text:
Home Attorney
Neena Speer's First Year in Law School Made Her Better Attorney — And an Author
by Clyde Osborne
in Attorney
At the time, Neena Speer felt that going through regulation school turned into the worst hand she might have been dealt.
"I almost flunked out," she said. "I went from honors student … to barely getting a 3.0 [grade point average]. … It simply messed with my psyche. … Then I was given out of regulation school, failed the bar, … [and] couldn't discover a job.
"All those stories can occur, so I stated, 'Why not write and tell [people] approximately a majority of these emotions they're going to experience, all this stuff they're going to go through? [Why not] tell any person exactly how they'll sense in that scenario and how to use it?'"
Those stories led Speer to write down "Dear Future Lawyer: An Intimate Survival Guide for the Minority Female Law Student," a e-book that walks the reader through Speer's stories at some point of each yr of regulation college. She attended the University of Alabama School of Law from 2014 until 2017—and nearly didn't make it through her first 12 months.
"I simply had to have a few ways to deal with the truth that I idea, 'If God was sending me right here, why the heck could He have me almost fail out of regulation school?'" she said.
One of the troubles Speer confronted was that she had received advice from those who had experienced law faculty in another way than she had and that they were telling her she wasn't doing enough.
"I was in every office of each instructor each week, asking [questions], doing my define, skipping football video games, going out maybe now and then, and I didn't do enough? It put me in an area or a mindset I didn't recognize how to recover from," she stated.
Speer determined to write down a humorous manner of looking at what she was going through to address it all.
"I met such a lot of specific characters and went via such a lot of distinct feelings. Had [someone] informed me I was going to sense like this, I might have felt a touch higher knowing … ahead that this [was] all the stuff I [would] undergo," she said. "So, I simply literally wrote down [everything from] my first yr of law school."
It has become healing, and he or she despatched it to a mentor.
"It became just a 'Dear Future 1L, [first year of law school], Note to Myself.' That's how [the process of writing the book] started," stated Speer, 26.
The reception becomes so sturdy that she determined to jot down another chapter for her 2d (2L) and 1/3 (3L) years.
"By the time I completed regulation school and flunked the bar, I wrote a graduate bankruptcy," Speer said. "Then I wrote a bar-exam-prep diary at the give up.".
Speer's mindset was that somebody goes to cope with what she dealt with and ask what regulation college become like for her. So, in preference to telling human beings, she determined to present them something to study and move through.
"I provide you with real-existence scenarios, actual belongings you're going to come upon," she said. "I wanted this e-book to be a reality check for humans like me—individuals who had in no way been to regulation school, folks who never had everybody in their instant own family visit regulation college, … [people who] don't recognize what to expect."
"Dear Future Lawyer: An Intimate Survival Guide for the Minority Female Law Student" is an "expectations ebook" that prepares law school students "for some of the humans they'll meet; the distinctive mindsets, emotional mindsets they'll go through, mainly within the first year," said Speer, who added that she doesn't sugarcoat her experiences. He or she needs people to have "the actual."
The end of each chapter asks readers to "gut take a look at themselves."
"Don't just study this. Talk to me. Have a verbal exchange with me." Speer said. "The e-book is written as a verbal exchange about expectancies, so it's meant a good way to have a conversation. I need people to write on those pages. … This ebook offers you the information you need from me and offers me the records I need to make you higher.
"It's a ebook wherein you could really explicit [yourself] and hear from any person without being interrupted. … It's like a safe area so that you can be uninterrupted with something that happened for your life, your regulation school reviews, or your … truth without having any individual say, 'Oh, wait, permit me to let you know about mine.' This is an area wherein you can be placed down your innermost thoughts, similar to I placed down my innermost thoughts."
Speer's e-book is written for lady minority regulation college students "sitting in a lecture room, feeling, 'I don't understand a way to do any of this. Sometimes I sense, just like the humans here, suppose less of me. Sometimes I experience just like the human beings right here, don't recognize how an awful lot I can add to the communique. I often don't even sense like I need to take a seat on this seat.' … It's for that woman. It's additionally for the same woman that was given up there and completed anyway."
Speer graduated from Homewood High School in 2010 and attended Howard University, wherein she double majored in psychology and French; she focused on the 2 subjects she turned into inquisitive about during high school.
"I became fluent in French," she said, "and psychology becomes just exact to apprehend human beings' minds."
After graduating from Howard, she attended the UA School of Law.
Before starting her own company, Speer stated she could not find a process. During her seek, she recalled something a mentor stated to her: "I don't, in reality, see you operating for anybody. I see you starting your own commercial enterprise."
That's precisely what Speer did. She opened Neena R. Speer Law Firm LLC in April 2018.
"By the time I got to January of this year, I turned into like, 'I can try this!' I felt so right that I could do it. … I just felt extra assured," said Speer, who is also a motivational speaker and a mentor thru her mentoring program called Step 1-2-3.
Clyde Osborne
Web fanatic. Organizer. Certified gamer. Friendly introvert. Freelance zombie maven. Set new standards for buying and selling easy-bake-ovens in Edison, NJ. In 2009 I was training rubik's cubes in Ohio. Spent high school summers working with bullwhips in Phoenix, AZ. Gifted in deploying tobacco in Naples, FL. Spent college summers getting to know teddy bears in Cuba. Developed several new methods for marketing Uno in Los Angeles, CA.
Jamestown Attorney Named To Super Lawyers List
Judge withdraws from Amendment four lawsuit after GOP
After 50 years, legal professional indicates no signal of slowing
From CSR spending to de-clogging of NCLT
Canada: Avoiding Independent Contractor Liability In M&A
Maill us: admin@lawcer.com
© 2022 lawcer - All Rights Reserved lawcer.


Does this happen to you? You buy the fancy natural peanut butter, you open it up, and there's about a half inch of oil on top. You try to stir it all together and get oil all over your hands and counter and despite your best efforts, the peanut butter is still dry and rock hard by the time you get to the bottom of the jar. Solution: before you open your jars of peanut butter, store them upside down. That way, the oil will float to the bottom. When you're ready to use it and turn it right side up, it's much easier to stir without that layer of oil on top.
Ginger is a pain to peel. It's too small for a regular peeler and using a paring knife is tough without cutting off all the little branches and knobby little protuberances. (Can we nominate "protuberance" as one of the ugliest words in the English language?) Solution: use a spoon. Yes, you can peel ginger with a spoon! Just scrape the skin right off with the edge.
These flavorful Peanut Udon Noodles can be served hot or cold, so they make a great lunch. Add more red pepper flakes or sriracha if you prefer your noodles spicy!
Cook udon noodles according to package directions. One minute before cooking time ends, add snow peas to pot. Drain and set aside.
Add noodles and snow peas back to pot. Stir in peanut sauce. Serve topped with roasted peanuts and additional sriracha, if desired.
I am not particularly a fan of peanut butter (gasp I know) BUT I do love it this way! Pass me a pair of chopsticks please.
I am making this right now and it smells wonderful! I love your blog and all the great recipes! I have tried several already and they are all top notch!
Thank you for your comment! 🙂 I hope this recipe turned out as good as the others!
I have always been a fan of peanut noodles. I am excited to try this recipe!
Good tip about the natural peanut butter! I have some discounted pb from the import store I need to use fast and this sounds really good.
Such great tips. I didn't know about turning the peanut butter upside down. Recipe sounds really good.
Delicious! I used organic mung bean fettuchini noodles from Earth Fare, and they worked amazing! The noodles had 20 grams of protein per serving which made this meal even more protein packed!
Ooh, I've never seen those noodles before! I'm going to have to look for them next time I'm at Earth Fare.
Have you tried this with almond butter? I ask because I have a jar and have no idea what to do with it because it turns out almond butter is gross…(purchased during an ill-advised cleanse where I was supposed to go paleo…which can be awesome food, but I spent the entire time focusing on what I couldn't eat and pretty convinced I was starving. Poor planning on my part).
Oh yes, me too. I can cut down on carbs and sugar, but cut them out altogether? No. Bad things would happen.
What type of noodle could I use instead of udon noodles?
Rice noodles, soba, and lo mein would work too. I've even seen peanut noodles made with whole wheat spaghetti!
Just lovely. Used soba noodles and stir fired with julienned carrot, spring onions, bit of fresh chilli. The sauce is wonderful, although I didn't (and wouldn't) add sugar. Quick and sooo tasty, will become a staple.
Thanks for this recipe! I added carrots and an egg in the stir fry pan. Topped it with some mint. Delicious and healthy.
Used soba noodles Looking so yummy. I love noodles. Thanks for sharing this amazing Recipe.
Soba noodles are great, too!


text:
package org.scalatest.examples.wordspec.oneinstancepertest

import org.scalatest._
import collection.mutable.ListBuffer

class ExampleSpec extends WordSpec with OneInstancePerTest {

  val builder = new StringBuilder("ScalaTest is ")
  val buffer = new ListBuffer[String]

  "Testing" should {
    "be easy" in {
      builder.append("easy!")
      assert(builder.toString === "ScalaTest is easy!")
      assert(buffer.isEmpty)
      buffer += "sweet"
    }

    "be fun" in {
      builder.append("fun!")
      assert(builder.toString === "ScalaTest is fun!")
      assert(buffer.isEmpty)
    }
  }

  //SCALATESTJS,NATIVE-ONLY def newInstance: Suite with OneInstancePerTest = new ExampleSpec
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Back in November last year I enthused that hot models got me thinking. Well, guess what? It turns out there are a few other people out there that like hot models.
Check out exploratree – a website full of thinking tools, guides, graphs and models. Complete with explanations! I can't wait to check out the site properly. There are plenty of tools futurists use regularly, and a few I haven't seen before. Let me know what you think.


A new rugby club for girls in Kippax celebrated a great first season along with local Councillors.
Councillors James Lewis, Mary Harland and Keith Wakefield (Labour, Kippax & Methley) provided £200 towards the end of season celebrations held by Kippax Kangaroos, a girl's Rugby League club set up in February this year.
The new club, based at the Kippax Welfare Sports and Social Club, currently have under-12 and under-14 teams. The girls have had a great season and Councillors Lewis, Wakefield and Harland were happy to have been able to fund their awards night which included a DJ, food and other entertainment.
Awards for Club Person, Most Improved Player, Players' Player and Coaches' Player of the Year Awards were granted to Brogan Herbert, Charlotte Milner, Abbey Burton and Jasmine Hazel respectively.
The Kippax Kangaroos, who practice on Wednesday evenings, are looking for new players and coaches, and anyone interested should get in touch.


