text:
Striking Fear
A Random Research Note
Slingers portrayed on Trajan's Column.
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Smooth stones shot with a sling…are more dangerous than any arrows, since while leaving the limb intact they inflict a wound that is still lethal, and the enemy dies from the blow of the stone without loss of blood…This weapon should be learned by all recruits with frequent exercise, because it is no effort to carry a sling. It often happens too that warfare is carried on in stony places, that some mountain or hill has to be defended…
Vegetius: De Re Militari
Druisius, one of the main characters in my work-in-progress, Empress & Soldier, is a new recruit facing his first battle, defending a mountain pass. In the vanguard of the troops facing the enemy are the slingers. (No, this isn't historically correct: what I write isn't. It's a created world that looks a lot like ours, but I'm not bound by absolute accuracy.)
Slings are an ancient weapon, most likely in use long before any written record. The first written record in the western world is the story of David and Goliath in the Old Testament of the Bible (1st Samuel), thought to have been written about the 6th century BCE. Used across the world, the oldest-known slings are from coastal Peru, radio-carbon dated to c. 2500 BCE.
Roman slingers, which I am using as my model, used lead sling-bullets: the density of lead means that the mass of a sling-bullet made from the metal is much greater than one of stone. Lead sling-bullets could therefore be small, able to travel further than a stone of the same mass due to less resistance in the air, and difficult to see in flight. A painful projectile, with larger ones capable of speeds up to 160 kph. As archaeologist John Reid of the Trimontium Trust told Scientific American, it could take the top of a head off. Romans (and Greeks) literally added insult to injury: bullets were sometimes inscribed with images of snakes or scorpions, or inscriptions such as 'catch!'.
Peter van der Sluijs, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Perhaps the most interesting of all the sling bullets found from the Roman period are those from Burnswark, or Birrenswark, Hill in southwestern Scotland. In the second century CE, troops under the command of Quintus Lollius Urbicus, the Roman governor of Britannia (himself following orders from Antonius Pius, the Roman Emperor) attacked the hillfort of the Caledonian people here. Archaeological investigations at the site discovered about twenty percent of the sling bullets were smaller than average, and had holes drilled into them. These bullets whistle as they fly. Their assumed purpose is to terrify the enemy: small, stinging, whistling projectiles, almost like a swarm of biting insects.
Druisius isn't a slinger; he's infantry, a foot soldier using shield and sword. But he sees the value of the sling in his first battle. Will he ever use it? You may have to read Empress & Soldier to find out!
Translated Texts for Historians Volume 16: Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science. N.P. Milner, Translator. Liverpool University Press, 1996. pp 16-17
Whistling Sling Bullets Were Roman Troops' Secret Weapon. Tom Metcalfe, LiveScience on June 14, 2016: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whistling-sling-bullets-were-roman-troops-secret-weapon/
Burnswark Hill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnswark_Hill#Battle_details
marianlthorpe	#worldbuilding, random research note, research, Uncategorized, writing	Leave a comment October 2, 2021 October 2, 2021 2 Minutes
You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours.
"We ourselves have seen Manius Manilius walking across the forum; a signal that he who did so, gave all the citizens liberty to consult him upon any subject; and to such persons, when thus walking or sitting at home upon their seats of ceremony, all people had free access, not only to consult them upon points of civil law, but even upon the settlement of a daughter in marriage, the purchase of an estate, or the cultivation of a farm, and indeed upon any employment or business whatsoever." Cicero, De Oratores, Book III:XXXIII
https://pages.pomona.edu/~cmc24747/sources/cic_web/de_or_3.htm
DEA / G. Dagli Orti / De Agostini / Getty
Manius Manilius, whoever he was*, is represented in this passage by Cicero as a patron: an important position and concept in the hierarchical structure of the Roman social contract.
In the Roman world, a patron-client relationship was a form of noblesse oblige, although with the loyalty and support of the client expected. Based on the Roman ideal of 'fides', loyalty, the patron – (the word derives from 'father') – the head of a high-status family, dispensed advice, loans, and influence to his clients – men of lower status, in exchange for political support, respect, and sometimes the physical presence of their clients for protection.
In Empress & Soldier, we see this in action when Salvius, Druisius's father, goes to ask his patron for help in acquiring certain licenses he needs as a merchant. He takes his oldest son (Druisius) with him, as part of his education. They go early in the morning, are admitted to a waiting room, where they and the others waiting are seen in order of their social status. I based this on the salutatio, the morning greeting of clients to their patrons, and also the opportunity to ask the patron for a favour.
By the late Roman Empire, the patron-client relationship had changed quite a bit, to a more self-serving relationship between the two. But one of the advantages of writing a fictional world is I can pick and choose what aspects of history I want to use and adapt – and so I've kept patronage in my city of Casil to reflect patronage in the Roman Republic.
(The identity of Druisius's father's patron is important to the story, by the way, but I'm not about to reveal that yet!)
* an orator and jurist of the Roman Republic, c 150 BCE, actually.
marianlthorpe	#worldbuilding, random research note, research, writing	2 Comments September 25, 2021 September 24, 2021 2 Minutes
Lucius Primus's Unauthorized War
Look back over the past, at the empires that rose and fell, and predict the future. Marcus Aurelius (or Catilius, in my fictional semi-parallel world.)
There are – as there are in almost all multigenerational sagas – two areas of focus in my books: the personal arcs of my characters, and the political/social background against which those character arcs unfold, and by which they are challenged and tested and developed. In Empress & Soldier, the work-in-progress, the political plot will (perhaps) be foremost, and, as I currently envision the book, it will take place over about a 15-year period. A different challenge for me, the writer, in part because my knowledge of Roman political history outside the major events in Roman Britain and a few highlights elsewhere is fairly limited.
This entails a lot of research…which I'll be sharing in random bits as I learn something that will feed the plot of the book. I'm doing this as much for me as anyone – this way it's written down somewhere I can find it again 😊 – but perhaps it will entertain or enlighten someone, or provide me with feedback that will be useful!
The Odrysian Kingdom, which existed from the early 5th century BC at least until the mid-3rd century BC, was one of the most powerful of its time. Throughout much of its early history it remained an ally of Athens; eventually, Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great's father, would conquer it. But in the early part of the common era it was under Roman control, and in one jurisdiction, there was a proconsul governor named Lucius Primus.
