHP-plant projects. 2017.
Sweco Industry, Sweco/Kemira Soihtu. Project management and monitoring of construction works. 2016–2017.
UPM-Kymmene Oyj, Kau740-project. Construction work monitoring. 2016.
Andritz Oy, Varkaus, Riikinvoima, Leppävirta. Riikinneva waste incinetration plant. Contsruction management and monitoring, safety coordination. 2015–2017.
Kotkamills Oy, Flying Eagle 2 -project, board machine. Construction management and monitoring. 2015–2017.
Agnico Eagle Oy, Kittilä mine, Kittilä. Central pumping stations, level 333 and 847. Project and construction management, civil works supervision and HSE-coordination. 2018–2019.
Agnico Eagle Oy, Kittilä mine, Kittilä. Paste plant and concentrator plant expansions. Shaft project construction manager duties. 2017–2020.
Agnico Eagle Oy, Kittilä mine, Kittilä. Main level 900 -project. Project management consultancy, project management and civil works supervision, HSE- coordinator duties.
Karstula municipality, Karstula, Common school project. Project planning. 2018.
Askola municipality, Monninkylä school and municipality sports area. Project planning. 2018.
Real estate company Ekenäs fix. Construction manager. 2018.
Real estate company Jyväskylän Ahjokatu 11. Turnkey project. Client´s construction manager and civil works supervision 2017–2019.
Real estate company Rautalammintien Huippu, Rautalammintie 3-5. Construction management and monitoring. 2017–2019.
Doka Finland Oy, Selki washing hall. Construction management and monitoring. 2017–2018.
Renta Oy, Renta Lahti office. Construction management and monitoring. 2017–2018.
Ramirent Finland Oy, Suutarila, Tapulikaupungintie Helsinki, Ramirent Nurmijärvi, Ramirent Kouvola, Ramirent Hyvinkää. Expansion and alteration works. Construction management and monitoring. 2017–2018.
Raskone Oy, Raskone Joensuu, Raskone Jyväskylä. Construction management and monitoring. 2017.
Fastighets Ab Ekenäs-Fix, Concept & Contract Oy. Raasepori town hall 2nd floor modification for disableds. Construction management and civil works supervision. 2017.
Sagafurs Oyj, Concept & Contract Oy, Pyymosentie 6–8. Construction management and civil works supervision. 2017.
MRL Lehtonen Oy, Renta Lahti. Kasaajankatu 26, Lahti, Construction management and HVAC and civil works supervision 2017.
Askola municipality. Comprehensive school of Askolan kirkonkylä. Civil works supervision. 2016–2018.
Doka Finland Oy, Project Selki. Construction management and monitoring. 2016–2017.
City of Helsinki, Meat wholesale market hall step 2 and 3. Construction management and monitoring. 2016–2017.
Julius Tallberg-Kiinteistöt Oyj, KOY Keravan Huhtimontie 16–18. Europress office. Construction management and monitoring. 2016.
Real estate Company Arkadiankatu 23, OP-Henkivakuutus Oy Construction management and monitoring. 2015–2017.
City of Helsinki Real Estate Department, Helsinki wholesale market, Helsinki. 3rd stage of distillery Construction management and monitoring.
Central Finland Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment. Improvement of Road 640 at Vuonteensalmi Bridge, Laukaa. Safety coordinator and construction monitoring. 2018–2019.
Ilmatar Energy Oy, Pyhäntä, Kajaani. Piiparinmäki–Murtomäki wind power project. Initial surveys of construction. 2018.
Vattenfall Oy, Äänekoski. Construction management of Hietama Fish Ladder project. 2018.
Boreal Bioref Oy, Kemijärvi. Kemijärvi Biorefinery Project. Infra structure pre-engineering duties. 2018.
Finnish Transport Agency, Saimaa Canal, Lappeenranta. Canal Locks Extension project. Engineering coordination. 2018.
Finnish Transport Agency, Highway 4 (European route E75) Joutsa–Kanavuori, Joutsa, Toivakka. worksite monitoring and safety coordinator. 2018.
Finnish Transport Agency, Kimola Canal, Iitti, Kouvola. Construction management and quality control. 2017–2019.
City of Jyväskylä. Client´s consulting with Paving and road marking works. 2017–2019.
City of Jyväskylä. Äijälänsalmi bridge, Jyväskylä. Bridge renovation supervision. 2017–2018.
City of Jyväskylä. Construction of Ritopohja road, Jyväskylä. Construction work monitoring. 2017–2018.
Forestal Oriental S.A., Uruguay. Montevideo – Paso de los Toros. Railway and infrastructure projects Engineering management and coordination. 2016–2017.
Metsä Fibre Oy MFBTT-project, Äänekoski. Bio-Product Plant Project management, supervision and consulting for infrastructure works (about 70 M €). 2015–2017.