I recently read a couple of articles on artificial intelligence, one an interview with historian, Yuval Noah Harari, and the other written by computer science geek (like me), Tim Urban. I was intrigued not by the technology discussion, but by the discussion of the exponential nature of human history.
Quick math refresher. An exponential curve is a function that increases by a power of x (2, 4, 8, 16, 32 . . .). A linear curve (a straight line) increases by a factor of x (2, 4, 6, 8 ,10 . . .). The following graph shows four exponential curves with growth rates of 3%, 7%, 15% and 55% per period. The 55% growth rate is extreme but comes into play shortly.
Urban explains the exponential nature of human development in an interesting way that I will summarize here. An adult from 1750 would be overwhelmed if he were transported forward by time machine 266 years to 2016. To achieve a similar state of awe in 1750, a person living in that year might have to have been transported back 14,000 years in time, according to Urban.
Meanwhile, we Baby Boomers would probably have been shocked back in 1960 to see what life would be like today, 56 years later.
In 1985, there were no cell phones, let alone smartphones, my Telemail email account was a rarity (most people had no idea what email was), global terrorism wasn't nearly the issue in the U.S that it is today, the Cold War had just ended, personal computers stored data on 10-megabyte hard disk drives (1/100,000th the capacity of today's one-terabyte hard drives), and driverless cars were a pipe dream.
In the early 1990's, I flew the supersonic Concorde from London to New York. My grandfather rode to school on a horse. In 1991, the Cold War ended.
Urban also includes the following illustration of exponential growth courtesy of MotherJones.com. I won't repeat the entire explanation here since it's explained well at the MotherJones.com post, but here's the gist. If you started refilling a dry Lake Michigan in 1940 by adding 1 ounce of water and then doubled that amount every 19 months, after 70 years you wouldn't have much more than a very large, extremely shallow puddle. But, "by 2020, you have about 40 feet of water. And by 2025 you're done." Exponential growth can crawl along glacially for a long time and then whoosh! right by you.
If I handled such large numbers correctly, the annual growth rate in the Lake Michigan demo is about 55% a year. Not many things grow that fast for any sustained period, let alone 85 years, but the whoosh! effect is pretty dramatic at this rate. The greater the growth rate, the more dramatic the difference between "waiting forever while nothing much happens" and "whooshing! by".
Consider it an exaggeration for effect.
The demo also explains rather dramatically why a bear market late in our careers can be devastating. Half of the six quadrillion-gallon lake is filled in the last 18 months of the 85-year process. Your 401(k) growth is not nearly so dramatic, but your balance could double in the last 10 years of your career. Not as awesome a whoosh! as filling a lake at 55% annual growth, but still, one you don't want to miss.
As you can see, the length of time required to inspire awe becomes shorter and shorter at an amazingly fast pace. That's the nature of exponential growth. The implication for retirees is that if human development (and computer development, as the AI argument goes) continue at this incredible rate of growth, it is not only unreasonable to believe that you can predict how your life will change over a 30-year retirement, but it will become more and more unreasonable for future generations to do so.


text:
Q: Why Static field can't be accessed through an instance Why Static field can't be accessed through an instance.
Dart 2.4 Flutter 1.7 Android Studio 3.4
When I was trying to port codes from JAVA to Flutter(Dart), I got the compile error
I had defined the variable in MyMainBloc as follows
static LoginStatus loginStatus = null;

Then I create an instance:
MyMainBloc myApp;

I expect to use something like this: myApp.loginStatus, NOT MyMainBloc.loginStatus.