According to Dio (54:3:2) Lucius Primus (or he might have been Marcus Primus) stood trial in 22 CE for starting a war against the Odrysae. The Odrysae were Thracian, and Thrace had been an important ally of Rome, especially in the Battle of Actium. Why Lucius Primus started this war I haven't yet been able to find out, but apparently it was 'unauthorized' by Augustus. (Starting a war against allies doesn't appear at first glance to be a good move on a governor's part.) He swore he had Augustus's approval; Augustus said he didn't…and Lucius Primus was eventually executed.
The event is mentioned by Dio because it's important in Augustus's gradual expansion of power: the jurisdiction Lucius Primus governed was a senatorial province, and it should have been the senate that decided the governor's fate without Augustus's interference. That's not what caught my attention. In furthering the history of my fictional world, I need a reason for my antagonists (a family) to have a grievance against the Emperors. So I think this little bit of history will serve as a template. A governor who starts a war he shouldn't have, a trial and execution….and then imagination can create a son who, exonerated because he was either too young or serving in another province (haven't worked out the timelines yet) nurses his grievance and plans a long, multi-generational game of revenge – a game he trains his nephew in as well.
marianlthorpe	#worldbuilding, Empress & Soldier, random research note, research, writing	Leave a comment September 18, 2021 September 17, 2021 2 Minutes
The Place Below: The Maer Cycle Book III, by Dan Fitzerald
In The Place Below, Dan Fitzgerald brings his Maer Cycle to a satisfying conclusion. A generation after the first two books of the series, Sasha, daughter of human and Maer, is now an adult. Empathic, sensitive to touch, her natural skill with languages and communication enhanced as needed by magic, Sasha is searching out the tombs of the Ka-lar, the 'forever kings' laid to rest in a form of stasis hundreds of years earlier. Then one day, her empathetic connection to the minds of the dead encounters an awakened, living Ka-lar among a branch of the Maer who themselves are legendary: the underground-dwelling Skin Maer.
The book alternates between the viewpoints of Sasha and Kuun, the awakened Ka-lar, and they serve as counterbalances to each other: Kuun, who at first presents as confident and powerful, slowly reveals motives and doubts; Sasha, who presents as unsure and solitary by nature, grows into her own competence and agency. Familiar characters—Sinnie, Finn, Tcheen—are reintroduced, but as characters to support Sasha in her quest, not to direct and overshadow her.
Kuun, the scholar-scientist Forever King, choosing stasis in the face of unfinished research in a time of plague, is a nuanced and ambiguous character, his motives slowly revealed over the course of his narrative. Again, Fitzgerald's themes of communication and understanding play into the development of his character and his actions.
Like Fitzgerald's first two books, this is fantasy with few battles and heroics of a martial sort, but with questions asked and answered about the power of language; about acceptance of differences that are superficial; about what we might sacrifice for the good of the whole. Commonalities that connect, not contrasts that divide. Sasha, neither human nor Maer, embodies both the possibility and the questions that arise about differences between Maer and human, a question that will be, finally, answered through Kuun's determination. Recommended (as is the whole series) for readers wanting character-centred fantasy that makes them think.
Find The Maer Cycle, including an omnibus edition with bonus features here.
Dan Fitzgerald is the fantasy author of the Maer Cycle trilogy (character-driven low-magic fantasy) and the upcoming Weirdwater Confluence duology (sword-free fantasy with unusual love stories). The Living Waters comes out October 15, 2021 and The Isle of a Thousand Worlds arrives January 15, 2022, both from Shadow Spark Publishing.
He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, twin boys, and two cats. When not writing he might be found doing yoga, gardening, cooking, or listening to French music.
He can be found on Twitter or Instagram as danfitzwrites, or on his website, www.danfitzwrites.com
marianlthorpe	book reviews, book series, fantasy, writing	Leave a comment September 13, 2021 2 Minutes
Bjørn Larssen's Storytellers in Audiobook Format
From Tantor Media September 7th.
If you don't know this marvellous book, here's my review from its release day in 2019.
Set against Iceland's harsh but beautiful landscape in the late 19th and early 20th century, Bjørn Larssen's debut novel Storytellers explores the multi-generational effect of the evasions, embellishments and outright lies told in a small village. The book begins slowly, almost lyrically, pulling the reader into what seems like situation borrowed from folktale: a reclusive blacksmith, Gunnar, rescues an injured stranger, Sigurd. In exchange for his care, Sigurd offers Gunnar a lot of money, and a story.
But as Sigurd's story progresses, and the book moves between the past and the present, darker elements begin to appear. Gunnar's reclusiveness hides his own secrets, and the unresolved stories of his past. As other characters are introduced and their lives interweave, it becomes clear that at the heart of this small village there are things untold, things left out of the stories, purposely re-imagined. Both individual and collective histories – and memories – cannot be trusted.
The book was reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant, in both theme and mood. Both books deal with the unreliability of memory; both are largely melancholy books. And perhaps there is allegory in them both, too. Storytellers is a book to be read when there is time for contemplation, maybe of an evening with a glass of wine. It isn't always the easiest read, but it's not a book I'm going to forget easily, either.
marianlthorpe	book reviews	Leave a comment September 7, 2021 September 4, 2021 1 Minute
The Dogs of Empire's Legacy
"Shugo," I called, recognizing him.
"Lord Sorley," he said, coming over to me. The puppy squirmed in his grasp.
"What is that?" I asked. Shugo was one of the shepherds, and his sheepdogs were the best around. We bought young dogs from him, rather than breed our own. But the puppy he was holding was no sheepdog, although its black and white colouring suggested one of its parents was.
He spat. "Hagen came through with his hound just when Meg was in heat," he grumbled. "This is the result. I drowned the others at birth — what good would they be? Left her this one to raise so the bitch wouldn't pine, but I need her back with the sheep. So it's drowning for this one, too."
"How old is he?" I could see from how he held the pup it was male.
"Six weeks."
"Don't drown it," I said. "I'll buy it from you."
"Buy it? What do you want it for?"
"The Comiádh's son is ten. Just the right age for a puppy. Will you send it? I'll write a note, if you'll wait a few minutes."
"Aye," he said. "It'll make a boy's dog, I warrant."
One of the advantages of writing what I write – historical fiction of another world – is that I don't have to stay true to historical fact. I do, a lot, but in the case of Colm's puppy (and other dogs in the books), I may not have.