Fortum Power and Heat Oy, Fortum-Loviisa. Automation revision. Installation monitoring. 2018.
International Paper, Madrid, E&I Construction Manager. Installation monitoring. 2018.
International Paper, Madrid, E&I Piping Construction Manager. Installation monitoring. 2018.
Terrafame Oy, Talvivaara. Coordination of automation testing. 2018.
Valmet Technologies Oy, PCADR3PR-projekti. Installation monitoring. 2018.
Valmet Technologies Oy, BALANCE, Skowhegan PM1 Rebuilt, USA. Installation monitoring. 2018.
Valmet Technologies Oy, HCSTFR1P-project. Installation monitoring. 2018.
Lahti Energia Oy, KYVO3-project. Project management, construction work monitoring and . installation monitoring. 2017–2019.
Specialty Minerals Nordic OY AB. PCC plant, Äänekoski, Supervising and Site Management. 2017.
Sumitomo SHI FW Energia Oy, Sumitomo. Installation planning. 2017.
Valmet Technologies Oy, PM1Green-project. Installation monitoring. 2017.
Valmet Technologies Oy, CYPM2, Cheng Yang 2. Installation monitoring. 2017.
Amec Foster Wheeler Service (Thailand) Ltd. E&I Senior Advisor. Installation monitoring. 2015–2016.
Amec Foster Wheeler Service Ltd., Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu-project. Installation monitoring. 2015–2016.
Valmet Technologies several projects, installation monitoring.
Amec Foster Wheeler South Korean projects, installation monitoring.
Foster Wheeler Service CHP power plant project, Yeosu, South Korea, electricity/automation monitoring.
AmecFoster Wheeler Mong Duong, Vietnam, electricity/automation monitoring.
AmecFoster Wheeler DANGJIN4-CHP, South Korea, electricity/automation monitoring.
Valmet Technologies Sappi/FFF, Austria, automation/instrumentation monitoring.
Pöyry Oy Agnico Eagle Scrubber, Kittilä, Worksite manager.
Andritz Oy Riikinneva power plant, Leppävirta, Finland, Construction management and worksite monitoring.
Valmet Technologies WeycoL3R project, automation/instrumentation monitoring.
Foster Wheeler Energia Sanko project, Bio-energy power plant project, Turkey, electricity/automation monitoring.
Foster Wheeler Service Ycogen Hanwha CHP power plant project, Yeosu, South Korea, electricity/automation monitoring.UPM-Kymmene Kymi700 project, Pulp mill renovation, Kuusankoski, Finland, Worksite manager.
Imatran Lämpö Bio-heating centre 2x15MW, Construction worksite monitoring.
Foster Wheeler Energia Oy Varkaus, boiler pipeline's 3D design at worksite, Samcheok, South Korea.
Helsinki Wholesale market Whisky distillery facility, Project management.
Kuulcon Oy Finland, Suomalaistentie commercial centre. Project management.
City of Jyväskylä Finland, development of Kangas area. Construction management and worksite monitoring.
Foster Wheeler Energi AB BIO CFB power plant project, Lund, Sweden.
Stora Enso, Poland S.A. Narew PM5, Ostroleka, Poland. Extensions to the waste water management plant and waste water treatment. Project management.
Central Finland Health Care District Väistö4, radiation hospital, Jyväskylä, Finland. Construction management.
Metso Paper Oy Kipas, Turkey. Electricity monitoring and testing.
Agnico Eagle Finland Mill Expansion project / Pöyry Finland. Worksite manager.
Metsä Board Simpele, KK3 mechanical installation monitoring.
Citycon Forum stage 2, Jyväskylä, Finland. Construction management and worksite monitoring.
Citycon Oyj Forum, Jyväskylä, Finland. Construction management and Project management.
City of Jyväskylä Palokka youth home. Construction management and worksite monitoring.
Vantaan Energia Oyj / Pöyry Finland Oy Waste incineration plant JV1 project. Worksite manager duties.
LLC Foster Wheeler Energia NOVO project, Novocherkasskaya, Russia. Boiler expert duties.
UPM-Kymmene Oyj LUNA project, Lappeenranta, Finland. Bio-refinery construction work monitoring.
Lappeenrannan Lämpövoima Oy / SAV Oy auxiliary power project. Mertaniemi power plant renovation worksite management.
Fortum Oyj / Pöyry Finland Oy Järvenpää, Finland, CHP project. Bio-energy power plant construction worksite management and monitoring.
Stora Enso Poland S.A Narew PM 5 project, Ostroleka, Poland.
Andritz Punta Pereira S.A. Montes del Plata, Pulp mill project, Uruguay. Construction worksite management.
Kuopio Energia Oy Management of automation and electricity work at Kuopio Energia Oy's Haapaniemi heating power plant.
