"Cold blooded murders", a friend of mine cried out recently as she recalled gruesome memories from Iran while reflecting on the newly levied sanctions against Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Encouraged and emboldened, her voice was filled with anger, determination, and a newfound hope that echoed the braveness of protesters and dissident university students in Iran of today. Her hope is a reminder that terror designation on the IRGC pursuant to Executive Order13224 and related Presidential executive decisions carry a subtle but dual message, affecting not only Iranian regime's activities abroad, but also its enemies within.
Our knowledge of IRGC's past and present terrorist behavior within Iran has been abstract at best, hindering the development of a practical international response. The real example alluded to here would perhaps serve as a reminder of its brutality and inform the way forward.
This weekend marks the 39th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's return from exile in 1979 to hijack a popular movement that led to the dismissal of Iran's monarchy and its dictatorship.
But the largest countrywide uprising since 2009 suggests that the Iranian people are prepared to write the next chapter in their history, and it may happen sooner than Tehran's Washington lobby would like.
The protests which erupted on 28 December in Mashhad and spread across Iran caught security forces by surprise. While protestors used social media to rally each other and spread word of events in other cities, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its associated media turned to social media to crowdsource identification of protest leaders.
In the accompanying highlighted tweet from the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim, the news agency is asking its twitter followers to identify suspects. Other IRGC-related websites like Gerdab.ir also engaged in similar campaigns to identify protestors. While the Iranian government has gradually improved its facial recognition capabilities, efforts to mobilize regime supporters to inform on other Iranians suggests that holes still exist in Iranian security force capabilities. It also suggests that the government seeks to create a dynamic by which Iranians must prove themselves and their loyalty by informing on others. Such crowdsourcing also highlights a disincentive for the Iranian government to completely close off access to social media platforms.
in a gruesome crime in Gohardasht Prison. The prisoners had been transferred to solitary confinement cells the day before awaiting their death sentence. One of the executed was an Afghan citizen.
The executioners laid 13 prisoners on the execution platform and put nooses around their neck. However, after observing the execution of 10 of their cell-mates, three of them were brought down and taken to their cells while they were not even able to talk after watching such a disturbing scene.
According to a close source, on the morning of Monday, February 12, at least six prisoners from different wards were transferred to solitary confinement at Rajai Shahr Prison to be executed. Most of them were sentenced to death on murder charges.Some of them are identified as: Masoud Taghipour from ward 6, Mohammad Saleh Dolatabadi from ward 10, Morteza Shafiq from ward 10, Saeed Ranjbar from ward 10, and Omid Rostami from ward 5.
Omid Rostami is reportedly sentenced to death on the charge of murder before the age of 18. However, Iran Human Rights (IHR) has not been able to access his documents so far.The prisoners will be certainly executed on Wednesday if they fail to gain the consent of the plaintiffs.
A man was hanged on Sunday January 21 in Adel Abad Prison of Shiraz, according to the state-run Mehr news agency. He was found guilty of murder. The retribution (death) sentence for Hossein Kh. was issued by the Fars Province Penal Court. Two of his accomplices were sentenced to lengthy imprisonment for showing off their knives.
Two other inmates of Karaj Central Prison were executed in the early morning hours of Wednesday, January 17, 2018. Sina, 30, was one victim. The other, unnamed, was a 33-year-old man.
Two other young people who 19 and 20 at the time of their arrest were executed in Mashhad. On Monday, January 15, a 27-year-old prisoner was hanged in Babol prison.
Meanwhile, Abolfazl Chezani, who was arrested at age 15, is now on the verge of execution in Qom prison after serving four years of imprisonment.
State run media announced the execution of a person they described as "a middle aged man who was charged with establishing a mysticism institution in Tehran" on February 12.
The man was actually Karim Zargar, the head of the Path to Wisdom (Eckankar) Institute, the former head of the Seda and Sima College, law graduate from Tehran University and holder of a maritime law Ph.D. from Strasburg University in France. He was hanged on January 30 in Rajaie Shahr (Gohardasht) Prison in Karaj.
The 64 year old also had a history in cinematic activities. He was the Chief Executive Officer of TV Abroad, the Director of Broadcasting for Channel One, the head of the Seda and Sima (Iranian national TV) College, and the Editor in Chief of Film Report Monthly Journal.