This isn't to say that herding dogs and hunting dogs were unknown in the classical and early-medieval world. They were. Dogs have likely accompanied people and their herds since long before recorded history; once domesticated and relating to people as part of their pack, dogs' protective instincts would easily extend to the animals associated with their people. Archeological excavation of sites dated to the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE has found the remains of sheep and dogs together. But the physical separation of hunting dogs and herding dogs by breed is thought by some researchers to have occurred much later – so Colm's dog Peritas, which I envision as a cross between a border collie and a deerhound – appears anachronistic.
2nd century BC mosaic from Alexandria, Egypt of a dog and a pitcher. Public Domian, via Wikimedia Commons
Or does it? About 200 CE, Oppian of Apamea, a Greek poet, wrote a poem on hunting, in which he observes that, for the hunter, the black and white dogs of the farmer and shepherd (the mosaic above may show one of these) are not desirable. These may have been more guardian dogs than herding dogs – a couple of centuries earlier, Marcus Varro, in his De Re Rusticae, wrote:
As there are, then, two sorts of dogs — the hunting-dog suited to chase the beasts of the forest, and the other which is procured as a watch-dog and is of importance to the shepherd…
By Anonymous (Roman Empire) – Walters Art Museum: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18804318
In the 2nd C Roman relief of a herdsman and his dog (above), there are no features that point to this dog as a 'black and white herding dog' as we know them in later centuries (and as I picture the herding dogs of Linrathe) – but no evidence it isn't, either.
Mosaic of Dog Chasing a Rabbit, Roman, Homs, Syria, 450-462 AD, Chazen Museum of Art
Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Hunting dogs – of the sort, perhaps, that has fathered Colm's puppy, were praised and prized, and some of the best reputed to come from Britain. Oppian, again:
There is a strong breed of hunting dog…the wild tribes of Britons…call by the name of Agassian…. It is by virtue of its nose, however, that the Agassian is most exalted, and for tracking it is the best there is; for it is very adept at discovering the tracks of things that walk upon the ground, and skilled too at marking the airborne scent.
Later in Empire's Reckoning, the protagonist Sorley, after a long journey south in the role of an itinerant sheep-shearer, sends the sheepdog that has accompanied him home, a long journey on its own. I took this idea from The Drove Roads of Scotland, the author commenting on this practice among the drovers of the 17th and 18th centuries. But it goes back much further than that: Varro, again:
Publius Aufidius Pontianus, of Amiternum, had bought some herds of sheep in furthest Umbria, the purchase including the dogs but not the shepherds, but providing that the shepherds should take them to the pastures of Metapontum and to market at Heraclea. When the men who had taken them there had returned home, the dogs, without direction… returned to the shepherds in Umbria a few days later, though it was a journey of many days.
This is a distance of some 300 miles, about the same distance that Haldane suggested the sheepdogs of Scotland, 1700 years later, travelled alone on their return home.
Maybe Colm's Peritas isn't completely anachronistic, nor is the black-and-white sheepdog Sorley sends home. In my fictional but familiar world, all that really matters is that the reader can believe in these dogs and their journeys.
Varro: De Res Rusticae: translation at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Varro/de_Re_Rustica
Oppian: translation at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/oppian/home.html
Haldane, A.R. B. 1960. The Drove Roads of Scotland (2008 edition, Birlinn).
Featured Image: A child holding a dog, detail of the 6th century mosaic floor from the Palatium Magnum (Constantinople's Great Palace), Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul . Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
marianlthorpe	Empire's Legacy	Leave a comment September 4, 2021 September 4, 2021 4 Minutes
Jati's Wager, by Jonathan Nevair: A Review
I'm pleased to be participating in the Storytellers on Tour blog tour (Aug 29th – Sept 4th) for Jonathan Nevair's second novel in his Wind Tide series, Jati's Wager.
A space opera heist brimming with action, twists, and turns that doubles as a story of personal growth, mentorship, and sacrifice.
Ailo is a streetwise teen surviving alone on the remote moonbase, Tarkassi 9. She wants nothing more than to flee into the wider world of the Arm. When her chance arrives, she makes it no farther than the first ship out of the system. That's where Jati, the Patent War veteran and general fighting the Monopolies, gives her a second chance. It's an unlikely partnership, but Ailo's rogue status is just what Jati's People's Army needs to drive the final spike of victory into a weakening Garissian Council.
A team of experts assembles and hope rests on Ailo's skill, stealth, and tenacity to pull off the impossible. It's a wild gambit, and a moral code may need to be bent, or broken, to achieve success. When an internal shadow rises, casting doubt on their plans, Ailo and Jati are forced to weigh the cost of revenge against honor and justice.
Your own survival is paramount when you're a street kid. You learn to be fast, to be silent, to move in and out of the shadows; to trust your instincts; to rely on your own judgement. You develop coping mechanisms, too; mental ones, to give you support, advice; a friend you can rely on. But all your experience and all your wiles aren't foolproof.
When stowing away on a ship leaving the moonbase she'd grown up on doesn't go the way Ailo had hoped, she becomes part of a crew under the legendary Jati, general, Legionary, idealist. Ailo has to learn to trust more than the part of her mind she calls Gerib, her 'imaginary friend' who guides and counsels her, and to see herself not only as an individual but as part of a team with a larger purpose. As the links between her hidden past and the cause Jati is fighting for are revealed, skills that have lain latent in Ailo's mind: skills of tactics and strategy, of language, and the fusing of the two that make for skilled diplomacy, begin to emerge. But those are not the only reason Ailo is valuable to Jati. Is she the last piece in the puzzle that will bring them victory against the Garassian council?
Fast paced and complex, Jati's Wager is a book that needs your full attention. Packed with action, the story moves forward rapidly, but the action invites deeper moral questions, not just for Ailo, but for the reader. There is a war to be won, but can it be done in a way that leaves the long history of violence, of conflict and retribution, behind? What is the moral path for a warrior? – not a soldier, someone who follows orders, but a warrior, making mindful, conscious choices, aware of the myriad consequences. Is vengeance – or sacrifice – ever appropriate? The questions of personal survival versus the collective good; the role and meaning and restrictions of history, and the power of language are woven throughout the story, reinforced in many ways, large and small, creating layers of meaning and contemplation in both the reader and Ailo.
Jati's Wager is the second book in Jonathan Nevair's Wind Tide series, but it can be read as a standalone. Links to his first book, Goodbye to the Sun, are present and important, but sufficiently explained that the reader does not need to have read it (although I strongly suggest you do!) In the background, not only do the myths of the Trojan War have a presence, but the author has quietly included references to classic science-fiction, ideas from Carl Sagan, and – in a sentence that made me bark with laughter – a nod to Apocalypse Now.