Metso Power Oy Occupational health and safety management of Metso Power Oy -owned Lahti Energia's gasification power plant worksite.
Ilim Pulp / Metso Power Oy Bratsk, Russia. Management of recovery boiler installations.
Jyväskylän Voima Oy Keljo CHP power plant. Organisation of construction sourcing, construction management duties.
Andritz Punta Pereira S.A. Finland, Boiler facility worksite manager duties.
Datavault Finland Oy Management of server room to be built in Kanavuori, Vaajakoski, Finland.
Citycon Oyj Construction and project management.


It's no secret that some people love spending superlative amounts of money on gifts for their loved ones, even though relationships between lovers can sometimes be tumultuous at best.
Some individuals, however, go well over the top and give some truly mind-boggling gifts.
10. Katy Perry – $200,000 space ticket.
This gift was for then-husband Russell Brand. Perry bought tickets for a flight on Sir Richard Branson's 'Virgin Galactic' spacecraft.
The spacecraft breaks through Earth's atmosphere into space, and then falls back to Earth, allowing the users to feel weightlessness for 5 minutes, just like an astronaut.
Kanye West bought Kim Kardashian 10 Burger Kings so she can be catered for all around the world. This includes places such as the UK and Italy.
The starlet can be sure to never run out of burgers.
Jamie Foxx, good friend of RDJ was apparently disappointed when he saw that he had purchased a Malibu Ranch and had empty stables. So he did what any good pal would do. He bought RDJ two horses.
The horses were thoroughbreds, and RDJ was thoroughly impressed. RDJ reciprocated by giving Foxx his 1967 Vintage Camino which he drove in the original Iron Man film.
7. Mike Tyson for Robin Givens – $2 Million Bathtub.
Mike Tyson once bought himself a Bengal Tiger, but even that pales in comparison to what he bought former wife Robin Givens.
Tyson splashed out $2 million on a pure gold bathtub. Literally worth its weight in gold.
6. Beyoncé to Jay-Z – $2 Million Bugatti Veyron Sport.
The Bugatti Veyron is one of the world's fastest car. Reaching 100/km an hour from a standstill in just 2.2 seconds, this machine has mind-boggling speed and power along with no expenses skipped on luxury.
This was Beyoncé's way to top Jay-Z's gift to her the previous year – a $1 million Rolls Royce.
Actor Richard Burton gave his wife Elizabeth Taylor an extraordinarily expensive gift – a diamond which was worth 1 million USD in 1972. The diamond came from South Africa and was an astounding 69.42 carats.
When Taylor auctioned the diamond again in 1978, it was sold for 5 million USD.
Brad Pitt is a huge fan of architecture – so Jolie did what anyone with millions of dollars in disposable income would do. She bought him and island and designed him a house in the style of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Fallingwater'.
As Beckham's wife is a fan of wine and wine making, he bought Victoria an entire Californian vineyard. On top of this he produced a bottle of wine from the vineyard with Victoria's name on it.
Although technically not a birthday gift, the French government gave the American government The Statue of Liberty in 1886. Now a priceless piece of architecture, the statue cost the French 530,000 USD to build in 1886, and its base cost 280,000 USD in the same year.
Viewed as the embodiment of luxurious love, this amazing building was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal in 1632. It is made of pure white marble, took 22 years to build with 20,000 workmen and cost 32,000,000 Indian Rupees to build at the time.
Unfortunately, Mumtaz Mahal died while giving birth to the Emperor's 14th son. The Taj Mahal is a tribute to her life and love.
As one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world, The Taj Mahal is obviously not for sale, and valuing it is impossible. One thing we know for sure is that it is surely the biggest gift ever!
What is the most expensive birthday present you've ever given anyone? Do you know about any other extravagant birthday presents? Share them with us by typing in the box below. Share this article with a friend if you liked it and connect with us using the social media bar below.


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Wow! I love how in-depth you went on speaking your mind. I feel that the world is starting to go a lot more digital in the near future, and the only way people are going to start learning how to do REAL work and not trying to find shortcuts around everything. It would increase business expenses, but could actually benefit them in the long run. Rather than hiring an entire company to do that work for them, they can keep it in house, and easier to communicate with.
I've actually just created an app that is focused on making Digital Marketing and SEO companies lives a lot easier! It will help keep them in order, and make sure they aren't falling behind on projects! I would love for you or any of your visitors to come check it out, it's a great marketing campaign management tool! If you are interested in trying it with our 14 day free trial, go to www.workado.com!
Again, great post, and I would love to see the education system teaching individuals how to do SEO to it's full potential!
Great tips here. I also believe Workado will be an asset to manage campaigns as you can categorize tasks/needs based on individual marketing campaigns.
The Hangover picture totally sums it up.