A: Static members of a particular class are accessed at the class level, not the object level. What this basically means is that the static variable is shared between objects.
With that in mind, what you are potentially attempting to do is probably not the best idea. Without seeing more of your code, you are probably better off declaring your loginStatus property as a private member on an encapsulating class, then accessing that member through a method (perhaps a standard get*() method).
The Oracle documentation on class members could be of some help here.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Among-population divergence in personality is linked to altitude in plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae)
Jiapeng Qu ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8584-336X1,4,5,
Denis Réale2,
Quinn E. Fletcher3 &
Yanming Zhang1
Frontiers in Zoology volume 16, Article number: 26 (2019) Cite this article
Animals inhabiting high altitudes consistently show slow life-histories. The pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) hypothesis posits behavioural, physiological and/or morphological traits that mediate the trade-off between current and future reproduction or survival, which have coevolved along a slow-fast life history continuum. Previous studies have shown that the life histories of plateau pikas varied across altitude, high-altitude individuals showed slow pace of life which were characterized by few litters per year with small litter sizes. Thus, we hypothesized that pikas populations at higher altitudes would also express personalities characteristic associated with slow life history, such as high sociability, low activity or aggressiveness. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the activity and docility of three plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) populations distributed along an altitudinal gradient of the Tibetan Plateau. We predicted that high-altitude pika would be more docile and less active.
The behaviour of 556 pikas, from which 120 individuals were measured at least twice, was quantified. We observed that plateau pikas at high altitudes were less active and more docile than pika at lower altitudes. Activity and docility were significantly and negatively correlated in populations from high altitudes but not in populations from low altitudes.
Our results support the POLS hypothesis, highlight the existence of personality variation among populations distributed along an altitudinal gradient and emphasise the importance of environmental selection on personality divergence.
Species with wide ranges usually exhibit geographic variation in life history traits, such as growth and reproduction [1,2,3]. Geographic variation in life history traits is becoming an important avenue for research in ecology and evolutionary biology [4, 5]. Geographic variation in life history traits arises from intrinsic factors (i.e. genetic and/or genomic divergence amongst populations) or extrinsic factors (e.g. temperature, precipitation, food availability and predation) [6,7,8]. Selection operates in different directions and/or with differing strengths across the geographic range of species, resulting in distinct life history strategies contributing to local adaptation.
Populations inhabiting altitudinal gradients experience distinct environmental conditions and show divergent traits in response to these conditions. With an increase in altitude, ambient temperature and growing season duration and biomass decrease, and plant phenology is delayed [9]. Specific species with wide altitudinal ranges adopt altitude-specific life-history strategies, commonly showing slower life histories with increasing altitude [9, 10]. For example, dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis) bred at high elevations showed delayed development of structures necessary for reproduction, reduced duration of reproductive period and fewer broods than low-elevation conspecifics [10, 11]. Moreover, amphibians and mammals at higher elevations exhibit shorter breeding seasons, longer larval periods and fewer litters per year with lower litter sizes compared with individuals at lower elevations [2, 12].
The pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) hypothesis posits that any trait (behavioural, physiological or morphological) that mediates trade-off between current and future fitness should coevolve with the life-history traits along the slow-fast life-history continuum [13,14,15]. The narrow-sense version of the POLS hypothesis [14] predicts that a fast pace of life, which is characterized by a short lifespan, an early age of first reproduction and a fast growth rate, is associated with a more bold, active and aggressive personality type that explores the environment in a cursory manner [16,17,18]. Individuals inhabiting populations exposed to differing environmental conditions are assumed to show different pace-of-life types [19,20,21,22,23]. For example, blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) living in habitats that are either resource rich or poor show divergence in their life histories, activity and docility following the predictions of the POLS hypothesis [24, 25]. Ant (Temnothorax longispinosus) colonies from warmer areas are more exploratory and less aggressive than ants from colder areas [26]. Although numerous studies have described altitude-associated variation in life histories [11, 27], no study has examined personality variation along an altitudinal gradient. A limited number of studies have also analysed personality divergence among populations living in different habitats [24, 26].
Here, we test the hypothesis that the mean level of personality change with altitude by comparing activity and docility of three plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) populations distributed along an altitudinal gradient [28]. Although the altitude difference between highest and lowest sites is about 700 m, annual and maximum monthly average temperature and vegetation conditions show distinct differences among sites (Table 1). Earlier research has shown that pika populations manifest slower life-histories at higher altitudes characterized by fewer litters per year with lower litter sizes and a shorter breeding season compared with populations at lower altitudes [29,30,31,32,33,34]. We predicted that high-altitude populations would be characterised by slower individuals, which are characterized by more thorough activity and lower docility, than high-altitude populations [13].
Table 1 Geographic, climatic, vegetation and pika life history characteristics of three sites in the eastern Tibetan Plateau (China)
Study system
The plateau pika is a small, diurnal lagomorph that is widely distributed throughout the alpine meadows of the Tibetan Plateau. Populations can live between altitudes of 3,200 and 5,300 m [35]. Pikas live communally forming territorial, mixed-sex groups that use a distinct burrow system with multiple entries [33]. Previous studies have shown population divergence in life history traits at different altitudes [29,30,31,32,33, 36,37,38,39,40,41]. For example, low-altitude populations (e.g. Guinan, 3,200 m) produce 3–5 litters per year with 4.5 ± 0.1 pups in each litter [31, 37], whereas those from high-altitude (e.g. Guoluo, 4,000 m) produce 1–2 litters per year with 3.2 ± 0.1 pups in each litter [32, 34].
We investigated three plateau pika populations at three different altitudes: Maqin (MQ), Zeku (ZK) and Guinan (GN), in the eastern Tibetan Plateau, Qinghai, China (Fig. 1). The distances between sites ranged from 180 km to 285 km, and the normal dispersal distance of plateau pika is about 40 m [42]; therefore, gene flow among the three populations is limited. At all sites, the climate is dry and cool, typical of a plateau continental climate [43]. Precipitation occurs mostly from May to September, and heavy winter snowfalls are rare. Daily temperatures vary considerably (up to 25 °C). The climate is harsher at higher altitudes with decreasing annual temperatures, whereas annual precipitation increases. As a result, productivity and vegetation height decreases, and the growing season becomes shorter at higher altitudes (Table 1).
Map showing the locations of the study sites indicated by abbreviations corresponding to Table 1
Vegetation at the three sites is typical of Tibetan alpine meadows. The dominant plant species include Kobresia humilis, Elymus nutans Griseb. and Leontopodium alpinum. To evaluate vegetation at each site, we quantified plant cover and height using the approach developed by Huenneke et al. [44]. At each site, 10 quadrats (50 cm × 50 cm) were randomly selected. We estimated plant biomass within each quadrat using non-destructive measurements of plant species cover and height and total vegetation cover by counting the portions of squares occupied by plants. Vegetation height was presented as the mean height of each species. With the increase in altitude, vegetation cover and height were significantly higher at GN than at GL and ZK (Table 1).
At all sites, grass is grazed all year round by livestock (i.e. yak, sheep and horse). Other small herbivores, such as woolly hares (Lepus oiostolus), Himalayan marmots (Marmota himalayana) and plateau zokors (Myospalax baileyi), were absent at the sites. Common predators include red fox (Vulpes vulpes), Tibetan fox (V. ferrilata), upland buzzard (Buteo hemilasius) and saker falcon (Falco cherrug).
Animal marking
The study area at each site measured 1.0 ha (100 m × 100 m). The study period was divided into two stages: breeding (June) and nonbreeding season (August). We caught pikas using string nooses, which were anchored into the soil with chopsticks (i.e. a chopstick with a loop of string with a slipknot that tightens around the neck of the pika), set up at multiple entries to the burrow system. This method is widely used in live-trapping of both lizards and mammals and causes no significant negative effects on the behaviour of animals [28, 29, 45]. Over 2005 to 2018 of research at these sites, no pikas have been accidently injured nor killed by the string nooses [28, 33, 34]. Live traps were set at 07:00–09:00, constantly observed from 30 m away by a field technician, and retrieved at approximately 13:00. Trapped individuals were extracted from the nooses within approximately 30 s after capture. Pikas were weighed, and their sex and reproductive status (active or inactive) was examined by checking their reproductive organs. We then determined the approximate age of each individual based on their body mass, fur colour and toe hardness [33]. Individuals were divided into two age classes: adults (born during the previous year) and juveniles (born during the year of the study). Individuals were marked using hand-made aluminium ear tags stamped with a unique number code for permanent identification (ID). All individuals were released on the study grid where they were captured.
Behavioural tests
We conducted behavioural assays on recapture events on different days following the first capture when individuals were marked. After capturing, a field technician immediately transported the pikas to a processing location located ~ 30 m off the trapping grid. Animals were transported in mash bags, and ~ 1 min was needed to reach the processing location. At the processing location, the behaviour of the pika was immediately examined according to the following sequence:
(1) Bag test: The pika was transferred into a mesh bag (20 cm × 40 cm). We used the number of seconds the pika remained immobile during 1 min as an index of docility [46].
(2) Open field test: Pikas were transferred from the mesh bag into an open field arena. The arena was a wood box (100 cm × 100 cm × 100 cm), painted white and with grid (10 cm × 10 cm) lines drawn on the floor. We recorded open field trails for 120 s using a digital video camera fixed on a tripod. The pikas were then removed from the arena, and their ID were recorded. Pikas were then released at their location of capture. After each trial, the arena was cleaned using 75% alcohol and air-dried prior to the subsequent trial. Using EthoVision XT 9.0 (Noldus Information Technology), we measured the distance covered by each pika (cm) as an index of activity [17, 47]. Individuals from MQ were tested in June (n = 165) and August (n = 205) 2013, individuals from GN were tested in June 2013 (n = 17) and August 2014 (n = 31), whereas those from ZK were tested in June (n = 72) and August (n = 66) 2014. The interval time between repeated tests range from 75 to 104 days in three populations.
Overall, the behaviour of 556 pikas, from which 120 individuals were measured twice, was quantified. Univariate linear mixed models (LMM) were used to test for phenotypic differences among populations and to estimate the repeatability of two traits. All univariate LMMs analyses were conducted using the R package MCMCglmm [48, 49]. For each model, we included population, sex, season (breeding versus nonbreeding) and age (juvenile versus adult) as fixed effects in addition to the random effects of ID and test date. We uses an inverse-Gamma distribution as the prior for variance components, the set of parameters were nu = 1.002, and V = 2 [49]. Models were run for 6,500,000 iterations with a thinning interval of 5,000 and a burn-in of 1,500,000. We determined the effects of traits based on whether their 95% credible intervals (CIs) overlapped with zero. We estimated repeatability and their 95% CIs following the approach of Dingemanse et al. [48]. Studies have proven that within-individual correlations were negligible, and phenotypic correlations can represent among-individual correlations in plateau pika population [28], thus, we tested the phenotypic correlations in this study. Pearson's correlation tests were used when the original variables fitted a normal distribution or when log or square root transformation resulted in normality (Shapiro–Wilk test). Otherwise, Spearman's rank correlation test was used. All analyses were carried out using R [50].
Activity and docility were highly (r = 0.77, CI = [0.70, 0.81]) and moderately (r = 0.46, CI = [0.37, 0.55]) repeatable, respectively, indicating that variation in these two personality traits varies consistently among individuals over time.
Three populations at different altitudes showed our predicted differences in activity and docility (Table 2). Activity of high-altitude individuals (MQ) was lower than in intermediate-altitude (ZK) and low-altitude individuals (GN) (Fig. 2a). High-altitude individuals were the most docile, followed by individuals at intermediate and low altitudes (Fig. 2b). Activity was significantly negatively correlated with docility in the MQ (r = − 0.172, P < 0.001) and ZK (r = − 0.432, P < 0.001) populations but showed no correlation with docility in the GN (r = − 0.286, P = 0.118) population.
Table 2 Univariate mixed models describing inter-population differences in personality traits across three plateau pika populations from the eastern Tibetan Plateau
Activity (a) and docility (b) of plateau pika individuals inhabiting populations at three altitudes in the Tibetan Plateau. "***" indicates a significant difference (P < 0.001) between two populations
We investigated the phenotypic divergence of personality traits among plateau pika populations along an altitudinal gradient. Previous work on plateau pika populations indicates that the life-histories of high-altitude populations are slow. In support of the POLS hypothesis, we observed that higher-altitude populations also possessed personality traits that have been characterized as slow, i.e., less active and more docile, compared with the lower-altitude populations.
The differences in activity and docility among plateau pika altitude-associated populations can be attributed to the differing life history strategies that have evolved in response to different climates and environments (Table 1). Low-altitude pikas from GN show high reproductive output, which may be correlated with behaviour associated with increased energy intake [13, 51]. Activity in the open field is associated with activity levels, which are required for foraging, mating and predator escape [52]. Docility is often used as a measure of risky behaviour in response to predator cues [47, 53]. The thorough activity and low docility of pikas from GN (lowest altitude) may facilitate them to obtain sufficient energy to satisfy greater energy requirements for reproduction.
Our findings indicate that differences in environmental conditions resulted in specific associations between behavioural traits of plateau pikas. These results indicate that behavioural syndromes could be adaptive, such that associations between behaviour may vary substantially in accordance with prevailing environmental conditions. Activity and docility were negatively associated in pikas from high- and medium-altitude sites. Correlations between these traits may corroborate the POLS hypothesis [13]. In the Tibetan Plateau, an increase in altitude is associated with a decrease in temperature and food resources [54]. Environmental or animal status may affect relationships between behavioural and physiological traits [55]. Negative feedback mechanisms (e.g. asset protection hypotheses) may predominate at low resource levels and decouple such correlations. By contrast, positive feedback mechanisms between animal states and different behaviour (e.g. starvation avoidance or state-dependent safety hypotheses) at intermediate levels of resource availability can produce behavioural syndromes [56]. Our study implied that the directions of such relationships could be affected by altitude. In high-altitude populations, negative associations between activity and docility may be adaptive and enable pikas to obtain additional food resources and evade predation. Pikas from lowest sites occupy higher vegetation cover and food availability, which can weaken or eliminate the correlations between activity and docility in pika populations [26].
We analysed behavioural differences among populations at the phenotypic level. As a result, we cannot rule out whether phenotypic differences reflect genetic differences or developmental plasticity [25]. Regardless of the cause of differences among populations, our results suggest that the divergence in behaviour traits across the altitudinal gradient may enable pikas to cope with different local environments [13, 17]. Reciprocal translocation or common-garden experiments would help to determine if personality differences reflect genetic differences or developmental plasticity [57,58,59].
We were unable to conclusively identify the precise divergences in the personality of pika populations distributed at higher altitudes, given that we focused on the traits of pika populations distributed within a limited altitude range. Nevertheless, our data reveal that the personality of pikas differs across altitudinal sites. Our study also provides valuable information regarding the effects of ecological conditions on the behavioural traits of animals at the population levels [13]. Although numerous studies have documented variation in life-history traits and phenotypes in response to global climate change [4], only a few have shown adaptations of animal personality to global warming [26, 60]. Increases in altitude are associated with decreases in temperature, and changes in environments may reflect how animals will respond to future climate change [3]. Further studies illuminating the mechanisms underlying the personality differences among populations are necessary to improve our understanding of animal responses to future climate change [61,62,63].
Plateau pikas exhibit significant differences in activity and docility along the altitudinal gradient, supporting the POLS hypothesis. Future studies are needed to explore the mechanism and ecological consequences of personality divergences at large spatial-temporal scales and combine the animal personality with global climate changes.
The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article are included in https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7357313.v1.
GN:
Maqin
POLS:
pace-of-life syndrome
ZK:
Zeku
Schmidt PS, Matzkin L, Ippolito M, Eanes WF. Geographic variation in diapause incidence, life-history traits, and climatic adaptation in drosophila melanogaster. Evolution. 2005;59:1721–32.
Morrison C, Hero J-M. Geographic variation in life-history characteristics of amphibians: a review. J Anim Ecol. 2003;72:270–9.
Liao WB, Luo Y, Lou SL, Lu D, Jehle R. Geographic variation in life-history traits: growth season affects age structure, egg size and clutch size in Andrew's toad (Bufo andrewsi). Front Zool. 2016;13:1–9.
Fritz SA, Bininda-Emonds ORP, Purvis A. Geographical variation in predictors of mammalian extinction risk: big is bad, but only in the tropics. Ecol Lett. 2009;12:538–49.
Both C, Artemyev AV, Blaauw B, Cowie RJ, Dekhuijzen AJ, Eeva T, et al. Large-scale geographical variation confirms that climate change causes birds to lay earlier. P Roy Soc Lond B Bio. 2004;271:1657–62.
English S, Bateman A, Clutton-Brock T. Lifetime growth in wild meerkats: incorporating life history and environmental factors into a standard growth model. Oecologia. 2012;169:143–53.
Andreo V, Lima M, Provensal C, Priotto J, Polop J. Population dynamics of two rodent species in agro-ecosystems of Central Argentina: intra-specific competition, land-use, and climate effects. Popul Ecol. 2009;51:297–306.
Barson NJ, Aykanat T, Hindar K, Baranski M, Bolstad GH, Fiske P, et al. Sex-dependent dominance at a single locus maintains variation in age at maturity in salmon. Nature. 2015;528:405–8.
Hille SM, Cooper CB. Elevational trends in life histories: revising the pace-of-life framework. Biol Rev. 2015;90:204–13.
Bears H, Martin K, White GC. Breeding in high-elevation habitat results in shift to slower life-history strategy within a single species. J Anim Ecol. 2009;78:365–75.
Irene TB. High and low, fast or slow: the complementary contributions of altitude and latitude to understand life-history variation. J Anim Ecol. 2009;78:293–5.
Laiolo P, Obeso JR. Life-history responses to the altitudinal gradient. In: Catalan J, Ninot JM, Aniz MM, editors. High mountain conservation in a changing world. Cham: Springer; 2017. p. 253–83.
Réale D, Garant D, Humphries MM, Bergeron P, Careau V, Montiglio P-O. Personality and the emergence of the pace-of-life syndrome concept at the population level. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci. 2010;365:4051–63.
Montiglio P-O, Dammhahn M, Dubuc Messier G, Réale D. The pace-of-life syndrome revisited: the role of ecological conditions and natural history on the slow-fast continuum. Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2018;72:116.
Wright J, Bolstad GH, Araya-Ajoy YG, Dingemanse NJ. Life-history evolution under fluctuating density-dependent selection and the adaptive alignment of pace-of-life syndromes. Biol Rev. 2019;94:230–47.
Rödel H, Zapka M, Talke S, Kornatz T, Bruchner B, Hedler C. Survival costs of fast exploration during juvenile life in a small mammal. Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2015;69:205–17.
Montiglio P-O, Garant D, Pelletier F, Réale D. Intra-individual variability in fecal cortisol metabolites varies with lifetime exploration and reproductive life history in eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus). Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2015;69:1–11.
Wolf M, Van Doorn GS, Leimar O, Weissing FJ. Life-history trade-offs favour the evolution of animal personalities. Nature. 2007;447:581–4.
Wikelski M, Spinney L, Schelsky W, Scheuerlein A, Gwinner E. Slow pace of life in tropical sedentary birds: a common-garden experiment on four stonechat populations from different latitudes. Proc R Soc Lond B. 2003;270:2383–8.
Wiersma P, Muñoz-Garcia A, Walker A, Williams JB. Tropical birds have a slow pace of life. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007;104:9340–5.
Ricklefs RE, Wikelski M. The physiology/life-history nexus. Trends Ecol Evol. 2002;17:462–8.
Brodin T, Lind MI, Wiberg MK, Johansson F. Personality trait differences between mainland and island populations in the common frog (Rana temporaria). Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2012;67:135–43.
Polverino G, Santostefano F, Díaz-Gil C, Mehner T. Ecological conditions drive pace-of-life syndromes by shaping relationships between life history, physiology and behaviour in two populations of eastern mosquitofish. Sci Rep-UK. 2018;8:14673.
Dubuc-Messier G, Réale D, Perret P, Charmantier A. Environmental heterogeneity and population differences in blue tits personality traits. Behav Ecol. 2017;28:448–59.
Dubuc-Messier G, Caro SP, Perrier C, van Oers K, Réale D, Charmantier A. Gene flow does not prevent personality and morphological differentiation between two blue tit populations. J Evolution Biol. 2018;31:1127–37.
Segev U, Burkert L, Feldmeyer B, Foitzik S. Pace-of-life in a social insect: behavioral syndromes in ants shift along a climatic gradient. Behav Ecol. 2017;28:1149–59.
Londoño GA, Chappell MA, Castañeda MR, Jankowski JE, Robinson SK. Basal metabolism in tropical birds: latitude, altitude, and the 'pace of life'. Funct Ecol. 2015;29:338–46.
Qu J, Fletcher QE, Réale D, Li W, Zhang Y. Independence between coping style and stress reactivity in plateau pika. Physiol Behav. 2018;197:1–8.
Dobson FS, Smith AT, Wang XG. Social and ecological influences on dispersal and philopatry in the plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae). Behav Ecol. 1998;9:622–35.
Li ZW, Sun RY, Du JZ. Seasonal reproductive cycles in male plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae). Acta Theriol Sin. 1998;18:42–9.
Nie H. Study on the evolutionary ecology of small herbivorous mammals: life history strategy of plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae). PhD thesis. Zhejiang University, 2005.
Qu J, Liu M, Yang M, Zhang Y, Ji W. Reproduction of plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Eur J Wildlife Res. 2012;58:269–77.
Qu J, Li W, Yang M, Ji W, Zhang Y. Life history of the plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) in alpine meadows of the Tibetan plateau. Mamm Biol. 2013;78:68–72.
Qu J, Russell JC, Ji W, Yang M, Chen Q, Li W, et al. Five-year population dynamics of plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae) on the east of Tibetan plateau. Eur J Wildlife Res. 2017;63:51.
Koju NP, He K, Chalise MK, Ray C, Chen Z, Zhang B, et al. Multilocus approaches reveal underestimated species diversity and inter-specific gene flow in pikas (Ochotona) from southwestern China. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2017;107:239–45.
Wang XG, Dai KH. Natural longevity of plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae). Acta Theriol Sin. 1989;9:56–62.
Wang X, Dai K. Studies on the population reproduction ecology of plateau pika. Zool Res. 1991;12:155–61.
Yin BF, Wang JL, Wei WH, Zhang YM, Cao YF. Population reproductive characteristics of plateau pika in alpine meadow ecosystem. Acta Theriol Sin. 2004;24:222–8.
Wang J, Zhang Y, Wang D. Seasonal thermogenesis and body mass regulation in plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae). Oecologia. 2006;149:373–82.
Yin B, Yang S, Wei W, Zhang Y. Male reproductive success in plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae): a microsatellite analysis. Mamm Biol. 2009;74:344–50.
Wangdwei M, Steele B, Harris RB. Demographic responses of plateau pikas to vegetation cover and land use in the Tibet autonomous region, China. J Mammal. 2013;94:1077–86.
Qu J, Chen Q, Zhang Y. Behaviour and reproductive fitness of postdispersal in plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae) on the Tibetan plateau. Mammal Res. 2018;63:151–9.
Wu G, Duan A, Liu Y, Mao J, Ren R, Bao Q, et al. Tibetan plateau climate dynamics: recent research progress and outlook. Nat Sci Rev. 2015;2:100–16.
Huenneke LF, Clason D, Muldavin E. Spatial heterogeneity in Chihuahuan Desert vegetation: implications for sampling methods in semi-arid ecosystems. J Arid Environ. 2001;47:257–70.
Pérez i de Lanuza G, Carazo P, Font E. Colours of quality: structural (but not pigment) coloration informs about male quality in a polychromatic lizard. Anim Behav. 2014;90:73–81.
Martin JGA, Réale D. Temperament, risk assessment and habituation to novelty in eastern chipmunks, Tamias striatus. Anim Behav. 2008;75:309–18.
Réale D, Reader SM, Sol D, McDougall PT, Dingemanse NJ. Integrating animal temperament within ecology and evolution. Biol Rev. 2007;82:291–318.
Dingemanse NJ, Bouwman KM, van de Pol M, van Overveld T, Patrick SC, Matthysen E, et al. Variation in personality and behavioural plasticity across four populations of the great tit Parus major. J Anim Ecol. 2012;81:116–26.
Hadfield J. MCMC methods for multi-response generalisedlinear mixed models: the MCMCglmm R package. J Stat Softw. 2010;33:1–22.
R Core Team. R. A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. 2017. https://www.r-project.org/.
Careau V, Montiglio P-O, Garant D, Pelletier F, Speakman J, Humphries M, et al. Energy expenditure and personality in wild chipmunks. Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2015;69:653–61.
Galea LA, Kavaliers M, Ossenkopp KP. Sexually dimorphic spatial learning in meadow voles Microtus pennsylvanicus and deer mice Peromyscus maniculatus. J Exp Biol. 1996;199:195–200.
Réale D, Martin J, Coltman DW, Poissant J, Festa-Bianchet M. Male personality, life-history strategies and reproductive success in a promiscuous mammal. J Evol Biol. 2009;22:1599–607.
Meng FD, Jiang LL, Zhang ZH, Cui SJ, Duan JC, Wang SP, et al. Changes in flowering functional group affect responses of community phenological sequences to temperature change. Ecology. 2017;98:734–40.
Luttbeg B, Sih A. Risk, resources and state-dependent adaptive behavioural syndromes. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci. 2010;365:3977–90.
Sih A, Mathot KJ, Moirón M, Montiglio P-O, Wolf M, Dingemanse NJ. Animal personality and state–behaviour feedbacks: a review and guide for empiricists. Trends Ecol Evol. 2015;30:50–60.
Savolainen O, Lascoux M, Merilä J. Ecological genomics of local adaptation. Nat Rev Genet. 2013;14:807.
Refsnider JM, Qian SS, Streby HM, Carter SE, Clifton IT, Siefker AD, et al. Reciprocally transplanted lizards along an elevational gradient match light environment use of local lizards via phenotypic plasticity. Funct Ecol. 2018;32:1227–36.
McGhee KE, Pintor LM, Bell AM. Reciprocal behavioral plasticity and behavioral types during predator-prey interactions. Am Nat. 2013;182:704–17.
Zhao DP, Feng PS. Temperature increase impacts personality traits in aquatic non-native species: implications for biological invasion under climate change. Curr Zool. 2015;61:966–71.
Villegas-Ríos D, Réale D, Freitas C, Moland E, Olsen EM. Personalities influence spatial responses to environmental fluctuations in wild fish. J Anim Ecol. 2018;87:1309–19.
Biro PA, TG J, Beckmann C, Ujvari B, Thomas F, Post JR. Metabolic scope as a proximate constraint on individual behavioral variation: effects on personality, plasticity, and predictability. Am Nat. 2018;192:142–54.
Pacifici M, Visconti P, Rondinini C. A framework for the identification of hotspots of climate change risk for mammals. Glob Chang Biol. 2018;24:1626–36.
We are grateful to Lai Yourong and Bai Zhaohong for their assistants in the wild. We appreciate the owners of the grasslands for allowing us to work at their properties.
This work was financially provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31770459), State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystems (Lanzhou University), Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS, Applied and Basic Research Program of Qinghai Province (2017-ZJ-761), Thousand People Plan of Qinghai Province, Construction Fund for Qinghai Key Laboratories (2017-ZJ-Y23), Qinghai Provincial Key R & D and Transformation Program (2019-SF-150). None of the authors have any competing interests in the manuscript.
Key laboratory of adaptation and evolution of plateau biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qinghai, 810008, China
Jiapeng Qu & Yanming Zhang
Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, H3P 3P8, Canada
Denis Réale
Department of Biology and Centre for Forest Interdisciplinary Research (C-FIR), University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, R3B 2E9, Canada
Quinn E. Fletcher
State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems SKLGAE, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China
Jiapeng Qu
Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Ecological Genomics, Qinghai, 810008, China
Yanming Zhang
JQ, DR and QF contributed to the design and implementation of this study; JQ performed statistical analyses and wrote the manuscript; DR, QF and YZ provided feedback on the manuscript. All authors gave final approval for publication and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Correspondence to Jiapeng Qu.
Ethical approval was granted from Ethics Committee, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, CAS (NWIPB-2013-24).
Qu, J., Réale, D., Fletcher, Q.E. et al. Among-population divergence in personality is linked to altitude in plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae). Front Zool 16, 26 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12983-019-0329-6
Accepted: 01 July 2019