Highly recommended, both for lovers of space opera, and readers that like books that make them think.
Like a chance to win a copy?
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e832e988101/?
Prize: A print copy of Jati's Wager by Jonathan Nevair – US/UK Only
Starts: August 29th, 2021 at 12:00am EST
Ends: September 5st, 2021 at 11:59pm EST
Jati's Wager (Wind Tide (#2)) by Jonathan Nevair,
Published: August 18, 2021 by Shadow Spark Publishing
Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera, LGBTQ+
CW: death of parent (mentioned), death of mentor, verbal abuse, graphic violence and death, blood, homelessness, trauma, guilt, kidnapping (mentioned)
POSSIBLE ULTIMATE TOUR EXPERIENCE TICKETS: Let's Get The Party Started, Represent, Lost In Space, Snark It Up, The More The Merrier, The Wings Of Change
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58579886-jati-s-wager
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B099QM63SQ
Jonathan Nevair is a science fiction writer and, as Dr. Jonathan Wallis, an art historian and Professor of Art History at Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia. After two decades of academic teaching and publishing, he finally got up the nerve to write fiction. Jonathan grew up on Long Island, NY but now resides in southeast Pennsylvania with his wife and rambunctious mountain feist, Cricket.
You can find him online at www.jonathannevair.com and on twitter at @JNevair
Website: https://www.jonathannevair.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JNevair
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jnevair/
Publisher Info
Shadow Spark Publishing
Website: https://shadowsparkpub.com/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shadowsparkpub/
marianlthorpe	book reviews, science fiction	Leave a comment September 2, 2021 September 1, 2021 4 Minutes
Release Day Reality
My sixth book is out today.
The cat just loudly deposited a hairball on the rug. Her retching woke me.
The dishwasher needs emptying; the birdbath filling.
My day planner tells me I have a guest post due today, reading to do for a book review, and various tasks related to my volunteer job as editor of our community newsletter, as well as feedback notes to write for a first-time author I'm mentoring.
In other words, the world hasn't stopped because I have a new book out, and, you know, that's ok.
Brian and I will go out for ice cream at our favourite place by the river a little later today, to celebrate. (Normally, we go out for a meal, but as it's also our 40th wedding anniversary this week, we'll do that on Friday.) Friends are sending congratulations. I am suffused with the sense of accomplishment and pleased with the book's reception so far. It's the sixth book in a series; there will be a small spike in sales this week, and then it will trail off, to be purchased as people work their way through the first five. Six years and six books into the life of an indie author, I know it's a long game.
Next week I'm taking a holiday, travelling a couple of hours north to Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, for a few days walking and birding, leisurely brunches on outdoor patios, some pleasure reading, and whatever else catches my fancy. After this short break. Heir will take up some of my time – guest blogs, interviews, a blog tour, perhaps some readings, but it's out in the world, no longer mine alone but belonging too to its readers, to make what they will of it. Both the next two books – Empress & Soldier and Empire's Passing – are nudging me: work needs to start in earnest there.
As it will. Alongside dishwashers to empty, and meals to cook, and community work…and hairballs.
marianlthorpe	writing	Leave a comment August 30, 2021 1 Minute
Gaffes in Historical Fiction by Mercedes Rochelle
Historical Fiction authors have all experienced it…blissfully writing away, unaware that we have just committed an anachronism. And chances are, we won't even know until a reviewer calls it to the world's attention—months, or even years later. Oh no!
I hate to admit it, but outside of my knowledge of historical events, I don't know everything about everything historical. Trust me: it's a tall order (according to the OED, earliest use of this phrase was 1893). Not every animal or plant was native to England (or America!). Sometimes they were introduced later than the period we are writing about. One time a reader penalized me for having Canute the Dane eat a rabbit because he said they were brought over with the Normans. D'oh! I looked it up and discovered a Roman recipe (in England) for rabbit, so they must have brought over the little buggers. That doesn't excuse me, unfortunately. It never occurred to me to look up the origin of rabbits in England.
One little slip like giving King Alfred a tomato can wreak havoc with an author's credibility. Potatoes are another bone of contention, as are turkeys, sugar, and chocolate, to name a few. Such foods may have existed but may not have made their way to England until late in the period. Not everyone agrees on the timing.
So where is the fine line between innocent errors and unforgiveable lapses? Laurence Olivier had Henry V in armor hoisted onto his horse with a crane-like contraption. He was warned against this inaccuracy by his historical advisor but preferred the dramatic effect. This gaffe is imprinted on our cultural memory!
Henry V (Signet Classics) (c) 1998
What about language? Idioms are another trap for the unwary. When I am writing, I run etymonline.com in the background, as well as phrases.org.uk. There are certain words and phrases that wouldn't have been used in the early days. You can't explode before the use of gunpowder. Can you really be nervous before the discovery of nerves? Of course, etymology is only a guide; the first known use of a word would be in writing. But I doubt if it would be in general use verbally for more than a century or two previously. So if a word was first discovered in 1650, for example, I would hesitate to use it in 1400. The trick is being cognizant of an anachronistic word in the first place.
Bottom line? The writer is going to make mistakes. We can't forgive ourselves, but maybe our readers will cut us some slack (first use mid-1900s).
Mercedes Rochelle is a historical fiction author. Her latest release is The Usurper King; find all her books here.
marianlthorpe	#worldbuilding, writing	2 Comments August 28, 2021 August 27, 2021 2 Minutes


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Conejo Improv Players 2019
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Jr.
Much Ado About Murder
Miracle on 34th Street: A Live Musical Radio Play
Audition Notice: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Jr.
Audition Notice: Much Ado About Murder
Audition Notice: Pippin
Audition Notice: Miracle on 34th Street
Four Star Alliance
Home » About » Four Star Alliance
Four Star Theater Alliance
The Four Star Theater Alliance's mission is to promote a spirit of camaraderie, cooperation, and mutual respect among theaters and to honor and celebrate the successful work done by member theaters in a social setting at the end of each season. The Conejo Players is proud to participate in the Four Star Alliance alongside:
Camarillo Skyway Playhouse
Since 1970, the Camarillo Skyway Playhouse has provided Ventura County theatre lovers a place to entertain and be entertained, to make friends, to learn new skills, and to hone their craft. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing excellent live stage entertainment to Ventura County residents. CSP also supports the community with children's productions such as Pinki's Playhouse, Camarillo Young Actors Company, Stage Door Players, and other youth programs.