Karimi was arrested on October 2015 after the closure of and arrest of the directors of the Path of Wisdom Institution along with Marjan Davari. He was transferred to Section 209 in Evin Prison. Before this, Erfanian, Marjan Davari's lawyer had said that Mr. Karim Zargar was the head of the institution who was sentenced to death and that his death sentence had been confirmed.
Finally, amidst media silence, Karim Zargar's death sentence was carried out on January 30.
More recently, concerns for Tehran are also increasing abroad as its international isolation begins to take its toll.To stand alongside the Iranian people, the international community must raise the cost of Tehran's belligerence.In a piece some time ago I discussed How Iran Is Losing Europe, especially taking into consideration the distancing of France from Iran and President Emmanuelle Macron's improving relations with the United States.
The contributors to the reconstruction include Turkey, the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the EU, but there is one country not included in that list that is particularly telling: Iran.If anyone is most responsible for the destruction of Iraq, it's the Iranian Regime.
Al Arabiya, 25 October 2017 – There will always be those that ridicule the idea of a pact between Iran and al-Qaeda, due to the Shiite/Sunni divide, but it has been proven many times over, how Shiite Iran will side with radical Sunni groups such as al-Qaeda (AQ) when it comes to fighting a common enemy, and al-Qaeda will do the same, especially when the target is their most hated enemy the US.
The belief by certain commanders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is if they could persuade al-Qaeda to come on side in any future conflict with the West, with the offer of financial assistance and weapons, as well as the use of the IRGC's vast terror and sleeper network; with the aid of Hezbollah, the result would be catastrophic.
Iran's former military leader leveled a cold-blooded charge Tuesday – that Western spooks used lizards to "attract atomic waves" as part of their espionage on his country's nuclear program. Hassan Firuzabadi, top military adviser to leading mullah Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was responding to questions from local journalists on the recent arrest of environmentalists.
He said Western nations had often used tourists, scientists and environmentalists to spy on Iran."Several years ago, some individuals came to Iran to collect aid for Palestine… We were suspicious of the route they chose," he told the reformist ILNA news agency, the Times of Israel reported."In their possessions were a variety of reptile desert species like lizards, chameleons… We found out that their skin attracts atomic waves and that they were nuclear spies who wanted to find out where inside the Islamic Republic of Iran we have uranium mines and where we are engaged in atomic activities," he said.
Last week, the United Nations published a report with news a lot of people don't want to hear. A panel of experts found that Iran is violating a United Nations weapons embargo – specifically, that missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels into Saudi Arabia last year were made in Iran.
Iran's intelligence services have "significantly accelerated" spying on their own citizens in the wake of anti-regime protests that rocked the nation, according to an extensive investigation released Thursday by a leading Iranian exile dissident group.
The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, relying on what it says include sources inside the government, contends the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security are engaging in "mass surveillance" of protesters and dissidents by employing a web of state-produced mobile phone apps.
Just days after U.S. intelligence warned in its annual "Worldwide Threat Assessment" of increased cyberthreats emanating from Iran, the NCRI report said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has so successfully deployed its social media spyware that millions of users outside Iran could be exposed to it.
While not immediately verifiable, the assertion marks the latest push by the NCRI, which also has a U.S. branch, to expose what it says are authoritarian and nefarious activities by Tehran. The Iranian regime, in turn, accused the group of having a hand in stoking violent street protests against economic conditions in recent months.
On the very sensitive subject of how Iran plans to confront ongoing protests, described by some as an uprising, all the while attempting to resolve the very issues engulfing the ruling regime, there are critical concerns raising from various voices within.
And considering U.S. President Donald Trump's powerful State of the Union message, underscoring "America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," the stakes at hand in the months ahead for Tehran are extremely high.
Iran's state-linked media are a good source, shedding significant and noteworthy light on the seemingly obscure nature of the Iranian regime.The common tone heard in all such messages is hopelessness. Those loyal to the faction of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei see the solution in sacking the regime's president, Hassan Rouhani.