My digital agency is actually going through a rebrand, so this was great timing. What I took away most was that you didn't setup 301 redirects right away. You left the old site up. We have plans for the content, but had always just planned on 301 redirects for the old pages. I can see the benefit in holding out though and letting the news of the rebrand sink in a little bit. I also wonder if there's SEO benefit by NOT having a new domain skyrocket with a bunch of forwarded links? I think it makes sense provided all of the content is unique of course.
I am glad this is starting to happen. There have always been so many issues with relying on keyword rankings. Especially when personalization and localization came into the picture. Two people in the same office would get different results, let alone what a keyword ranking software would find with their servers that were in another state.
Cutts has said you don't have to do the manual outreach anymore - you can just simply submit the links through Disavow.
Fantastic post, but I'll be honest...these comments are great to read as well. Very insightful feedback.
What a fantastic walkthrough Matthew. Pocketed this one to come back through this later when we're at the point of needing to push the content buttons!
Love the idea of building a story around the content, but that's a lot of manual work it seems. How much of your time is spent on compiling the reports for clients? Do you have that factored into their budgets?
I am actually really surprised there are so few profiles with "content marketing" in them. I think that prediction is going to be hit for sure. #2 would certainly be fascinating and scary at the same time!
I like breaking it up in order to better suit the budget as well versus just doing everything. This allows you to still do what you need to do, while not spending hours on end with a limited budget client that isn't paying for your time.
Would love to see a follow up post in a month or so to see the progress. Like one of the original commenters, I'm very curious to see if some sort of 'penalty' catches up to the new domain. I hope not as you guys have a legitimate product. Best of luck!
Wow - very nice tool. I had not heard of this, but see the potential given your great walk-through. Look forward to getting my hands on Realtime and seeing what comes of it!


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Brig. Gen Benard Wayne Gann, U.S.A.F., Ret.
Brigadier General Benard Wayne Gann, age 80, returned to his Heavenly Father on November 20, 2020. Ben was a great American patriot, husband, father, grandfather, and brother. We weep at the loss and at the same time are grateful to God that such men lived. He was a true hero. Ben was born December 28, 1939 in Nacogdoches, Texas. He attended Center High School where he was an accomplished student and athlete. In 1962 he earned his BBA from Baylor University where he met his future wife, Genelle Amason of Corpus Christi. In 1963, he began his Air Force career. He attended Air Command and Staff College, Air War College, and received a master's degree in Guidance and Counseling from Troy State University. He was an accomplished pilot and leader who accrued 6,000 flying hours. He served three tours of duty in Vietnam and Panama, commanded two combat bomb wings, and rose through the ranks to Brigadier General. Because of his courage and humility, he was admired and respected by those with whom he served. General Gann was awarded many commendations including the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, and the prestigious Defense Distinguished Service Medal. In 1995, Ben, Genelle and their family moved to Tyler, Texas, where he became a financial advisor. He was very involved in the community and in the church he loved, Marvin United Methodist. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Genelle, their son Scott, granddaughters, Deven and Avery; son Mason, his fiancé, Doctor Angela Smith, twin grandsons, Miles and Matthew; daughter, Ashley Lowrance and husband, Jason, grandchildren, Wyatt, Everett and Catherine; his sister, Edwina Samford, nephews, Randall and Jeffrey, niece, Sherry Oliver and husband, Ben. General Gann will be buried with military honors at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery with a private ceremony. A memorial service will be planned at a later date in Tyler, Texas. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Eternal Flame Fund at Marvin UMC, 300 West Erwin St., Tyler, Texas 75702. "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth…I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of God." From "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr.
Brigadier General Benard Wayne Gann, age 80, returned to his Heavenly Father on November 20, 2020. Ben was a great American patriot, husband, father, grandfather, and brother. We weep at the loss and at the same time are grateful to God that... View Obituary & Service Information
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Buol is a language of Indonesia. It is spoken in Central Sulawesi Province, Paleleh, Bunobogu, Bokat, Momunu, Biau, and Baolan subdistricts, 68 villages. North coast, near Gorontalo Province border.
Lexical similarity: 61% with Totoli (See: Totoli).


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CEO Talks: Kate Spade's Liz Fraser on New Store Design Concept, a ThredUp Deal and the Color Green
Financial Uncertainty Looms as Lanvin Awaits Fresh Capital
The label's majority owner Shaw-Lan Wang pledged new funds in coming weeks.
By WWD Staff Plus Icon
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December 20, 2017, 12:42pm
PARIS — With no public sign yet of the cash injection pledged by Taiwanese media magnate Shaw-Lan Wang in the coming weeks, French fashion label Lanvin faces an uphill battle to alleviate concerns about its financial health.
Majority owner Wang last month said she would inject funds into the company to "support future initiatives," noting the plan was also to announce "several areas of development" in the coming weeks.