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Architosh published this viewpoint article by BIM consultant Bhushan Avsatthi who offers information and advice about the benefits of 4D BIM, mentioning the techniques and methods of Construction Scheduling. Today's software market is filled with software tools addressing this segment of the BIM pipeline.
With the advent of advanced technological tools in the field of construction things have drastically changed! It has made the process of designing a building more effective, technically flawless, less time consuming, and more cost-efficient. This is the BIM revolution.
And now with 4D Simulation and Construction Planning—also known as 4D BIM—becoming a norm, architects, engineers, and builders are now completely exploring further areas for benefit.
One of the biggest benefits of BIM 4D Modeling is that it allows various people associated with the construction—right from architects, designers, and contractors to the owners—to get a clearer and more visual representation of the entire process through a series of simulated events. The phases of progress of construction activities throughout the lifetime of the project can hence be observed and analyzed.
With an increase in the BIM-centric approach towards project management, techniques have resulted into a high potential for improvement in the management and timely delivery of project, irrespective of its size or complexity.
Since things are now done in tight deadlines, scheduling has become a must. BIM scheduling combines a number of factors and quantities based on location, flow-line, on-site production control, along with communication. This is an extremely dynamic and powerful process. Let's take a look at things in more detail to understand them and their benefits.
Qualities by location helps one to segregate the site into small and more manageable areas per trade. This divided area strategy leads to clean and uninterrupted processes, eventually making the crew more productive. Also, it leads to a safe site environment which is always of importance.
The operator can define multiple location systems for trade-specific work sequences. These locations are further used to perform location-based quantity takeoff that is the input for location-based expense as well as schedule planning.
This scheduling method revolves around continuous work flow for trades and works closely with locations. This method has a scientific origin in the BIM model geometry for the quantities, along with locations and productivity rates of the crew. Utilizing this flow-line theory, Schedule Planner enhances the construction schedule by at least 10 percent.
It is all about on-site tasks rather than the usual desk job. This method helps in calculating an optimal construction schedule as well as managing the project on-site. Determining the work put in place by location and measuring up actuals to planned helps in seeing the potential conflicts much in advance. This helps the team to work together as well as solve the scheduling conflict and prevent cascading delays.
Much in the similar manner to 3D BIM—4D BIM makes scheduling easy for the audience (Owners, trades, teams) to visualize how the building will look like. It is a robust playback of the scientifically-derived Flow-line schedule built on quantities by location along with crew productivity rates.