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Q: Connection matrix in orientable 2-bundle is skew-symmetric In the notes I am following to learn about connections, there is the following lemma:

whose proof is natural and I understand. Later in the text the author writes the following (referring to a metric connection):

I suppose this comes from the lemma above, but I do not see how. Is $\nabla$ somehow a metric connection just because we are dealing with an orientable bundle?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Home Blogs About Hindi
About Hindi
Blog by Sudheenerella
Standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with the other standardized register of Hindustani, Urdu, which is associated with the Muslim community. The two standards are nearly identical in structure and grammar. Mutual intelligibility decreases in literary and specialised contexts, which rely on educated vocabulary drawn from different sources; Hindi drawing its specialised vocabulary from Sanskrit, whilst Urdu does so from Persian and Arabic. In their colloquial forms, the two varieties are nearly indistinguishable.
people who identify as native speakers of "Hindi" include not only Hindu speakers of Hindustani, but also many speakers of related languages who consider their speech to be a dialect of Hindi. In the 2001 Indian census, 258 million people in India reported Hindi to be their native language;[5] as of 2009, the best figure Ethnologue could find for speakers of actual Hindustani Hindi (effectively the Khariboli dialect less Urdu) was a figure of 180 million in 1991.[1] This makes Hindi approximately the sixth-largest language in the world.
Do we learn what we need?
Do I have knowledge
consciousness and knowledge
True SATSANG
GODDESS SARASWATI, WIFE OR DAUGHTER OF BRAHMA??
Top 15 Health Benefits of Tamarind
America is one of popular country
Mohandas
India Most Visted Places
Demystifying the Myth
GODFATHER SHIV, THE FIRST & ONLY DIVINE (SUPREME) MISSIONARY TO COME DURING CONFLUENCING AGE (SANGAM YUG)
Divine experiences we gain!
Questions on Christianity...
Swami, what is Your opinion on divorce of married couples where there is no compatibility?...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Oracle Cloud Floats AMD Epyc Compute Instances
Even as a press report yesterday declared that Intel has abandoned its current effort to produce a 10nm chip – a report denied by Intel – looming rival AMD and Oracle today announced the availability of the first AMD Epyc processor-based instance on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Announced at Oracle OpenWorld 2018, the AMD Epyc processor "E" series will lead with the bare metal, Standard "E2", available immediately as the first instance type within the series. "At $0.03/core hour, the AMD Epyc instance is up to 66 percent less on average per core than general purpose instances offered by the competition and is the most cost-effective instance available on any public cloud," AMD said in a press announcement.
AMD, of course, has been mounting an aggressive price/performance effort to grab business from Intel in the red hot data center x86 server processor market. Although the latest numbers from Mercury Research put AMD's market share at 1.3 percent, up from 0.5 percent earlier this year, the company has speculated that it expects to reach around 5 percent by the end of this year. Intel itself has indicated that AMD could seize significant revenues in the sector; in a memorable quote earlier this year during an interview with an Instinet industry analyst, former Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said the company's objective is to limit AMD to between 15 and 20 percent of the server market.
AMD said the Standard E2 instance offers 64 cores per server and up to 33 percent more memory channels than comparable x86 instances, making it "ideally suited for data analytics workloads that demand higher cores and memory bandwidth," adding that on a complete 10TB Terasort run benchmarked by Oracle, "the AMD instance demonstrated up to 40 percent savings in cost per Terasort as compared to other x86 instances."
These instances are generally available in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's U.S. East-Ashburn region today, London by the end of October and will be available in other U.S. and European regions by the end of the year.
As of launch, Oracle offers the 64-core bare metal instance as well as 1-, 2-, 4-, and 8-core VM compute instances. The 16- and 24-core configurations will be offered in the first half of 2019.
"At greater than 269 GB/Sec, the AMD Epyc platform, offers the highest memory bandwidth of any public cloud instance," said Clay Magouyrk, SVP, software development, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. "Combined with increased performance, these cost advantages help customers maximize their IT dollars as they make the move to the cloud."
AMD and Oracle are positioning the Epyc offering around memory bandwidth-demanding use cases such as weather modeling, computational fluid dynamics, simulation and crash analysis in aviation and auto manufacturing, along with oil and gas exploration. On another Oracle benchmark test, a 14M cell Fluent CFD simulation on a winged aircraft solved on four nodes, the Epyc processor-based instance delivered up to a 30 percent reduction in total cost, coupled with reduction in overall run times, according to Oracle.
Other public clouds that have deployed Epyc include Microsoft Azure and Baidu (announced in December 2017), and Packet, a bare metal cloud for developers (rolled out in February). In addition, SkySilk, a new public cloud provider that launched last month and provides Linux instances, also offers Eypc hardware.


And when I think about the feeling I had during those days, I have to smile, even though today is so grey and cold again. But it doesn't matter because I now know that spring is already strong and ready to start. It's just a matter of days now… I can't wait!
But until then, let's dream about spring with today's outfit. It's everything I want to wear for spring – every day. How do you like my look?
Enjoy your weekend, sweeties, don't party too hard and relax a little bit, so you'll have lots of power for next week – the final week before a short Easter break!