Skyway Playhouse Website
Elite Theatre Company
The Elite Theatre Company has been entertaining, educating, and enriching audiences since 1994 ... first at the Petit Playhouse, located in Oxnard's Historic Heritage Square, and now in a larger venue at Channel Islands Harbor Fisherman's Wharf. ETC, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, brings together the local talents of amateurs and professionals who share a passion for theatre and who generously volunteer their time on the stage and behind the scenes. This collaboration creates a variety of quality live theatrical productions showcased in their unique and intimate setting.
Elite Theatre Company Website
High Street Arts Center
The High Street Arts Center has enjoyed a long and rich history as a source of culture and entertainment for the residents of Moorpark. Built in the 1920s, the building held the distinction of being the first "talking movie" theatre in all of Ventura County -- as well as several other businesses (including a junk shop) -- before transforming into the famous Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama & Vaudeville Co. of the '80s and '90s. In 2005, the now-renovated theatre (once again refreshed in 2016) was bought by the City of Moorpark, which has turned it into a cultural arts center for the community.
High Street Arts Center Website
Santa Paula Theater Center
The Santa Paula Theater Center has been providing a first-class local theater experience to Ventura County since 1985. Founded by actor Bill Lucking and actor/director Dana Eclar, the SPTC was born out of a series of acting workshops held in Santa Paula, after which the need for a year-round theatrical venue was more fully appreciated. Focusing almost exclusively on nonmusical productions, the SPTC is proud to offer the community both family-friendly and more adult/non-traditional works.
Santa Paula Theater Center Website
Ojai Art Center Theater
The Ojai Art Center Theater -- part of the longest continuously-operating multi-disciplinary center serving the arts in the State of California -- presents a variety of dramatic productions, ranging from comedy to drama to musicals, every year. Dedicated local volunteers annually donate hundreds of hours of their time so that thousands of theater-lovers can enjoy the Ojai ACT's productions annually.
Ojai Art Center Theater Website
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Arts Advocate Awards 2015
Loveland Burlesque
Production Portal
Conejo Players Theatre • (805) 495-3715 • info@conejoplayers.org
351 South Moorpark Road • Thousand Oaks, CA • 91361-1008
Thousand Oaks Marketing Agency

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Bumbera's Performance supporting TSRS driver O'Neill in 2010
March 25, 2010 in Announcements, Press Releases, and Results
Bumbera's Performance Provides Support For Jeff O'Neill Racing In Sophomore Season
Jeff O'Neill Racing and Bumbera's Performance will be working together on a limited schedule during the 2010 Texas Super Racing Series Late Model season. Starting the season off with a test session on Saturday March 13th at Thunderhill Raceway in Kyle Texas the two teams worked together to get the car dialed in for driver Jeff O'Neill.
"The car was better right off the truck than it ever was last year." said O'Neill. "Kenny Bumbera and his entire organization have worked very hard over the past 6 weeks to give me a car that not only can run up front but I really believe I can win with. Last year was a learning year for me, it was my first year in a late model and our goal was to just finish every race and learn as much as possible. We far exceeded that goal by finishing 10th in the points and finishing in the top 10 in all but 1 of our races. By teaming up with Bumbera's Performance I believe we can not only run up front but I think we can be a real contender for the championship."
2010 will be Jeff's second full season in the Texas Super Racing Series and looks to be his best season so far.
Bumbera says, "We always like to see the underdog do well," Bumbera said, "and Jeff has the determination to be a champion. He just needs a chance in better equipment to showcase his talents."
For more information please visit www.jeffoneillracing.net.
gundogC3
Location:Cedar Park TX.
Good luck to you Jeff.


Emily Carr Secondary School is located on 4901 Rutherford Road, east of Islington Avenue, in Vaughan, ON. It is directly served at 3 YRT routes and 3 school specials.
Regular trips serve the intersection of Rutherford and Islington, which is a two to three minute walk from the school.
Mostly EZ Rider II/MAXs provide the service, with occasional Orion Vs.
Regular trips serve both directions on Islington Avenue.
One trip in the AM and PM diverts north to the Vellore Community to pick up and drop off students from Emily Carr.
85A operates mainly D40LFs, with occasional Orion Vs.
AM: The bus starts at Islington and Wycliffe, then jogs onto Wycliffe, Clarence, Thomson Creek, and Vaughan Mills before reaching Rutherford Road. The bus then follows the Napa Valley looping before heading east to the school.
PM: The bus follows the reverse routing as the AM trip.
AM: The bus starts at Vaughan Mills Mall, exiting westbound onto Rutherford Road. It turns northbound on Weston Road, eastbound on Comdel Blvd, northbound on Vellore Woods Blvd, westbound on Ashberry Blvd, where it serves St. Jean de Brebeuf Catholic High School. It then proceeds northbound on Weston Road, eastbound on Maria Antonia Road, southbound on Fossil Hill Road, and back westbound on Rutherford Road, ending at Emily Carr Secondary School.
AM: ElDorado EZ Rider II/MAX are commonly found, as the AM bus comes off route 12.
PM: 2 buses serve this route and leave Emily Carr at the same time. The first bus comes off route 20, leaving York University out of service at 2:00 PM and is usually a New Flyer D40LF . The second is usually a 3xx Orion V , as it later starts route 360 from Vaughan Mills Mall.
AM: There was no AM service on this route.
PM: The bus headed on Rutherford Road to Highway 27, then headed south on Highway 27 to Martin Grove Road, which it then followed the 7 routing to Woodbridge Avenue.
466 became a school special in the September 2008 school year. However, YRT found out later it was possible to combine 461 and 466 to create a more efficient school special to serve Emily Carr, therefore eliminating 466 would save one bus. This was done so in September 2009.
This page was last modified on 3 May 2017, at 04:01.


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text:
Sisters Before Misters
Skate Kitchen: come for neorealism, stay for sick flips
Skate Kitchen
Opens Tuesday 4
Forget those glossy dystopias studios force on younger audiences. American indies are going directly to the source to portray adolescents. The year's best teen movies are all low on budget, but high on grit and authenticity (Eighth Grade, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Beach Rats). Skate Kitchen goes even further in the pursuit of realism. Director Crystal Moselle (responsible for the terrific doc The Wolfpack) found a group of non-actors skilled at skateboarding and built a movie around them.