At The Athlete's Foot, we understand the value of a great fit. It's extra support on your run. A softer landing at the gym. It's freedom to explore the world how you want.
Our MyFit system is designed to ensure that whatever you want to do, you're wearing the right shoes.


Looking for a Loving AB/DL Mommy?
Are you looking for your Mommy? Mommy loves to change her sweet adult babies' full pampers. We can have bath time and I will sing you songs while you coo and clap your hands in delight….Mommy loves to breast feed and spoil her adult baby boys and sissy boy girls in every way.
Just imagine the scent of baby powder; the slick soft feeling of lotion on your skin; the warmth of my arms while I cradle you. You can tell me all about your day at school or work. This is a loving ABDL environment for you to experience the joys of a mommies love. I will happily lull you to sleep with my soothing maternal voice.


In our society we place increasingly high demands on transport and communication. We expect that the transport of goods and people takes place in an environmentally friendly, safe, and cost-effective way.
The traffic flow must be unimpeded and without disruptions. This relies on there being a good transport infrastructure in the form of sea lanes, railways, and roads, provided by national, regional, and communal infrastructure owners. Access to reliable data and good information management is a prerequisite to be able to plan, inform, and get documentation for actions and decisions.
Triona has experience of working in assignments and delivering solutions for road, railroad, and maritime traffic. This covers the whole infrastructure lifecycle, from planning, design, and construction to operations, maintenance, and transportation. We have unique competence and offer products which boost the efficient management of fixed assets (Asset Information Management) and their digital representations, models, and digital twins. Our SINUS.Infra, SINUS.bk, TNE, TRE, and VFS products support the complete information flow, from data capture and master data management to the delivery and application of information in different types of implementations.
We have very good competence and considerable experience in delivering IT solutions for road surfacing management, operations and maintenance, traffic measurement, traffic information, traffic control/management, and ITS. Our knowledge is also used to develop and establish standards within the infrastructure sector.
Some of our customers in this industry are Bane NOR (Norway), Euroskilt (Norway), the Norwegian Coastal Administration (Norway), the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (Norway), City of Stockholm (Sweden), the Swedish Transport Administration (Sweden), and the Danish Road Directorate (Denmark).
For more information on our work in the area of transport infrastructure in Sweden, please ask Fredrik.
For more information on our work in the area of transport infrastructure in Norway, please ask Sigmund.