"We haven't heard anything new," about additional funds for the company, said an employee who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
One source suggested new funds might come in the form of a license deal to create hotels and resorts under the Lanvin name, but a company spokeswoman denied such a project was in the works: "There is currently no license project — that is not part of the house's strategy today."
A general assembly meeting with the company's board and management initially planned for today has been postponed, and a new date has not been set, the spokeswoman said.
"Management is working very, very hard to ensure that things go well," she added.
In another test for Lanvin, Wang is due to appear at an arbitration hearing at the International Chamber of Commerce today in a case that pits the Lanvin owner against the label's former creative director, Alber Elbaz, sources told WWD.
Elbaz is seeking outstanding compensation from his past employer, according to sources; the designer was dismissed in October 2015 before the end of his contract. Elbaz, who drove the label's striking ascent over a 14-year period, is said to be asking for around nine months of outstanding salary. Two years ago, a lawyer representing the Lanvin works council, Isabelle Schucké-Niel of law firm Schucké-Niel Avocats, estimated the severance package for Elbaz could reach between 20 million and 40 million euros.
Johann Sultan of CBR & Associés, at the time, countered that it was up to Elbaz to reimburse excess payments, saying the designer had been compensated in advance for work through the end of 2015.
It is also understood Elbaz holds an equity stake in Lanvin via a Luxembourg-based holding known as Blue Water. Elbaz's lawyer declined to comment Tuesday. Sultan did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Schuké-Niel said she is no longer involved in the case.
Lanvin has struggled to find its footing since departing with Elbaz, following disagreements between the designer and Wang over the company's direction. Recent change at the company includes the appointment of two successive creative directors and a new chief executive officer amid the resignation of board members. Following the July appointment of Olivier Lapidus as designer, replacing Bouchra Jarrar after an only two-season run, two board members including minority shareholder Ralph Bartel resigned.
As previously reported, an auditor for the label recently issued a warning over its financial situation. Sales have been in decline since a peak of 235 million euros in 2012, falling 23 percent to 162 million euros last year when the house marked a net loss of 18.3 million euros — its first loss in nearly a decade.
The financial situation has put Lanvin under pressure to sell assets or grant licenses to raise cash, with one source estimating while there are "a few months in the till," the company could run out of money in the near future.
Funds injected into Lanvin since Wang acquired the company in 2001 from L'Oréal have come from selling off parts of the business, sources said. This includes a license deal in 2002 with Itochu Corp., allowing the Japanese company to import and produce Lanvin products in Japan.
As reported, the company is said to have the option in 2025 to buy back its trademark registrations in the cosmetics class that Wang sold for 22 million euros to Interparfums SA in August 2007. The investment community frowned on the move at the time, saying it diminished the valuation of the fashion house.
The price Lanvin would pay in 2025 is linked to its turnover in the category generated by Interparfums SA. Interparfums SA is believed to have suggested to Lanvin this summer that it could postpone that option by a decade in exchange for a cash payment now, an idea sources said was welcomed by Wang as a means to inject money into the Lanvin fashion business.
Given the current complexity of the situation at Lanvin's fashion activity, discussions about postponing the trademark license are off the table, according to industry sources. Philippe Benacin, chairman and ceo of Interparfums SA, could not be reached for comment.


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Blues During the Pandemic
By Scott Barretta
Fall 2021 Issue: Performances and the Pandemic
For well over a century, blues artists have demonstrated remarkable tenacity in the face of a wide range of hardships—racism, financial exploitation, and harsh physical conditions. The last year and a half of cancellations, lost financial opportunities, and relative social isolation, however, have presented a new set of challenges. Here, I'll share the Covid stories of some artists, address how the blues scene has adapted to the pandemic, and recount some of my own experiences out in the field.
Since 1999 I've been actively covering the Mississippi blues scene in my roles as a writer and researcher for the Mississippi Blues Trail, a writer for various magazines and newspapers, host of the weekly radio show Highway 61 on Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and as editor and continuing contributor to Living Blues magazine. Notably, I spent much of the summer of 2020 out in the field working on an assignment for Living Blues. I've also had the fortune to do blues associated projects as a podcaster, filmmaker, speaker, and via museum work, while my main gig is teaching sociology at the University of Mississippi, where my classes include Anthropology of Blues Culture. And I hope it goes without saying that I'm a big fan of the music and have befriended many artists, including those featured here.
Above (main image): Southern Soul star Nathaniel Kimble with his son Nathaniel, Jr. in Benoit, MS. This photo was taken in June 2020 during a photo shoot for the Delta issue of Living Blues. Photo courtesy of Scott Barretta. Right: Bill Steber photographing musician and visual artist Bobby Whalen at the Cozy Corner Cafe on Church Street in Indianola. Whalen painted the murals on the building. Photo courtesy of Scott Barretta.