The Canter Valley Japanese Quail (Coturnix japonica) are bred, hatched and grown by carefully selected contract growers who pride themselves on providing the best possible environment to grow these delicate delights. At hatch the baby Quail resemble cute bumble bees but grow on being fed a specially formulated, wholesome, hormone free, cereal based diet.
Japanese Quail are an efficient producer of eggs which we sell to the NZ market.
Quail eggs are a very flavoursome and considered a delicacy in many countries.


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storiesbywilliams	in History, News, Science, Video	 September 14, 2014 770 Words
Hidden Archaeology of Stonehenge Revealed
Ever since it was first uncovered, Stonehenge has remained a mystery for archaeologists, historians and folklorists alike. First constructed in the Neolithic Era, the purpose and function of these standing stones – set within a dense complex of burial mounds and monuments – are still a matter of speculation and debate. But now, researchers have revealed hundreds of previously unknown features which might shed light on this mysterious site.
As part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, the researchers used a comprehensive array of remote sensing technology and non-invasive geophysical survey equipment to scan deep beneath the ground. These finds include images of dwellings that date from the Iron and Bronze Ages, as well as details of buried Roman settlements that have never before been seen.
Included in the findings are many dozens of burial mounds, including a long barrow entombment structure that predate the construction of Stonehenge itself. Revealed in great detail by the team's geophysical instruments, the structure appears to have been a very large timber building. The researchers believe this may have been a preparation room where the dead were defleshed before burial, a popular practice amongst tribes inhabiting the area at the time.
Later structures that were built around the well-known circular form were also revealed by this new research, with seventeen previously unidentified ritual monuments being discovered and mapped. These types of results show how new applications of geophysical technology can add to the understanding of archaeological sites; in this case, it is shedding light on the hidden landscape of a site that is 11,000 years in the making.
As British project leader Professor Vincent Gaffney of the University of Birmingham explained:
Despite Stonehenge being the most iconic of all prehistoric monuments and occupying one of the richest archaeological landscapes in the world, much of this landscape in effect remains terra incognita. This project has revealed that the area around Stonehenge is teeming with previously unseen archaeology and that the application of new technology can transform how archaeologists and the wider public understand one of the best-studied landscapes on Earth.
The techniques included magnetic gradiometer systems, ground and airborne laser-scanning, and ground-based radar, all of which were mapped to GPS systems to provide total GIS (Geographic Information System) coverage. The research also revealed that the Durrington Walls "super henge," located just two miles (3.2 km) north-west of Stonehenge, had once been surrounded by a circle of massive posts or standing stones.
Believed to have consisted of up to 60 posts or stones some 12 ft (3 m) tall, the geophysical mapping suggests that some of these may still even be intact somewhere under the enormous earthen banks surrounding the monument. Viewable only through the advanced technology used in the project, this discovery and mapping work has already added yet another dimension of knowledge to this vast and mysterious edifice. According to Professor Gaffney:
New monuments have been revealed, as well as new types of monument that have previously never been seen by archaeologists. All of this information has been placed within a single digital map, which will guide how Stonehenge and its landscape are studied in the future.
What's more, the project uncovered large burial tombs containing more gold and jewelry than graves anywhere else in Britain, indicating that the area was a cemetery for the rich and powerful. Some of the treasures found by archaeologists were made with materials and techniques originating from the European continent. All of the findings are explored in "Stonehenge Uncovered", the season premiere of CBC's The Nature of Things that will be airing on Oct. 9.
British and U.S. versions of the film will air on BBC and the Smithsonian Channel respectively. Terence McKeown, president of Lightship Entertainment and the film's Canadian executive producer, said that before working on the film, he had the impression that Stonehenge was always an isolated monument in a landscape populated by little more than a "handful of monks."
The Hidden Landscapes Project – and the new film – reveal a very different picture. As McKeown put it:
What Stonehenge appears to have been was the spiritual centre of a sophisticated culture. The population around Stonehenge clearly included accomplished engineers, surgeons, artisans, and there's evidence they had close ties to Europe that advanced their skills.
To check out the episode, either bookmark the CBC link here for live streaming, or tune in to The Nature of Things on CBC-TV on Oct. 9th at 8pm (EDT). And be sure to check out the video below, produced by the University of Birmingham, shows the research team and their instruments in action at Stonehenge.
Source: cbc.ca, gizmag.com
burial mounds
CBC-TV
Durrington Walls
Geographical Information System (GIS)
laser-scanning
Lightship Entertainment
magnetic gradiometer systems
Neolithic Age
Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project
News from Mars: ExoLance Project to Hunt for Life
Firearm Safety: Colorado Student Invents Smart Gun