text:
Is Sonic Adventure's legacy underrated? (In terms of gameplay)
By LOO LOO LOO LOO NYAH NYAH
October 14, 2013 in Sonic Games
LOO LOO LOO LOO NYAH NYAH
A lot of people these days praise Sonic Adventure as being one of their top Sonic games. However, one common criticism of the game is that under today's standards, it hasn't aged very well. The purpose of this post is not to convince you that Sonic Adventure is the best game ever, it's far from it, but rather present you my views on the reasons why I think it is at least mildly undeserving of being an Old'Hog, ready for the Green Hill Retirement Home.
Firstly I will say I do not really care for any of the stages besides the Sonic and Tails stages. I would say why but that is really a question of subjective quality rather than how well the game has aged, and I will argue the point that Sonic has the main chunk of the gameplay, and unlike the sequel, players aren't really forced to play as the other characters. You may be thinking, "but to get your money's worth and see how the story ends/play the final boss you have to play as all the characters!" I hear you, I cannot refute that. I will say however that in my opinion at least you've already experienced the best of what the game has to offer after playing Sonic's stages alone.
Now, let's talk about Sonic's gameplay. To me it was really the closest we've had to the classic games in 3D. The 3 main components were there: Platforming, roller coaster "thrill sections" and exploration. Now, obviously it didn't -feel- exactly like the classic games did, but that's a given seeing as some changes had to be made to account for the Z Axis. Firstly, Sonic's jump had to be more precise for 3D platforming. In the 2D games even if you aren't moving quickly, your jump still has a lot of horizontal hang time, giving that pleasurable "fighting against the momentum" feel when you change direction mid air. That feels natural for that sort of game. But can you imagine how that would feel in 3D? It would make simple jumps pretty awkward, so having Sonic stop fairly quickly at low speed makes sense.
Now, the high speed action sequences. Some might say the automated loops are "lazy", and I can sort of agree there. But try to remember that it is a lot easier to leave it non automated in 2D seeing as the loop is actually an illusion and there is no depth, you pass a trigger and collisions are ignored for one "half" of the loop and allowed for the other.
And finally, exploration. Sonic Adventure replicates the height tiered level design of the classics pretty well, along with secret nooks and crannies for you to find. Play through a stage like Twinkle Park or even Speed Highway slowly and you will see the comparisons. There are lots of hidden areas/shortcuts to find, and shock horror, it feels like a -3D- game, not a game with behind the back sections where you just hold forward. It's also especially pleasurable to master the use of the Spin Dash to navigate through the stages, which brings me to the physics. Sonic Adventure is one of the few 3D Sonic games that allowed you to pick up speed when moving downhill, it gave you a -reason- to use the Spin Dash (Either to speed up down hill or aid in going up hill) instead of today's Sonic games where you "just wanna go fast" for the most part. I think Sonic Team removing the Spin Dash for the period that they did removed a lot of the fun, but that's another topic. Also I really liked how the wall running mechanic was tied to the game's physics, and not something you can do willy nilly like a certain Sonic game on the horizon.
Sonic Adventure isn't a bug free game by any means, nor is it a highly glitchy one. You can get through all of Sonic's stages just fine without any game breaking glitches -most- of the time. The way the game handles Sonic colliding with a wall at speed is a bit strange, and you will see Sonic spaz quite a bit if you aren't very good at controlling him, but for example in some sections like Windy Valley, I actually quite like that you have to be good at controlling Sonic (even during areas where the camera appears to be cinematic) to avoid losing momentum by bumping into a wall. Finally I don't understand how the glitches (which I won't deny- forgot to mention the crappy camera system) are what give the game the status of not aging well. I would call tired mechanics an example of a game not ageing well, but I guess that's subjective.
So in summary, I think to this day Sonic Adventure is still a great game, not the best, but great.
Quick comment - Change the music of Sonic Adventure to generic nonsense. It suddenly becomes awful.
What are you getting at? You think people just find enjoyment out of the game due to the music? This isn't '06 my friend, it's a genuinely fun game.
I think the game is made more enjoyable because of the music, yeah. I can't even tolerate the game any more. It frustrates me way too much.
That's fine but you haven't really given reasons as to why you don't enjoy it or raised points based on the topic.
It's not that the game is by any means terrible. It's just that there used to be a time where I could immediately recommend it to everyone. But times have changed and fewer and fewer people are going to tolerate the bugs and glitches as years go by. As is, the only people I would immediately recommend it to are hardcore Sonic fans, then I cautiously recommend it to more casual Sonic fans, and then it's purely circumstantial as to rather or not I'd recommend even a passing glance to anyone else.
But gosh, though, that soundtrack. That's something that hasn't aged a day. It's still incredible.
azoo
Sonic Adventure is a game with some good ideas, some bad; and its aged like a fine wine.. that someone pissed in.
It has its heavy amount of charm to it, and the gameplay at its core for at least 4/6 characters was pretty solid. Its just that while the game's music, art, and general story were pretty great, the bugginess of the game itself (mostly related to physics and collision), the awfully aged dialogue/cut-scenes, and the shakier decisions like Big's fishing gameplay just bogs it down to the point where the game isn't really easy to get people into anymore.
But since the game had such solid, decent ideas for a Sonic game, I almost feel like its the Sonic game that most deserves a remake. To see everything that game offered given at it's best would be wonderful.. as long as they don't change the soundtrack.
Edited October 14, 2013 by Aspoopkara
Uraraka
I am one with the Master Emerald !
I think this game was not only enjoyable, but it is still enjoyable to me! I enjoy playing through the stories ( I am one of the only ones who enjoys the emerald collection levels with Knuckles!) The story is still lovable, I can view it over and over and never bore of it. It had amazing graphics for it's time, despite the humorous mouth movements in the first one. the characters were so individual and unique, especially the way the story changed for each character's point of view.
And the music was a huge success!
So, now to game play, (which is what the topic called for) It was great for it's time, and I (not being the best game player) could finish the levels with challenge, and enjoyed every minute of it
I think the game was awesome and that if some newer Sonic games would take a few principles from these two games (not so much all of them, but some o f it..) it may feel more like a traditional Sonic game!
You. Could say it doesn't "stack. Up."
Solkia
turian tiddies
The things that haven't aged well about Sonic Adventure have little to nothing to do with the gameplay.
Voice Acting is subpar, Eggman has way too many overused voice clips, the story is garbage, the character animations are unexcusable terrible (seriously there are PS1 games with better animation).
The only thing gameplay-wise I could actually say hasn't aged well is the fucking lifeless hub world that no one asked for. In fact I'd say that wasn't even good when it came out.
Firstly I will say I do not really care for any of the stages besides the Sonic and Tails stages.
And that's enough of a reason to retire it on its own. It spends too much time not being a Sonic game.
and I will argue the point that Sonic has the main chunk of the gameplay
Sonic and Tails together get 15, everyone else together gets 17. That's not really a good split.
and unlike the sequel, players aren't really forced to play as the other characters. You may be thinking, "but to get your money's worth and see how the story ends/play the final boss you have to play as all the characters!" I hear you, I cannot refute that. I will say however that in my opinion at least you've already experienced the best of what the game has to offer after playing Sonic's stages alone.
This doesn't excuse it in the slightest. If you bought SA solely to play Sonic's story, you'd be paying full price for half a game.
Now, let's talk about Sonic's gameplay. To me it was really the closest we've had to the classic games in 3D.
That's not really that praiseworthy when it's largely because they've never really tried otherwise. SA just doesn't make good on the concept of classic Sonic gameplay in 3D due to both programming and design issues. On the programming side, the collision detection is sketchy, and running into a wall is basically the end of any kind of fluid movement. On the design side, there's very little opportunity to use Sonic's classic abilities properly; levels are often too flat for rolling and wall running and there's too many dash pads and springs tossing you around rather than keeping movement the player's responsibility.
That doesn't really make automation a good idea. A lot of things are easier in 2D than in 3D, but if you're going to make a 3D game, you need to do it right.
Also I really liked how the wall running mechanic was tied to the game's physics, and not something you can do willy nilly like a certain Sonic game on the horizon.
I like how SLoW actually uses wall running as a major mechanic rather than having it only be relevant maybe twice in the entire game.
Sonic Adventure isn't a bug free game by any means, nor is it a highly glitchy one.
It's pretty goddamn glitchy, actually. Out of the main series, I'd say it's second only to '06.
The way the game handles Sonic colliding with a wall at speed is a bit strange, and you will see Sonic spaz quite a bit if you aren't very good at controlling him, but for example in some sections like Windy Valley, I actually quite like that you have to be good at controlling Sonic (even during areas where the camera appears to be cinematic) to avoid losing momentum by bumping into a wall.
Nah-ah. Nope. You aren't going to get away with defending shitty programming by making it out to be a challenge. Not on my watch.
Overall, I like SA, and it's definitely a significant point in Sonic's history. But it's a game that's rough to play and made some pretty questionable decisions. It simply doesn't hold up that well, not compared to modern games, not compared to some of its contemporaries.
Stopping while bumping into a wall isn't a glitch, it's only when Sonic's rotation keeps changing rapidly. But my point stands, having to control Sonic around twists and turns beats holding X while a spline path guides you like a little bitch. Sections like the end of Windy Valley and Speed Highway's wall run shortcut actually require you to pay attention.
Edited October 15, 2013 by BeachHog
I would agree if not for the fact that the game is prone to just throwing you off the wall because you bumped into those air molecules too quickly. If I had a choice, I'd improve wall running by sort of going with Shadow the Hedgehog's idea. In that I mean, you can do it, but you'll fall off if you don't pass to the other side quick enough. I don't know how it works in Lost World, so I can't say if that's an improvement or not.
Chaos Incarnate
I wonda what happen to sanic
Sonic Adventure was the very first Sonic game I had the pleasure of being exposed to. It may have been a demo sampler disk, but either way, Emerald Coast had such a huge impact on me as a child, and I played it on an actual Dreamcast.
I finally bought this game on Xbox Live Arcade after getting a ton of Microsoft points to spend last Christmas after playing the demo over and over. Knuckles' treasure hunting stages felt like a chore to play through, and I still haven't got past Big's story yet, I enjoyed playing as everyone else, and I do like the game's structure of selecting whatever character you want to play as from the game's main menu in a story exclusive to them. The control is great, as each character has weight to them but feels fluid, and I was totally fine with the hub worlds here. The music will also always stay with me, from Emerald Coast to the amazing intro theme, Open Your Heart.
I felt like the story had a lot of potential, but the cutscenes that look awful by today's standards and six exclusive stories that mostly tied into one plot point cluttered it a bit. Plus, the voice acting is really bad. Deem Bristow is the only actor whose performance feels salvageable to me, everyone else delivers a fitting voice but the acting comes off as forced and awkward. Oh, and the camera does feel finicky in gameplay, mainly in Sonic's stages.
In spite of presentation and camera flaws, and not enjoying Big or Knuckles, Sonic Adventure still holds a special place in my heart, and I think the gameplay has aged alright, better the Adventure 2 IMHO.
Dizcrybe
I am made of blue sky... and golden light...
In terms of Sonic and Tails, yeah, I'd say so. I don't care what anyone says, SA1 has probably the best control out of every other 3D Sonic game before Generations and maybe Colors in some parts. When I wanted Sonic to turn, he turned. He didn't jerk to the right of left like he was being pulled or just start running in every direction. Similarly, when I wanted him to stop, he stopped. Almost instantly. There was no sliding nonsense (thank you Unleashes and SA2). He stopped in under a second.
I also loved cheesing the stages as Tails. It was fun, darn it. More fun than those asinine mech stages in SA2.
Hell, even Knuckles wasn't that bad. His stages were somewhat enjoyable, especially when compared to SA2's tedious snorefests.
Actually, you know what? Even Amy was decent in SA1. She is not as slow as everyone says. That would be Big. Besides, at least the goal was still to get from point A to point B. It's not even like you're in any danger or anything.
Also, the voice acting is not that bad. Mediocre at worst. You want really bad Sonic voice acting? Look at Sonic Shuffle.
While the cutscenes haven't aged well at all, I think the gameplay holds up pretty well. Which is more than I can say for SA2.
Also, I only ever encountered, like, one glitch in the game, and it wasn't even major. And this was before I broke my Dreamcast.
Edited October 15, 2013 by Deathzcrybe
When I wanted Sonic to turn, he turned. He didn't jerk to the right of left like he was being pulled or just start running in every direction. Similarly, when I wanted him to stop, he stopped. Almost instantly. There was no sliding nonsense (thank you Unleashes and SA2). He stopped in under a second.
This is something I definitely miss when playing the newer Sonic games. Colors and Generations improved it by a ton, but the SD versions of Unleashed... god, it's like they turned Sonic R into a platformer and upped the graphics. I mean, you can get used to it eventually, but it's still terribly programmed.
CrownSlayer's Shadow
Don't Demand Sympathy And Refuse to Give it In Return
In terms of gameplay? No, because there are times where what was good 10 years ago can age badly, and what was tolerable back then is simply no excuse as of now. Now despite it's poor aging, the Adventures hold fond memories to many people in and out of the fandom who played it before things like "Sonic's Shitty Friends" or "Sonic doesn't work in 3D" began to plague the internet to the point that dissing them tends to incite rage even among a number of gamers who left the franchise at its worst.
Jet Prower
I'm just honestly surprised that so many people constantly say the game hasn't aged well. I still enjoy the game and can pull it off my shelf now and give it another play through whenever I want. I have the game in three different places already, Dreamcast, GC, and the 360 sega compilation disk that has other dreamcast games on it.
I know the game has glitches. Should they have been fixed before making the DX version? Yes, they should have. Does it prevent me from enjoying the game? Not in the slightest. I love the exploration of the hub world, something I would love all sonic games to have. The level to level system is just so bleh these days. I just want the world to feel more whole and alive. While there was of things going on in the world, that was likely due to limitations in the system. The unleashed hub world is so much better it isn't funny.
Some people always want to say I have nostalgia goggles on and I am not picky enough with the game. I don't see why I have to be that picky with a game that I consider quite good. It has its flaws, but many games have flaws. I just don't like putting the game down is all. I praise it and would always recommend it to people I know. If the person is so picky to start picking it apart because of graphics and little gameplay glitches, they seem to be falling prey to the little kid syndrome that is going around these days. These people that just whine about every little thing and don't ever try and enjoy a game. The same people are then so obsessed with graphics that they fail to notice other things or totally write off a game just because of it. It irritates me so much.
I know people won't agree with me, but I could pick this game up any day and enjoy it. While I agree, Big's gameplay maybe should have been an optional minigame instead of required for the storyline, everything else seems fine to me. As I've said before, if people are going to whine this much over other characters, just make them all unlockable after the fact. Have the people only be required to play as Sonic and Super Sonic and they can play the other characters later if they wish to know more about what has been going on, but you don't have to do it. I just think people have become too picky these days to enjoy what I consider one of the better games in the series.
DarkXZA
I agree, Sonic's stages are are so fun to play through although I can't say the same about the rest of the game. Even with glitches and camera problems I can honestly say Sonic is fun in this game, I also like the sense of freedom this game gives you unlike most other 3D sonic games,
T-Min
Soft Fuzzy Man
*cough cough*
*coughHACKPHLEGHMBURUACKK*
I, uh...I agree.
I still think Adventure is fantastic, its flaws notwithstanding. I wouldn't say it's aged entirely well, but not to the point that it's not still...well...great fun.
the story is garbage
Hey, no D:
duDUH...GUH...NO! D8<
But in all seriousness, I think that while the story has its flaws, in a genre where the most plot development you usually get is "MISTER BADAMAGOO IS MEAN AND YOU HAVE TO BEAT HIM" (at the time, at least), it kinda meant something that Sonic went out of its way to attempt one, and the characterization was (and still is) awesome. I still think it's a decent little story for what it is, and I really love the differing character perspectives.
And honestly, as more time passes, I think the ungodly cheesiness of the voice acting and animation just makes it that much more fun. It's sort of like Mega Man 8 or X4 in that way for me, if not to the same extent. Sonic Adventure 2, I think, executed most of this stuff better, though, even if it's still not quite up to par.
And I think the hub worlds were fun to screw around in, if nothing else. That, and I wouldn't trade the awesomely bizarre NPC writing for anything.
WarioBone
DUUUUUUUDE
No. I think it's overrated. It's buggy as fuck. It's like the platformer version of Fallout 3.
Edited October 15, 2013 by Master of Disguise Wario
You need to look past the bugs and enjoy the game for what it is as well though. Try not to dwell on the negative and look to the positive in the game.
No, actually you don't look past the bugs. Doing that only encourages developers not to polish it further, which lead to shit like Sonic 06 being the mess it was.
I mean, give credit where it's due and note the good, positive, and fun parts of the game, but never look past the bad and the negative aspects when you know they could have done better.
Well I know dont ignore them, but don't let the bugs define your play experience with the game. Yes it has bugs, but dont let a few bugs make you say, oh this game sucks because there are some bugs in the game. That's rather shallow to turn down a rather fun game just because it isn't perfect. I just see so many people always focus so much on the negative of games and almost totally ignore the positive completely.
Yes, accentuating the negative can be a pain in the ass if for the sake of bashing and exaggerating faults out of proportion.
However, it also goes without saying we have standards that are a decade ahead of what the Adventures originally gave. The things that we gave it a free pass for aren't all gonna slide by today's standards for some people.
Edited October 15, 2013 by CreepySpiritSonic
People holding older games to newer standards honestly isn't right usually. The game and creators couldn't help it back then that what may not fly now could have easily been gotten away with back then. They didn't know that kind of stuff and holding games to newer standards that aren't relevant to them honestly is a bit unfair to game. You are judging it based on things it can't help when compared with the newest games of course.
But that's the thing. As the years go by, tolerance levels for the glaring flaws of previous generations of gaming become increasingly low. That's what it means when something hasn't aged well. When it fails to capture the same charm to modern audiences as it did the past generations' audience. Similarly, I may have been able to stand low video/audio quality on YouTube in 2005, but now I feel like I'd rather do without than even attempt to watch something that isn't at least 480p. Sure, the videos uploaded from that timespan may be relics of a different time, but that doesn't mean they're going to be enjoyed just because you take technical limitations into account.
I love SA1, glitches and all, but I was raised on glitchy messes and poor quality. My tolerance level is built up over years of playing it. Many of today's fans don't have that luxury because they were raised on today's standards. I think the AVGN said it best. There's a difference between "retro" and "outdated." "Retro" is something meaningful from the past. "Outdated" is something that was never desired to begin with. The bugs in SA1 were never desired, but they were put up with because that was all we had. Now we have vastly superior products, and those who were raised on them are justifiably not going to want to play a game that feels broken down based on what they're used to.
Even if you manage to look past the bugs, though, you have to remember that the bugs and glitches aren't just blemishes on otherwise good gameplay. The bugs and glitches are the gameplay. Trying to look past it is still a miserable experience if you're not used to it.