The first thing that's important to note are those who have passed away. Gospel-blues artist Reverend John Wilkins, the son of blues pioneer Robert Wilkins and a pastor at Hunter's Chapel in Como, looked like he was going to pull through after a long hospital stay that included intubation. However, he died on October 10, 2020, at age 76, just prior to the release of his wonderful new album, Trouble.
"It's not so much that I gave up mentally, I was so weak physically. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I just couldn't rest. I was too weak to drink water, I was too weak to walk, man. I felt like it was the end of my world. It was time to start making other plans, you know."
On Christmas Eve of that year, Greenville native Kern Pratt, who had last performed on December 4, died at just 55. He had been hospitalized for pancreatitis but then tested positive for Covid. A celebration of his life took place on September 25, 2021 (the day before his 56th birthday) at Greenville's Warfield Park; it was followed by a jam in his honor at the annual Sam Chatmon Festival in Hollandale.
Others were almost taken from us, including octogenarian Bobby Rush, who after months of rehabilitation triumphantly returned to performing, celebrated the release of a new biography, and received his second Grammy award for Rawer Than Raw.
"I got it on January 28th," says Rush. "There was zero cases at the time. They didn't know what it was. For about six months I lost all hope. I had faith that I would get well, but I didn't know if the public would come back. I didn't see it for a minute. That was a devastating thing for me to not see the end of the rainbow.
Things turned around, Rush says, when he received some encouragement from his brother, a pastor.
"One night he called me, he said, 'Get up and get your guitar.' I got up and got my guitar at midnight, I didn't put it down until eight or nine the next morning. I had my guitar on my arm for at least nine or ten hours. He didn't want me to give up, [but] to keep the faith."
Rush returned to work via the Internet in the early fall, doing events on Zoom and working with Cameo, a celebrity video message business.
"I'd do shout-outs at $50. They got so good I went up to $100. I was doing sometimes eight to ten shout-outs a week."
Rush's first "show" after recovering from the worst of his illness was a recorded segment he made at the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi for a fundraiser. His first live performance was on December 12, 2020, in Tunica.
"I did five or six songs, I could barely get off the bandstand because I was so tired, just wore out physically. I'm totally better now. I'm back mentally strong and physically strong, I'm ready to jump over the moon, I just can't find a moon, it's too cloudy."
Rush frames his experiences with Covid in terms of the broader challenges he's faced over his long life and career.
"Life is going to be after everything. I've been Black a long time, so life after being Black, what is after that? Covid isn't the worst thing that's happened to me. Everybody asks me about the George Floyd thing—I've had a foot on my neck for 87 years. I'm letting you know there's nothing new."
An acoustic performance from Bobby Rush's home in the Summer of 2020.
Rush's longtime collaborator Vasti Jackson took a 15-month break from playing live in the United States, but remained active in surprising ways because of his wide range of musical activities, including working in musicals and with international organizations. Jackson was at his home in Hattiesburg in early March 2020 when the pandemic cancellations began.
"It disrupted my world. My calendar had events in Europe from March all the way to October. So all of that stopped. Then people around me began to get sick, people were dying, so I began to isolate… living like I had Covid."
Since 2017, Jackson has portrayed Ike Turner in the European touring show, Simply the Best: The Tina Turner Story, for which he has also written songs and served as the musical director. Jackson was scheduled to return to the stage production in mid-2020 following various other commitments; as it turned out his return to playing music during the pandemic took place overseas.
"The company I work for in Germany called in August [2020] and said we'd like to do a residency at the Estrel Theater in Berlin—just going from my room to the theater. That was in September and part of October, seven weeks. Thank God, no one in the production or the audience tested positive for Covid. They were very stringent. They had Plexiglas between the singers, we couldn't come within however many feet of one another on stage and we had Plexiglas circles around the microphones."
Vasti Jackson (center) with his guitar students at Playing For Change Bizung School in Tamale, Ghana. Photo courtesy of Vasti Jackson.
While still in Germany, Jackson was contacted by friends from Ghana, who invited him to visit for what turned out to be a five week visit. And from Ghana, Jackson traveled to Rwanda, where he remained from November 23, 2020 to May 21, 2021.
Some of those friends were colleagues from the Playing For Change (PFC) Foundation, known for its collaborative videos of songs played by people around the world. Jackson has contributed to videos including the viral What's Going On, and worked with PFC projects including a collaboration with Saharan musicians in southern Morocco.
Vasti Jackson pictured with the great Moroccan vocalist, Oum El Ghaït Ben Essahraoui at Taraglat Festival in M'hamid El Ghizlane, Morocco. Photo courtesy of Vasti Jackson.
During his stay in Africa, Jackson also worked with the organizations Africa in Colors and Taste of Afrika.