The film resembles an anthropological study so there isn't much of a plot. Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) has a troubled relationship with her mother, who doesn't approve of her daughter's need for speed (the mom also subscribes to Doug Ford's sex-ed model: the less you know, the better). Fed up, Camille makes the journey from Long Island to New York and she befriends like-minded girls at the skateboarding park that gives the movie its title.
Most of Skate Kitchen follows Camille shredding at the skatepark with her girlfriends. She starts the film as a cypher and by the end lets her freak flag fly. In between, her social inexperience becomes evident when she lets a boy cause a rift between her and her posse.
While the teens don't seem the planning kind, they're far more self-sufficient than adults give them credit for (a message that applies to many people's perception of millennials). Skate Kitchen is the rare movie in which leaving home is a smart choice.
There is a ringer in Skate Kitchen: Jaden Smith, son of Will and star of the infamous After Earth. Freed from the need to perform, Smith is effortlessly cool and becomes the hardest character to figure out of the bunch. The rest, they all live in the moment — for better or for worse.


text:
Becca DeFelice
Emerge Texas Executive Director
Becca DeFelice is a GVP advocate/organizer, mom, and former state house candidate living in San Antonio with her husband and daughter. As an advocate, she's proven she can deliver for Texas families through her years of advocacy with Moms Demand Action and her work with State Senator ...
Becca DeFelice is a GVP advocate/organizer, mom, and former state house candidate living in San Antonio with her husband and daughter. As an advocate, she's proven she can deliver for Texas families through her years of advocacy with Moms Demand Action and her work with State Senator Roland Gutierrez on SB 1380, a rural mental health bill that passed in the legislature during the 87th session.
A transracial adoptee who grew up on a working farm, Becca's unique life experience gives her the perspective necessary to build strong relationships across Texas's diverse communities. She believes that every campaign run by a Democratic woman has value and holds important lessons for us all to learn for future success.
Becca is committed to ensuring that Texans have a deep bench of qualified women to run for office at every level, and that every woman candidate is the candidate our communities deserve to have fighting for us. Her goal is to prepare every Emerge Alum to manage the unique challenges that women face while running, have a comprehensive understanding of the policy and operative knowledge needed to run a successful campaign, and to confidently move forward post-election, win or lose.
< Back To Staff


Parker Bridge helped us to fill a senior role within the company. They were genuine about wanting to understand the business and our requirements to ensure no time was wasted going after the wrong person just to fill the role. They were prompt in their communication and was proactive in looking for people they knew would fit the role.


Converts a string that represents an integer (decimal or hex notation) into a number.
StrToInt converts the string S, which represents an integer-type number in either decimal or hexadecimal notation, into a number. If S does not represent a valid number, StrToInt raises an EConvertError exception.
Object Pascal: 0$1234 and 0x1234.
This page was last modified on 26 March 2015, at 12:25.


text:
Q: Operation on mongodb array elements I am new to mongodb. I am developing a social network website, for which I have entries in my collection "users". I have the following entry of particular user.
{
"_id" : ObjectId("56a9fd3a5b4e12369150d6f0"),
"name" : "Amit",
"venue" : {
    "state" : "Madhya Pradesh",
    "city" : "Gwalior",
    "ll" : [
        "26.2215",
        "78.1780"
    ]
},
"lsv" : [
    0.05,
    0.17,
    0.05,
    0.14,
    0.18,
    0.24,
    0.17
],
"username" : "amit",
"frnds" : [
    {
        "id" : "udit",
        "type" : 1
    },
    {
        "id" : "nakul",
        "type" : 1
    }
  ]
}

For each user I have to do operation on "lsv" array by matching some values of "lsv" of another user.
I am not able to get how to write the query for that.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Philanthropy - especially hits-based philanthropy - is driven by a large number of judgment calls. At the Open Philanthropy Project, we've explicitly designed our process to put major weight on the views of individual leaders and program officers in decisions about the strategies we pursue, causes we prioritize, and grants we ultimately make. As such, we think it's helpful for individual staff members to discuss major ways in which our personal thinking has changed, not only about particular causes and grants, but also about our background worldviews.
I recently wrote up a relatively detailed discussion of how my personal thinking has changed about three interrelated topics: (1) the importance of potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, particularly the value alignment problem; (2) the potential of many of the ideas and people associated with the effective altruism community; (3) the properties to look for when assessing an idea or intervention, and in particular how much weight to put on metrics and "feedback loops" compared to other properties. My views on these subjects have changed fairly dramatically over the past several years, contributing to a significant shift in how we approach them as an organization.
I've posted my full writeup as a personal Google doc. A summary follows.
I initially guessed that relevant experts had strong reasons for being unconcerned, and were simply not bothering to engage with people who argued for the importance of the risks in question. I believed that the tool-agent distinction was a strong candidate for such a reason. But as I got to know the AI and machine learning communities better, saw how Superintelligence was received, heard reports from the Future of Life Institute's safety conference in Puerto Rico, and updated on a variety of other fronts, I changed my view.
I now believe that there simply is no mainstream academic or other field (as of today) that can be considered to be "the locus of relevant expertise" regarding potential risks from advanced AI. These risks involve a combination of technical and social considerations that don't pertain directly to any recognizable near-term problems in the world, and aren't naturally relevant to any particular branch of computer science. This is a major update for me: I've been very surprised that an issue so potentially important has, to date, commanded so little attention - and that the attention it has received has been significantly (though not exclusively) due to people in the effective altruism community.
I've had a longstanding interest in the effective altruism community. I identify as part of this community, and I share some core values with it (in particular, the goal of doing as much good as possible). However, for a long time, I placed very limited weight on the views of a particular subset1 of the people I encountered through this community. This was largely because they seemed to have a tendency toward reaching very unusual conclusions based on seemingly simple logic unaccompanied by deep investigation. I had the impression that they tended to be far more willing than I was to "accept extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence" in some sense, a topic I've written about several times (here, here and here).
Potential risks from advanced AI, discussed above, is one topic I've changed my mind about: I previously saw this as a strange preoccupation of the EA community, and now see it as a major case where the community was early to highlight an important issue.