This one did not make it to the mainstream media. But Iraqi soldiers received brutal, final order in the last days of battle with IS – Kill anything that moves. Results can be found crushed in the rubble.
MOSUL, Iraq – The Iraqi soldier looks out from his tiny three-walled room across a wasteland of rubble that crumbles steeply down to the banks of the Tigris River and contemplates the last days of the savage fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.
What remains of this part of Mosul's Old City, where IS militants made their last stand, and what lies beneath betrays the horrific final days of the battle.
Hundreds of corpses lie half-buried in the broken masonry and rubble that was once a bustling, historic quarter. The stench of decaying flesh, which comes fast in the 50C summer heat, overwhelms the senses.
Feet are the most distinguishable remains; there are many poking from the rubble.
That final killing spree has left its mark, and it is one some appear keen to cover over.
Over the last week, armoured bulldozers have trundled back and forth over the crumpled houses, grinding uncounted corpses into the rubble.
But the dead refuse to go away. Rotting body parts glow a reddish-brown amid the pale grey of the undulating heatscape of masonry, dust and broken buildings.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the major said the orders were wrong, but the military had to follow them.
The major scoffs at claims made by some Iraqi soldiers that the jails in Baghdad were already too full to take any more IS prisoners.
On Monday, several journalists witnessed an IS captive being dragged through the ruined streets of the Old City by special forces soldiers.
The man was bound and had a rope fastened around his neck. The journalists had their memory cards confiscated by soldiers and were ordered to leave.
Corpses line the western banks of the Tigris. Killed in air strikes, fighting and executions, or having died of hunger or thirst, some have washed ashore while others float in the blue waters. Some of the bodies are small. They were children.
Footage released on social media on 17 July shows Iraqi helicopters carrying out what are believed to have been some of the last air strikes of the nine-month-long battle for Mosul.
To a soundtrack of cheerful, victorious music, the helicopters target desperate people attempting to escape the Old City by swimming across the wide river.
Nearby, soldiers pose for victory photos before an Iraqi flag, the pole planted atop a pile of rubble and body parts.
They have become inured to the landscape of death over which they move. The brutality of this long conflict and the barbarity of their enemy has taken its toll on the Iraqi armed forces. There is little humanity left.
Soldiers – most with scarves wrapped around their faces to fend off the overpowering stench of death – pick through the rubble and corpses, looking for modest spoils of war. Burned and broken pieces of AK47s, empty magazines, a few tins of ammunition.
Late last week, Iraqi forces were still being attacked by occasional IS militants emerging from the rubble or collapsed buildings to shoot at soldiers or hurl grenades.
On Thursday, a soldier approached what he thought was an IS corpse. The militant was pretending to be dead and shot the soldier at close range with a pistol.
There were still people alive under the rubble on Monday, when four IS members – two foreign fighters and two Iraqis – were found hiding. All four were shot, according to an Iraqi soldier stationed there.
These are likely to be among what soldiers believe are comparatively few survivors, some of whom are still managing to target Iraqi forces from underground hide-outs.
Last Thursday, Iraqi army soldier Haidar said eight tunnels with people inside had been identified by the military, mainly from interviews with women and children who had escaped.
"In our section, there are three. One tunnel has six Iraqi Daesh fighters, in another there are 30, including nine women, and in the third, we do not know the exact number but people coming out tell us there are a lot," he said.
It is not known what became of any of those people – but very few civilians have emerged alive from the ruins since Thursday.
Supplies of food and drinking water are either scarce or non-existent below ground.
The last civilians to emerge from the rubble resembled concentration-camp victims, many reporting they had not eaten for a fortnight. Some were near death.
Last Wednesday, a starving Yazidi boy, 11, wept in a field hospital where he was treated for extreme dehydration and malnutrition as he described watching four other children die of thirst.
IS abducted the boy and his 13 year-old sister, who he had not seen for the preceding 30 days, from their home town in Iraq's Sinjar mountain in 2014.
IS massacred thousands of Yazidis – whose ancient faith they decry as devil-worship – and took thousands more women and children into captivity.
Near the river, bulldozer driver Hussein said that his job was to maneuvre over the rubble, filling in any suspicious entrance holes to block possible IS activity.
"I fill the holes with rubble so the Daesh can't come out again," he said, adding that he was not sure whether he was burying people alive.
Even in areas of the Old City that were liberated weeks ago, death still lingers.
Near the remains of the destroyed al-Nuri mosque, the blackened disembodied head of a female IS adherent who blew herself up among fleeing women and children lies beside a crater.
In the dust nearby is a hairbrush, a fashionable handbag, colourful clothing – small things with which people had hoped to escape – and a woman's leg.
A cat steals across a ruined street with a piece of fresh meat hanging from its jaws. It is inevitably human – the only flesh left anywhere in the Old City is that of dead people.
New corpses still appear at different locations across the Old City. Some have clearly been executed, shot in the head at close range.
Many still have ropes trailing from tied hands and feet, indicating that either while dead or alive, they were dragged through the deserted streets. Many have been set on fire to curb the smell of decomposition.
Iraqi forces proudly claim to have killed at least 2,000 IS militants in the last stages of the Old City battle. Many of these were foreign fighters.
No one has offered a figure for the dead civilians – the women and children who could not escape.
The way the bulldozers have churned over the rubble and corpses and then driven back and forth over the terrain means that the real loss of life in the final bloodbath of the Mosul conflict will never be known.
The once-elegant historic Old City of Mosul is now an expansive graveyard – a crumbled flattened monument to one of the most merciless conflicts of the still young 21st century.
This illustrates how the use of terror proxies is still serving their agenda even when the war for regime change, and plunder of resources, is failing.
They don't have to look after the well-being of their militants after the operations are ended. They just order them killed, with plausible deniability.
So, where's the self-righteous moralists from Oxford University on the issue of Iraq Mosul's bloodbath, and the uninvited UK/US/EU military invasion by proxies against the Syrian people?
Previous PostDuterte Slams Oxford University & Intellectual Elitism this timeNext PostIs the US Congress Engaged in A Controlled Demolition of the US?
This is Rothschild world !