"I had the opportunity to promote cultural exchange, for teaching and strengthening music industry ties. I was playing at schools, with performances in Accra, Ghana and Kigali, Rwanda. It was personally rewarding because I could feel the spirit of the ancestors and the root element of what we call blues in the motherland. Because the rhythm and the melodies are the heart, lung and liver of what we label the blues in Mississippi and the USA."
"The safety in both countries is very high. Their conscious commitment to be unified in following the instructions of social distancing, masking, lockdowns brought forth extremely low numbers in both countries."
Jackson returned to live performing in the U.S. on June 5, 2021, at the celebration of the expansion of the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola. The outdoor event also featured Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Gary Clark, Jr., Castro "Mr. Sipp" Coleman, and Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. Since then, he's appeared at Hattiesburg's Saenger Theater in the "Motown Downtown Revival," a tribute to Mississippians at the label that also featured G.C. Cameron and Robert "Duke" Tillman.
"...I could feel the spirit of the ancestors and the root element of what we call blues in the motherland. Because the rhythm and the melodies are the heart, lung and liver of what we label the blues in Mississippi and the USA."
In November 2020, Vasti Jackson visited Rwanda. He intended to stay for thirty days and instead stayed for six months. This video, "Rwandaful" is a tribute to the cultures of Rwanda and Mississippi.
The State of Blues in the Delta
Prior to the pandemic, I had committed to being the lead writer on a special issue of Living Blues on the Delta, which would entail spending weeks traveling around together with photographer Bill Steber. Underwritten by Visit Mississippi as well as local tourism entities, the issue was scheduled to come out in September 2020. As summer approached, it became clear that delaying this trip until things passed over wasn't an option. Normally Bill and I approach special issues—we've done a half-dozen or so—through traveling and rooming together, but out of caution we decided to drive separately, stay in different homes, and conduct more extensive phone interviews with artists after abbreviated meetings.
"There was a constant fear that you could pick up the virus on the road and transmit it to the very people whose stories that you're striving to help amplify and preserve."
"Doing this kind of work is always one of the great joys of my life, but this was particularly daunting," recalls Steber. "Because almost all of the work had to be done outdoors in the heat and observing strict protocols to protect the artists. There was a constant fear that you could pick up the virus on the road and transmit it to the very people whose stories that you're striving to help amplify and preserve. Many of the artists were older, and in fact two of the people that we worked with came down with Covid, just weeks after we visited them."
The work gave us insights into how a wide variety of artists were coping with the pandemic. Over several months, we met with over twenty-five musicians including Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Keith Johnson, Lucious Spiller, John Horton, and Anthony Sherrod, generally talking with them outdoors. It was a joy to be serenaded by musicians who brought their instruments for photo shoots, but we sorely missed the casual meals, performances, and leisurely hanging out that is normally an integral part of documentary work.
Far Left: During the summer of 2020, Scott Barretta and Bill Steber visited with about twenty blues musicians across the Delta. Steber is pictured photographing Christone "Kingfish" Ingram for the cover of Living Blues magazine. Photo courtesy of Scott Barretta. Left: Photographed by Bill Steber, blues musician, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram is pictured on the cover of the Delta issue of Living Blues magazine. Photo courtesy of Scott Barretta.
Talking to artists about how they had adjusted to the pandemic yielded information that normally doesn't come up during artist interviews. While some musicians lost their main source of income, others were able to continue with their regular day jobs that, given the generally low pay for gigs, often allowed them to be active in the blues. We met Greenville's John Horton on his bulldozer at a catfish farm in Itta Bena, Jake Brown (of "Jake and the Pearl Street Jumpers") of Cleveland at Dockery Plantation during a break from his upholstery shop, and Keith Johnson on the banks of the Mississippi River on a day off from his job in Human Resources at a Greenville casino.
Others were forced to turn to webcasting. In Clarksdale, Lucious Spiller was one of the first to do these shows and was likely the most active—for a year he played every Wednesday night, on Thursday afternoons (a time amenable to Europeans) and on most Saturdays, about as often as he normally performed. Aside from a fall off after the first weeks, support for the gigs—which was almost enough to pay the bills—remained steady until things began to open up in May of 2021. Spiller recently performed at the annual Sunflower River Blues Festival, which was cancelled in 2020.
Blues Tourism Continues Virtually
About five years ago, Clarksdale reached the milestone of live music seven days a week, 365 days a year, but that ended abruptly last March. Just prior to the shutdown, Colleen Buyers moved from California to Clarksdale to launch a tourism-oriented company, Shared Experiences. As Clarksdale shut down she launched the webcast series "Live From Clarksdale (LFC)," whose first non-venue broadcast was of Lucious Spiller. During the "Virtual Juke Joint Festival" in late March, LFC featured 27 acts over nine hours, with 10,000 people watching live and over 200,000 via social media sharing.
Since then the series has barely missed a day—an exception was when Ben Payton, who moved to Clarksdale in early 2021, didn't show up for a scheduled gig, and Buyers discovered that he had died at his home (apparently not Covid-related).