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Leap before you are pushed?
While all the murky stuff is going on, Liverpool City Council has launched what can only be described as a surreal Investors in People stunt. Banners and leaflets have appeared in council offices declaring: "leap". This stands for: leadership, excellence, accountability, performance. But should the message really be spelt out in a tall banner in the central stairwell of a building? All around are staff contemplating gloomy prospects in the weeks ahead, with managers summoning people to give bad news on a regular basis… Leap: surely this is the wrong message to be giving to staff?
"I treat others as I would like to be treated" – bullying?
"I am friendly, professional and sensitive to the needs of my customers and colleague (sic) at all times" – note the singular 'colleague'!
"I learn from my mistakes" – need we mention the LDL audit?
Big Brother would have drawn the line at peddling such obvious nonsense.
And the cost of all this? Rumour puts it at about £14,000.
Liverpool City Council seems intent on turning itself into a parody. Staff were summoned last week to meetings in the Arena (at some considerable cost) and given vague messages about tough times from the council leader. When the events were opened up to questions, I hear he got a little irate when asked about the Liverpool Direct Ltd contract investigation.
So the news of the employment tribunal case being brought by Peter Cosgrove will have cheered him up no end. The material that might emerge from the case will be embarrassing. But I would ask a simpler set of questions. In what circumstances was Peter Cosgrove suspended? How come the 'evidence' against him relates to work he was involved in over four years ago? Who had this evidence and yet did nothing with it for four years? Why does it only emerge the moment the acting chief executive takes over? And how does this relate to the previous questions about conflicts of interest?
I am sure the new permanent (and totally transparently appointed) chief executive will be interested. But then again, maybe he won't. He is rumoured to be an old friend of the acting chief executive. Penfold to his Dangermouse?
Before Christmas, there were a couple of interesting pieces in the Observer and elsewhere picking up an emerging theme: David Cameron as Mao, 'the great helmsman'. One MP, Nicholas Boles, questioned the system of planning in local government. He suggested that it be replaced by people power and chaos. A few days later, Vince Cable suggested that the coalition government was taking on too much at too great a pace in areas like health and education. He likened it to a 'Maoist revolution'. The two were connected in one review article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/23/vince-cable-mao-coalition-marxist-capitalism).
However, I am not sure that these comments have identified a perhaps more important parallel with Mao's China. Yes, his rule was chaotic ('organised chaos' was the familiar refrain), reckless and mobilised millions in the belief that, through determined effort, material circumstances could be changed and improved. But, internally, there was a particular managerial dynamic in the Chinese leadership that is of interest. Mao set the agenda in very broad terms. Aspirations, slogans and analogies litter his speeches and writings. Nothing is clear and his name is never too closely linked to anything definite or concrete. Subordinates, and particularly the ambitious ones, needed to be able to read between the lines, understand the intent and act vigorously to deliver. Should things go wrong, Mao was able to identify the over zealous official as the responsible party. Last year, Frank Dikötter published a work, Mao's Great Famine, which presents in detail the destructive and murderous consequences of this management style.
Does this sound anything like the coalition government's approach? Certainly, there is the whiff of over enthusiastic underlings about Gove, Lansley and Pickles. And there are any number of forecasts of chaos and worse that might follow upon some of their current reform proposals. And we already have the start of the great famine, at least in terms of resources.


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Q: How GraalVM integrate resources file in native image Based on this:

By default, the native-image builder will not integrate any of the
resources which are on the classpath during image building into the
image it creates. To make calls such as Class.getResource(),
Class.getResourceAsStream() (or the corresponding ClassLoader methods)
return specific resources (instead of null), the resources that should
be accessible at image runtime need to be explicitly specified.

That explain how to access the resource file via getResource(). I have an use case which I need to load the resources file in WebView for iOS, so basically I try this:
public void start(Stage stage) {

    WebView webView = new WebView();

    URL url = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("demo/index.html");

    System.out.println("url = " + url);
    System.out.println("url.toExternalForm = " + url.toExternalForm());
    System.out.println("url.getPath()= " + url.getPath());

    webView.getEngine().load("file://" + url.getPath());

    VBox root = new VBox(webView);
    root.setAlignment(Pos.CENTER);
    Scene scene = new Scene(root, 640, 480);
    stage.setScene(scene);
    stage.show();
}

None of these url.toString(), url.toExternalForm, url.getPath() return valid loadable path in native images, their value are either resource:demo/index.html or file://demo/index.html.
Does anyone know how the resource files are managed in the native image? Are they kind of merged in the single binary? By any chance, are we able to locate the resource files via file protocol?