More generally, I've seen the outputs from a good amount of cause selection work at the Open Philanthropy Project. I now believe that the preponderance of the causes that I've seen the most excitement about in the effective altruism community are outstanding by our criteria of importance, neglectedness and tractability. These causes include farm animal welfare and biosecurity and pandemic preparedness in addition to potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence. They aren't the only outstanding causes we've identified, but overall, I've increased my estimate of how well excitement from the effective altruism community predicts what I will find promising after more investigation.
I've seen EA-focused organizations make progress on galvanizing interest in effective altruism and growing the community. I've seen some effects of this directly, including more attention, donors, and strong employee candidates for GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project.
I've gotten to know some community members better generally, and my views on some general topics (below) have changed in ways that have somewhat reduced my skepticism of the kinds of ideas effective altruists pursue.
I now feel the EA community contains the closest thing the Open Philanthropy Project has to a natural "peer group" - a set of people who consistently share our basic goal (doing as much good as possible), and therefore have the potential to help with that goal in a wide variety of ways, including both collaboration and critique. I also value other sorts of collaboration and critique, including from people who question the entire premise of doing as much good as possible, and can bring insights and abilities that we lack. But people who share our basic premises have a unique sort of usefulness as both collaborators and critics, and I've come to feel that the effective altruism community is the most logical place to find such people.
This isn't to say I support the effective altruism community unreservedly; I have concerns and objections regarding many ideas associated with it and some of the specific people and organizations within it. But I've become more positive compared to my early impressions.
Of the topics discussed here, this one is the hardest to trace the evolution of my thinking on, and the hardest to summarize.
I used to think one should be pessimistic about any intervention or idea that doesn't involve helpful "feedback loops" (trying something, seeing how it goes, making small adjustments, and trying again many times) or useful selective processes (where many people try different ideas and interventions, and the ones that are successful in some tangible way become more prominent, powerful, and imitated). I was highly skeptical of attempts to make predictions and improve the world based primarily on logic and reflection, when unaccompanied by strong feedback loops and selective processes.
I still think these things (feedback loops, selective processes) are very powerful and desirable; that we should be more careful about interventions that don't involve them; that there is a strong case for preferring charities (such as GiveWell's top charities) that are relatively stronger in terms of these properties; and that much of the effective altruism community, including the people I've been most impressed by, continues to underweight these considerations. However, I have moderated significantly in my view. I now see a reasonable degree of hope for having strong positive impact while lacking these things, particularly when using logical, empirical, and scientific reasoning.
Learning about the history of philanthropy - and learning more about history more broadly - has been a major factor in changing my mind. I've come across many cases where a philanthropist, or someone else, seems to have had remarkable prescience and/or impact primarily through reasoning and reflection. Even accounting for survivorship bias, my impression is that these cases are frequent and major enough that it is worth trying to emulate this sort of impact. This change in viewpoint has both influenced and been influenced by the two topics discussed above.
Over the last several years, I have become more positive on the cause of potential risks from advanced AI, on the effective altruism community, and on the general prospects for changing the world through relatively speculative, long-term projects grounded largely in intellectual reasoning (sometimes including reasoning that leads to "wacky" ideas) rather than direct feedback mechanisms. These changes in my thinking have been driven by a number of factors, including by each other.
One cross-cutting theme is that I've become more interested in arguments with the general profile of "simple, logical argument with no clear flaws; has surprising and unusual implications; produces reflexive dissent and discomfort in many people." I previously was very suspicious of arguments like this, and expected them not to hold up on investigation. However, I now think that arguments of this form are generally worth paying serious attention to until and unless flaws are uncovered, because they often represent positive innovations.
The changes discussed here have caused me to shift from being a skeptic of supporting work on potential risks from advanced AI and effective altruism organizations to being an advocate, which in turn has been a major factor in the Open Philanthropy Project's taking on work in these areas. As discussed at the top of this post, I believe that sort of relationship between personal views and institutional priorities is appropriate given the work we're doing.
I'm not certain that I've been correct to change my mind in the ways described here, and I still have a good deal of sympathy for people whose current views are closer to my former ones. But hopefully I have given a sense of where the changes have come from.
This section focuses on the parts of the effective altruist community that I did not initially encounter as people donating to, or spreading the word about, GiveWell and its top charities.
One impression I get reading the case reports generated for the history of philanthropy project, along with taking a thousand yard view of the updates that you and OPP have made over time, is intervention at the process level. I.e. generate robust pipelines that will create a stream of potentially impactful projects and wait for the hits. Tweak the pipeline itself to make hits more likely based on the successes. A danger to such an approach is calcification of the pipeline, especially as the people who built it move on to other roles and the new maintenance overseers who lack a full stack causal understanding of the pipeline do not adjust it out of risk aversion. Another danger is selection effects. If your pipeline is known to be flush with cash, it will eventually start generating people and teams that exactly match whatever proxy measures you are using because they heavily optimized for this. This is a particular instantiation of goodheart's law that we might point to as the reason that foundation efficacy tends to decrease over time as it loses contact with reality.
Perhaps pipeline permutations can be baked into the pipeline DNA itself.
Another relevant contact point with reality that is potentially prone to decay is expert selection. Too exacting an expert selection process can lead to correlated blindspots, a la swiss cheese theory. I noticed myself worrying about this as I read case report methodology that resulted in narratives based on the reports of principle actors in the said narratives.
BTW have you considered having Soskis canvas the nuclear history landscape?
"the reason' should be "a reason" though the others are more obvious/well known variants of institutional capture. This, to me, points to epistemic rigor being upstream of impact to a greater degree than generally thought. It seems most donors/foundations do not consider the incentive structure they are exuding. Specifically, that the environment is willing to devote millions of dollars worth of optimization power to capturing your millions of dollars, and few have a good intuition of just what the end result of that will look like and thus be on guard for it. There is a fundamental asymmetry here that is hard to overcome. A foundation handing out million dollar grants is spending X labor/hours on the grant, which is much lower than the number of labor/hours people are willing to spend to capture it (including the creativity difference). This could be framed as some variant of the offense/defense problem.
A. I'm not sure I'd accept that "foundation efficacy tends to decrease over time." And if/to the extent this is the case, I think a couple of other potential factors jump to mind: declining opportunities (the more total public spending, the harder it is for one philanthropist to stand out), regression to the mean, and general challenges of succession (each generation inheriting restrictions/conventions from the previous one, and related issues).
B. I agree that we have to be sensitive to the incentives we're creating, though I'm not sure this problem is as core/dominant as implied by your comment.
To be more explicit, I think an outside view factor analysis of foundation efficacy would be helpful for avoiding obvious failures.