Are you looking for a special gift that will differ from ordinary boring presents and want to excite your significant other, friend or even your boss? Maybe we suggest something that will satisfy your rich taste – Handmade Fur You.
This place is a collection of handmade of high-quality natural fur (in general of natural mink) merchandise. And you won't find two similar things: all goods, even which are placed in one section, are absolutely unique and exclusive. In fact, there are no goods like that anywhere else. All items are stylish elegant and refined.
And without doubts, it's the perfect gift for any case both for men and women. HandMadeFurYou is not just a shop. It's a place where cute touching things are looking for their masters. Soft sweet fuzzies are able to melt the coldest heart with their warmth. They are made to warm their owner's hands, as well as souls, and everything they are dreaming about is to become yours.
Please, yourself or your folks with a little part of great love. All items are handcrafted in Kiev, Ukraine by fur designer Helen Myagkova.
All images are courtesy of awesomething blog.


Q. Can I access my shelter with my car parked in the garage?
A. Yes, as long as you have approximately 2-3 feet to walk behind the car with the garage door closed.
A. The shelter accommodates 6-8 depending on size and number of adults, children, pets, etc. FIMA requires 3 sq. ft. per person.
Q. Does driving over or parking on my storm shelter damage it?
A. Driving over or parking on the shelter will not damage it. The ¼ inch reinforced steel lid is built to withstand 4000 lb wheel weight. No two (2) wheels will be on the lid at one time. Parking on the lid WILL prohibit you from accessing your shelter.
Q. What is a "come along winch" or egress device?
A. We include a 4000 lb. "come along winch" in each shelter. The winch provides you a manual egress (exit) out of the shelter should fallen debris jam the lid bearings and prohibit you from easily sliding the lid open.
Q. Is there room for my pets?
A. National Storm Shelters, LLC understands the importance of our family pets... You can carry smaller pets down into the unit as you enter. You may also put the smaller pet into a pet carrier, as they will also be stressed. We suggest you work with larger animals to familiarize them with entering and exiting the unit.
Q. Will my cell phone work inside the shelter?
A. Cell phone reception depends on your cell phone carrier.
Q. How is the shelter ventilated?
A. The one piece lid includes a NSSA/FEMA 320 Approved Standard vent. The shelter lid sits ¼ inch above the surface of the shelter. This provides 360 degree ventilation.
Q. Will the shelter take in water?
A. It is possible for water to get in the unit. The shelter is not air tight. It is raised slightly and has a sloped finish to assist in preventing water runoff when washing out your garage. Simply wipe down the shelter if this should occur.
Q. Is this shelter safe against severe storms and tornadoes?
A. National Storm Shelter, LLC in ground storm shelter meets or exceeds FEMA 320 Standard to withstand an F5 or greater tornados. It is in compliance with the applicable provisions of the ICC-500 Design Standard/NSSA criteria, and has been successfully tested at Texas Tech Wind Engineering Research Center.
Q. How long does it take to complete the installation?
A. We allow one day for installation.
Q. Does the install leave a mess for us to clean up?
A. The install teams do an excellent job in keeping the work area clean. Without fail, our customers always comment on how neat our installs teams leave the work area when they have completed the install?
Q. Can my foundation be damaged during my install?
A. The install teams will not perform any action that would jeopardize the integrity of the foundation or structure.
Q. Can the shelter be installed in my carport?
A. Yes, with some modification on the install. If the carport is not enclosed, it is not possible to protect the shelter from outside elements, (i.e. water runoff, snow etc). This type of install does void the warranty.
Q. Are your storm shelters endorsed by FEMA and National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA)?
A. National Storm Shelters belowground shelters have been TESTED and APPORVED by National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA) Lubbock TX & Texas Tech University (TTU) to meet or exceed all of the NSSA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "Standard" (FEMA 320/ICC 500). Our shelters have been tested by "Third Party" Engineering Group both in Texas and Alabama to meet and or exceed the same standard. Our Shelter past "ALL" testing on the first test with no reservations.
Q. Would I be trapped inside my shelter if my car gets shifted on to the shelter lid, or the roof collapses on top of my shelter during a severe storm or tornado?
A. If debris has fallen on your lid, it is still possible for you to manually open the lid with the "come-along winch".
Q. Can I get out of my shelter if the roof or fallen debris collapses on the lid?
A. The "come along winch" enables you to manually slide the lid open with tons of debris around the shelter.
Q. Were your storm shelters designed by a qualified engineer and tested?
A. Our in-house engineer team developed and drew the plans for our units. A NSSA approved third party engineer evaluation was performed. Our unit was approved by the third party engineer and successfully tested at Texas Tech Wind Engineering Institute Impact Testing Facility as a pre-requisite to acceptance into NSSA approval.
Q. Can the shelter be installed in my back yard?
A. The shelter's lid is not water tight and needs to be installed in an enclosed area to prevent exposure of outside elements. The unit also needs to be installed with an existing slab in place.
Q. Can I wire my shelter for electricity?
A. National Storm Shelters, LLC does not suggest wiring for electricity in your storm shelter. Battery operated lights are included with your shelter.


Not sure if it's a Dental question but my daughter 18 year old daughter was referred to an oral surgeon. She developed an infection lower gum last tooth there. Amoxicillin did not work. Kept getting worse. Started Cephalexin yesterday afternoon. Now she's taken a days worth and continuing to get worse. Her neck, throat and ears hurt as well.
Doctor's Assistant: How long have you been dealing with the neck pain? Are you experiencing any numbness or tingling?
A bubble like thing appeared on her gum at her lower right side tooth on Tuesday. Dentist said it's an infection. Prescribed amoxicillin. Took it for a couple days. Infection continued to get worse and spread. Changed antibiotic to Cephalexin yesterday afternoon. She woke up even worse.
It sounds as if your daughter has a tooth infection. How long was she taking the amoxicillin and what dosage was she on?
Ignore the prompts for the phone call.
Your daughter needs to be taking 500 mg of amoxicillin 3 times a day. What is the concentration of the liquid?
Three teaspoons a day of any elixir that is available is not enough for an adult. It takes at least 48 hours of round the clock amoxicillin every 8 hours before you will see any decrease in the swelling.
Cephalexin is not a good substitute for tooth infections. Today is only Friday and it appears that she was under dosed with the amoxicillin. She is an adult and needs to be taking a higher concentration of amoxicillin.
Can she not take pills?
Cephalexin needs to be given four times a day and not three.
No she cannot. She won't swallow them. I have the equivalent capsuleswhat do I do?
I may take her to Boston Children's todayOk thank you!no they did not tell me. Then what will treat it?
Tooth infections need to be treated with either root canal treatment or extraction. The hospital will normally not provide any dental treatment so you may be wasting your time and money if you take her there. The amoxicillin needs time to work.
Did you take your daughter to a dentist and have an X-ray taken yet?
At least 48 hours on the correct dose. She needs to be taking double that dose.
Have you seen a dentist or is a doctor prescribing her the antibiotic?
Ok thank you you. Of the amoxicillin?
You need to stick with the dentist and he needs to be informed of the correct dose. 250 mg its for a 6 year old not an 18 year old.
It is progressing because she was on the wrong dose.
If the amoxicillin does not work,she should be switched to clindamycin and not cephalexin.
I will call her dentist nowshe needs double the dose?
You are welcome.. Your dentist should have told you the treatment that she needs. Double the dose now.
Okgo back to the amoxicillin?
Go back to the amoxicillin. Dose her now with 500mg. Then another in 8 hours around the clock. Your pediatrician is giving the wrong advice.
Ok thank you. And give it 48 hours?
Continue the amoxicillin for 1 week. Do not stop giving it around the clock.
If there is no decrease in the swelling in 48 hours,have the oral surgeon switch her to clindamycin 300 mg every six hours.
Will do. You were a huge help!
There are 5 ml in a teaspoon. Did they tell you that she needed an extraction?
You can give her 1000 mg every eight hours for the next 24 hours to get her blood level up.
Good. You can give her four teaspoons every 8 hours for the next 24 hours and then give two teaspoons every 8 hours for the next week.
Viral infections will usually resolve within about 10 days. Antibiotics are not effective against viral infections. Herpetic stomatitis can cause severe symptoms like this and that is a viral problem that will resolve on its own.Hydrogen peroxide 3% diluted 1:1 is a good mouth rinse to be used four times a day.Your surgeon should be able to prescribe a stronger pain killer to get her comfortable.
It seems that the surgeon should be more sympathetic after seeing her.


Everyvine maps can be customized to provide exactly the wine mapping your site needs. Our maps can show whatever layers you want including collections of vineyards, wineries, wine regions, and more.
Below are examples of some of the many ways Everyvine maps can be used.
The standard Everyvine map. Satellite, road map, and topographic map backgrounds. Notice how the vineyard display changes. The vineyard is a point when zoomed out and detailed blocks when zoomed in.
Often wineries purchase grapes from a collection of high quality growers. This map is configured to show a set of vineyards the organization purchases from, and what they are growing.
Map shows planted blocks of vineyard and colors in soil types under the vineyard. Hovering over different sections provides soil name and slopes.
Map shows wine region boundary, planted vineyard areas, wineries, and tasting rooms. Names of locations are shown when you hover over them. Background is topographic map.
Sepia toned satellite photograph background. Vineyard blocks have custom styled tooltip on hover.
Map background rendered in watercolor style. Vineyard markers are customized.
Map background rendered in minimalist black and white style. Napa wine regions overlayed.


The house we're living in now is a big old mansion. The owners maintain it as well as they can. All the essentials are here, so no complaints.
One of them is the front stairs and hallway. They've had this ugly pinky-taupe wall-to-wall carpeting that had seen better days (if a pinky-taupe wall-to-wall carpet can have a better day).
Who knows how long it had been there. And it was covering up a couple spots in the floor that, when we walked across them gave just a little bit. Just enough to make you wonder if one day when you walked across it, maybe it would give way and you'd end up somewhere in the basement.
It was old enough, too, that we noticed it was starting to stink. Like a pet had peed on it just a few times too often.
So, now that the weather is finally nice enough that we can open the windows and have fresh air blowing through, we decided it was time.
Yesterday we started. Lots of dust. The padding underneath had deteriorated into a green powder. Lots of nails and staples to pull out. But underneath, except for those two spots in the hallway, the floor was in surprisingly good shape.
It took us most of the day yesterday and a few hours again today. The next mystery is, why did they have to cut those holes in the floor where the plywood has been put down? It seems to be sturdy, but not properly supported underneath, which accounts for the "give" when you walk over it.
There's still plenty to do. The stairs need sanded, re-stained and the kick-boards scraped and painted. We'll have to deal with the plywood-covered holes. But already, it's better: the front of the house no longer smells like pee! And that alone is worth the time and effort.