A: you can do something like this:
native-image -H:IncludeResources= <Java regexp that matches resources to be included in the image>

to get the full picture, please check this link out
https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/20/docs/reference-manual/native-image/Resources/


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Optimistic Underground
32 Best Dub Techno Albums Ever Made
32 Best Ambient Albums Ever Made
Shabazz Palaces Live On KEXP 2014
April 26, 2015 April 26, 2015 / David James	/ 1 Comment
Witness the most cosmic act in hip-hop, Shabazz Palaces, unleashing a hyperdrive tapestry live in the KEXP studio.
The whirlwind performance shuffles tracks from the best album of 2014, Lese Majesty, unfolding fresh aspects of their sound. There's also a fine interview, discussing the recording process and what it feels to be making music that sounds like absolutely nothing else on earth.
These guys do not fuck around.
I dug this video from my drafts after listening to the groundbreaking album, Blowout Comb, from vocalist Ishmael Butler's previous group, Digable Planets. In one of the most improbable second acts in music history, an early 90s underground rap hero emerged over a decade later with a new (at first mysteriously anonymous) project, breaking the few remaining rules of hip-hop like some young start up. With the group's second album, they transcended all genre definitions, creating a sound as pure as it is unique.
Shabazz Palaces have officially joined weird, pioneering heroes like Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart, Aphex Twin, and John Coltrane in truly rarefied space.
Digable Planets – Blowout Comb: Best hip-hop album of the 90s?
April 25, 2015 August 17, 2016 / David James	/ 4 Comments
Inspired by a friend's reminder, I cued up one of my favorite albums of all time: Blowout Comb, the underrated second and final release from Digable Planets. For those who aren't familiar, they are jazz-inspired contemporaries of monumental groups A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul… but they go way deeper.
This album is the real deal. Here's the second to last song, a kind of manifesto:
"And it hurts with every heartbeat…"
April 24, 2015 April 19, 2016 / David James	/ Leave a comment
I don't really have anything clever or interesting to say about this song, other than this: it hits me right in the feels.
Kamasi Washington will detonate modern jazz with The Epic
April 9, 2015 April 9, 2015 / David James	/ Leave a comment
Who is Kamasi Washington? He's the guy who made all of the fantastic sax sounds that you loved on both recent (and brilliant) Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar releases. Albums You're Dead and To Pimp A Butterfly would feel utterly lacking without Washington's input; his freewheeling tones form the sharp jazz edge cutting through both masterpieces.
This 14 minute tune is but a small piece of the upcoming, appropriately-titled debut album The Epic – it looks to be a sprawling, three hour affair aiming to throw down the gauntlet for modern jazz. In a genre valued for innovation and stratospheric ambition, the traditional live jazz band has been laying in stasis for a couple decades now. Real innovation has come from beyond left field, from electronic artists playing with jazz forms and ideals while never really touching the live band setup. Washington could change that perception.
As Flying Lotus himself put it, "everybody is trying to do the same shit. I don't want to hear 'My Favorite Things' anymore."
As a hardcore fan of the genre myself, I couldn't put it any more plainly. This tune, along with a new exclusive song featured on Revive (I hope to have a copy streaming here soon) have jumpstarted my hopes for a new generation of the kind of wildly psychedelic, expansive, weird jazz that sits near and dear to my heart. Fans of later John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and especially Pharoah Sanders are highly encouraged to listen right now.
One last thing: Washington has been featured on this site before, as part of the Miguel Atwood-Ferguson ensemble. The band included Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Rebekah Raff, and Chris "Daddy" Dave, some of the best jazz musicians alive today. Their live take on Drips//Take Notice is one of the greatest live jazz performances recorded in the past few decades, if that's any indication of this man's talent.
"I Crave Being Destroyed"
April 6, 2015 June 5, 2015 / David James	/ Leave a comment
Combing my list of unfinished drafts, I sometimes unearth little gems. This one began as a nod to a certain New Orleans ambient noise band, but quickly veered into a miniature Grand Statement about what I get out of music.
This self portrait is a handy visual metaphor for the words you're about to read.
I was discussing Belong's debut album, October Language. I was living in San Francisco and had picked up the album on CD at Aquarius Records. The following is what I wrote almost exactly 4 years ago. I'm sharing because it still applies to my life.
50 More Best Albums of 2020 December 24, 2020
50 Best Albums of 2020 December 16, 2020
Love Will See Us Through [mixtape] November 23, 2020
Jungle Bump [mixtape] September 21, 2020
Ecstasea [mixtape] July 24, 2020
Echo Station [mixtape] May 17, 2020
Dream Shelter [mixtape] March 27, 2020
Emergence [mixtape] January 20, 2020
25 Best Techno Albums of 2019 December 19, 2019
20 Best Ambient Albums of 2019 December 17, 2019
Twitter Stuff
Facebook Stuff
Gin & Platonic
Jazzwrap
No Record Shops Left
Mp3tag