WRT foundation efficacy over time: determining whether this is worth checking seems worthwhile. Generating napkin math on how often foundations move away from established expertise areas when conditions in the world affecting those areas change. A hits based giving compatible framing metaphor here is "how often do foundations pivot?" if infrequently we should be suspicious of their decision making/evidence gathering capabilities (and thus should want to avoid copying them) since the initial areas of interest should not generally be the areas that turn out to be most valuable on investigation.
Another framing that fits with hits based giving: YCombinator didn't arise from anything like the standard VC blueprint. All of this dovetails well with reducing openess if transparency prevents doing weirder stuff than normal foundations. An example: almost no one except meta-research organizations produces explicit models to be shared. This is likely the correct move as object level models are likely to produce no useful feedback/peer review but highly likely to produce controversy/friction.
Romeo, I don't think I follow what you're saying. I think changes in focus areas are relatively rare for foundations - partly because they build up expertise/connections/capacity, partly because there is often an interest in sticking with the benefactor's legacy, and partly because conventional wisdom (which differs from our view) seems to be against being analytical and impact-oriented in choosing focus areas. But I'm not sure what confirming this would tell us with respect to other issues discussed here.
If OpenPhil's methods become highly correlated with the reference class of grant giving foundations, I also expect its failure modes to become highly correlated with them.
Thanks for this, Holden. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts, and the links.


text:
Light in August
Summary and Analysis
Chapters 9–11
Joe Christmas
Lena Grove
Reverend Gail Hightower
Byron Bunch
William Faulkner and Light in August Background
Summary Chapters 16–17
Summary: Chapter 16
Byron finds Reverend Hightower sleeping in the yard when he arrives to tell his friend of Joe Christmas's capture. The minister accuses Byron of using the situation to his advantage and that his kindness and charity toward Lena mask less selfless and more carnal and insidious desires.
Hightower muses that, since being defrocked, he has slowly slipped out of conventional time and entered an existence of his own making. He believes that suffering is the lot of the wicked and good alike. He also believes that joy and pleasure are complicated gifts that most people do not know what to do with.
Byron leaves and returns with the Hineses, who are revealed to be Joe's grandparents. Mr. Hines, still in his detached coma-like state, rants and raves about the weakness and sin of his daughter Milly, Joe's mother. Mrs. Hines then recounts the story of Joe's conception, birth, and first months. Milly became involved with a worker at a circus passing through the town where they lived at the time. Claiming he was Mexican, rather than part black, he seduced the young girl, and the couple attempted to run off together. But they were caught by Mr. Hines, who shot and killed the man and forced his daughter to return home.
Mr. Hines then attempted to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion, but his anger and religious zeal got the best of him during his search, and he assaulted a physician before heading to the next town. There, he took over the church service, trying to convince the congregation of the inherent evil of blacks. When the parishioners tried to coax him down from the pulpit, Mr. Hines pulled out a gun and eventually found himself in jail. By the time he was released and returned home, Milly was about to have the baby. When Milly started going into labor, Mrs. Hines sent her husband off to fetch the doctor. However, he refused and merely stood guard on the porch with his shotgun, striking his wife with the barrel of the gun. Milly died in labor, and Mr. Hines went off again, leaving his wife to care for the infant. One day, Mrs. Hines found a note and saw that the baby was gone.
Mr. Hines arranged a job at an orphanage in Memphis, where he left the infant Joe on Christmas Eve. Joe was taken in and lived in an atmosphere of racial taunts and slurs until the day he snuck into the dietician's room to steal the toothpaste and unknowingly witnessed her having sex with the intern. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Hines, knowing that the child was adopted and taken away, returned home permanently, telling his wife the child was dead.
Reverend Hightower remains unclear what Byron and the Hineses want him to do about the situation. Mrs. Hines says she wishes only to see Joe freed from jail for one day, to suspend time temporarily as though he had not committed the crime. Byron, however, wants Hightower to claim falsely that Joe Christmas was with him at his house on the night of the murder. Outraged, the reverend refuses and orders the threesome out of his house.
Previous section Chapters 14–15 Next page Chapters 16–17 page 2
Take the Chapters 16-17 Quick Quiz
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Joe Christmas: Character Analysis CHARACTERS


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text:
The Most Common Myths About Hacking
Posted: May 18, 2020 Under: Hacking	By	Gwen George No Comments
Movies and television series tend to have a bad grasp of hacking and how hackers usually operate, often portraying the act as a man hiding in a basement, tapping away at a keyboard for a few seconds before he hacks into the mainframe. And while it's important to practice suspension of disbelief when it comes to fictional content, it's also led to the circulation of a number of myths regarding hacking. These are some of the most common.
Hackers Are Disorganised
For many, the image of a hacker is that of a single person, alone in a dark room staring at a wall of screens, pushing the idea that hackers are lonesome criminals. Hacking is, however, much more organised than many people realise. In fact, there are usually teams of people all working on different methods of breaching their target. Some might be focussed on finding loopholes in a security system, while others might be tasked with using brute force attacks to unlock weaker accounts, or to learn the latest CSGO tournament bets. On top of this, there are also vast networks across the world where hackers are able to share tips and other information.
Hacking Is Instantaneous
Perhaps the most common misconception in modern media is one of a hacker breaking into a system in an extremely timely manner, which is usually fuelled by the belief that said hacker is also under immense pressure to get in and out as quickly as they can. In actual fact, there is usually no time pressure at all, as breaking into a secure system can take a long time, depending on the type of data that they're after. Sometimes it can take months of daily work before they're successful.
Hacks Only Target Large Companies
Another common belief among the public is that they're safe from most hackers as bigger corporations are the main targets almost all of the time. There is some truth to this, but for the most part, bigger companies will put in the extra money to ensure that their networks are safe from outside attacks. This means that most hackers will instead focus on smaller companies that have less secure systems, many of which can have important information locked away on their servers.
Smartphones Can't Be Compromised
It's a long-held belief that most modern smartphones cannot be attacked by hackers, and that they're safe from malware. Smartphones, in comparison to most laptops and desktops, tend to be safer when it comes to being compromised, but this does not make them vulnerable. In fact, it's becoming more and more common for smartphones to be broken into, which is usually done when the user installs a 3rd party app that isn't first screen by Google or Apple. It's also possible for malware to be picked up through MMS messages, but this has become increasingly rarer. The smartphones of today also tend to have access to mobile antivirus suites.