In the summer of 2020, Buyers assisted me when I hosted a Kennedy Center-sponsored event at Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art featuring Payton. We worked together as well during the hybrid Deep Blues Festival at the courtyard of Shack Up Inn at the roofless venue at the New Roxy, where the late Jackson musician Louis "Gearshifter" Youngblood played his final gig (also not directly Covid-related).
Scott Barretta and Colleen Buyers of "Live From Clarksdale" watch the late Ben Payton performing at Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art for the Kennedy Center's "Arts Across America" webcast series on August 27, 2000. Photo by Roger Stolle
According to Buyers, LFC has supported over fifty musicians, reaching about 40,000 people monthly, and sometimes as many as 200,000. Buyers sees her work as an extension of the projects of Roger Stolle of Cat Head and others who created the infrastructure that facilitated live music every night of the year. A major sponsor was Visit Clarksdale, and many of the broadcasts were from long-standing venues including Red's, Hambone Gallery, and Bluesberry Café.
"What's unique about Live From Clarksdale," says Buyers, "is the coordination—some call it cat-herding—between musicians and venues to make sure we covered all seven days a week, across a variety of venues, and that musicians didn't compete by playing at the same time. We all supported and promoted each other. We broadcast from over twenty cool and historic businesses in town, from Abe's BBQ to the front porch of Clark House."
LFC also featured virtual tours of Clarksdale, conversations about civil rights history, and engaged with regional blues societies, broadcast from the Blue Front Café during the 2021 Bentonia Blues Festival, and partnered with people from Brazil, Israel, and the Clarksdale Seoul Blues Exchange.
"It was really, really rough on a lot of artists, a lot of them were making music, they were looking for something to do...It was tough financially—when the shows shut down, the arenas and clubs shut down,
there wasn't anywhere to play."
Southern Soul and the Pandemic
The last show I attended before the world stopped was the "Put Up or Shut Up Blues Show" at the Leflore County Civic Center in Greenwood on March 7, 2020. It featured stars of "southern soul" including Willie Clayton, O.B. Buchana, Bigg Robb, and L.J. Echols, as well as local artists Narvell Echols and the Jay Morris Group. According to promoter Cyrieo Hughes of Greenwood's WGNL radio station, the $40 a ticket show was at capacity, with 2,700 attendees. It was the last event at the venue, which for six months in late 2020 and early 2021 became the headquarters for the civil rights-themed TV production, "Women of the Movement."
"It was really, really rough on a lot of artists, a lot of them were making music, they were looking for something to do," recalls Hughes. "It was tough financially—when the shows shut down, the arenas and clubs shut down, there wasn't anywhere to play. I follow a lot of them on social media, and they were bored. But there were a lot of live performances on Youtube and Facebook."
The contemporary Southern soul market is largely structured around multi-artist shows at large civic arenas, and it was only on July 9, 2021, when the first arena show resumed: the "Southern Soul Live" event during the 18th Annual Jackson, Mississippi, Black Rodeo at the Coliseum. But a glimpse around Facebook suggests that outdoor, multi-act festivals are flourishing across the state.
"When they came back most of them was doing track shows [vocalists singing to back-up tracks]. Some guys still use bands, like L.J. Echols and Willie Clayton, but the younger group seem to accept the tracks—they'll pay forty dollars to see a track show in Grenada, Coffeeville, I'm talking about three or four thousand people coming to them."
It's doubtful that the audience for more traditional blues will turn to track shows, but with the rise of the Delta variant it's likely that in the near future we'll see a relatively larger share of outdoor shows, particularly given Mississippi's warm fall weather. Jimmy "Duck" Holmes in Bentonia has hosted multiple events on the porch of the Blue Front Café since the summer of 2020, including one celebrating his nomination for a Grammy, and attendance was strong at multiple outdoor or partially outdoor festivals.
But relatively few clubs have the ability to stage shows outdoors, and concerns about Covid have limited attendance at some venues, particularly as many tourists in summer 2021 were leery about visiting the state. The return of the long-running jam session, Blue Monday at Hal and Mal's in Jackson, earlier this summer was cause for celebration, but it shut down again just a month later due to renewed health concerns.
Here's hoping that increased vaccination and the implementation of safer policies at clubs and festivals allow for musicians to start making a living and for the rest of us to enjoy the simple pleasures of live music once again.
Scott Barretta
Scott Barretta, a resident of Greenwood, is a writer/researcher for the Mississippi Blues Trail and teaches sociology, including music classes, at the University of Mississippi. He is the former editor of Living Blues magazine, hosts the radio show Highway 61 on Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and has written exhibits for the B.B. King Museum and the Grammy Museum Mississippi. In 2016 he received MAC's Governor's Arts Award.
Photo by James Patterson