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Continuing to Invest in Our Future
I hate it when people use the phrase, "Living within its means" to talk about the current government debt problems.
I hate it because it's a catchy slogan that's misleading, and wrongfully assumes that government should spend money the same way a household should. The government is not a household or even a business. These things are inherently different because they have inherently different economic goals.
From my general experience the primary economic goal of a household is to pay all necessary bills while staying out of debt. The economic goal of a business is to make a profit. And the economic goal of the government is to outmaneuver the booms and busts of the business cycle on a macroeconomic scale. Not all of these things are mutually exclusive at least all the time, but sometimes they can be contradictory.
During what many consider to be the golden age of the American economy, roughly the Ike through Johnson years, the primary way for the government to get a head of the business cycle was Keynesian economics, which included government spending to invest in the nation's future.
A government unlike a household has to play the long game. When I say the long game I don't mean three or even five years down the line. I mean twenty or thirty. The American people do not realize it but we've been using and directly benefiting from the investments our grandparents made and those investments must be maintained and built upon.
That is not to say that the government was the only reason for that period's prosperity, but it did play a role.
My current objection to the national debt is not that the government, "live within its means", but that the way things are headed currently sooner or later the country is going to hit a wall where our debt will not go towards building and investing in the nation's future, but paying interest towards the debt we have already sustained.
This conversation should not be about, "having a balanced budget," but ensuring that the United States will be able to continue investing in its future.
Labels: Government
Album Review: Joss Stone: LP1
3/5 out of 5
First let me give a disclaimer. My genre of choice is rock. Sure I dabble in other stuff, stick my toe into some other rivers but rock is what I love.
That said what I love about Joss Stone is that she transcends genre. That is both a good thing and a bad thing on this album. There is almost guaranteed to be at least one song you love on it, but there is going to probably be something else that turns you off.
It's not like any of it is bad. It's just that Stone does her thing on it. And her thing isn't suppose to be anything. There is old fashioned folk, some old school '60s flavored rock, heck even some funk inspired stuff makes it onto the album.
Like I said whatever the song it, feels like she's in her element, but it might give some listeners some whiplash. I'm enough of an eclectic that I kind of dig it, but I know other folks might not.
By the way is this the summer of love? What's with all the love albums these past few months?
Labels: Joss Stone, Music, Reviews
Game Draft 1 Chapters 1-4.5
Chapter 1: Press Start
A young black man stepped on a subway, wearing a fedora, jeans, and a vest over a t-shirt. As he got on, he saw an old friend.
"Seamus, is that you?"
"Yep. I figured I'd see you off your first day. That and I take this line too."
"What's your first class?"
"Computer use. It will probably be a drag."
"You might be surprised. Who's your prof?"
"Some guy named Henri Jean."
"I know him. Dude you're in for one wild semester."
"What's he like?"
"He's… well…You'll just have to meet the guy. I'll tell you this though, he just graduated last semester, and he's kind of a campus legend."
"Why?"
"I'll tell you later besides wasn't that your stop Mal."
Then Malcolm turned his head shouted, "Shit" then pulled the line.
Malcolm ran to the Gates building. Entering, he asked the first person he saw, who was talking on a payphone "Where is room 115?"
"It's right there ya noob. I can't believe you're wasting my time like this."
After entering the room, Mal saw a tall kid with broad shoulders reading a comic book with his feet on a chair. He was spread out along two other chairs.
"Howdy"
"Shhhhh not now. Doubleshot is trapped in a room with Aeros and he doesn't have his crossbow."
As the class began to fill up everyone stared at the comic reader.
A blond haired girl asked, "Where is the professor?"
"Yo," The comic reader said as his arm rose and his head lowered into the book. "Let's give it another five more minutes. There are probably a few lost freshies and I really want to finish this thing."
After a while the kid stood up. "Okay this is CSC 104 computer use. If that's not where you're so suppose to be geeeee-it out." His thumb moved over his shoulder. And the class gave him weird looks "Tough crowd. Anyway, it's required by the university. I had to take it. You guys have to take it. That said it's a cool class. That and I'm a cool guy. I don't like checking papers, and that doesn't really prove if you know how to use a seed anyway. If you do what I tell you, you'll have fun and you'll probably get an okay grade. That said you're going to have to demonstrate you know some stuff."
"Like what stuff," said the blonde girl.
"Uh for the next few weeks I think we'll stick to the basics. Avatars, constructs, but before we get to that stuff you guys need seeds. Seeing as a lot of you are probably freshies I'm guessing you don't know where the school computer store is. I thought it would be a good idea to go there together."
As the class walked the TA called to the blonde girl. "I didn't have time to say but you remind me of someone. What's your name?"
"Alexandria Katrina."
"No way you're Silver Cat's sis?"
"Yeah. How do you know sis?"
"We go way back."
"Yeah everyone knows Silver Cat."
"She never mentioned me?"
"Now that you mention it you never told us your name."
"Doh. Well it's my first day on the job. Yo everyone could you stop for a sec. Alley Cat has just informed me I stupidly forgot to introduce myself. I'm Henri Maccabee Jean. Call me Hank. It looks like we are here. This is the union. Trust me you guys are going to spend a lot of time here. The store is in the basement. Come on."
Walking through the automatic doors of the computer store, Mal saw his childhood friend Seamus."
"Seamus you work in the computer store," Malcolm says.
"I've got to make bread somehow."
Hank turns to them. "You guys know each other?"
"Since were babes," Seamus replies.
"You know Seamus maybe he could join in the match Saturday"
"I'll ask Silver but you know what she's like."
"Just a thought. Okay so since everyone here looks like they are under 25 I'm going to guess you guys have the id chips. Let me lay a little history on ya. Yes I know most of this stuff is common knowledge but I'll tell you anyway. In 2020, to prevent ID theft the government started installing id chips into the brains of its citizens. I know it's creepy but you see those chips started to get more complicated. Now days, we do some pretty cool stuff with them. Mainly the chip can communicate with one of these."
"Yo, Hammer they know all this stuff just let them buy some seeds," Seamus said.
"Yes I know your job is to sell but mine is to teach these guys how to use these things. Anyway those id chips have been modified over the last few decades to allow these things to communicate with your head."
Pulling out a Mjöllnir pendant from under his shirt Hank said, "This is my seed."
"See ladies and gentlemen we have all sizes all shapes, all colors, hell if you give us a week we can make a custom one just like Henri's over there. Yep we can customize both the looks and the specs."
"Yo, Forge could you shut up a sec." Hank held out the pendant and light came from it. The light became larger and became the image of a man in armor holding a large war hammer.
"This is my avatar. This guy is how I look when I'm cyber trancing. Think of cytrancing as lucid dreaming. Alright, before I do what I am about do I got to warn you guys not to move." The light engulfed the room and soon the room changed. It became a medieval hall. "This is my construct. Be careful it's only a hologram. You guys might bump into a shelf or something, but I thought you should see it. I can manipulate the trance but when I first enter it this is where I go. I can change the construct if I want, but I like it. It's kind of like a second home to me. Next class I'll show you guys how to make one. The hologram faded and the room returned to normal."
"Yeah. Yeah. You did enough now let them buy their seeds."
"Okay here is the deal a certain amount of your first year tuition was devoted to the purchase of a seed. If you buy one that costs more than that you have to pay the difference. I think it's like 700 creds but Seamus here knows better than me."
"Step on up ladies and gents. I got watch seeds, necklace seeds, bracelets seeds, laptop seeds, pda seeds, earring seeds. What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Keep in mind they have different capabilities. If you get confused just ask me."
Alex was looking at a necklace seed.
"I think that would look nice on you. Alley, right," Mal said
"Yep. But I prefer Alex. So what's going to be your choice?"
"I think I'll go with the glasses. Kind of like Seamus."
"Somebody call my name."
"Yeah you said each shape had different capabilities."
"Right, where to start? Well the cool thing about laptop and PDA seeds are the screens. Some people like 'em but others think they're clunky, which is why we have the others. Don't get me wrong they have cool functions of their own but the main thing about them is that they can be worn or kept in a pocket and some are fashion statements. Like I said that pendent of Henri's, it's a custom deal. Anyway standard necklaces are pretty much no frills. I mean they can have as much computing power as you want, but they're main attraction is that they are small and light. Also they look cool. Glasses on the other hand arguably have the most features. See the glasses act sort of like a worn screen. And the side peaces are close enough to the ears that they act like head phones. Now you can put sensors in pretty much any seed but in glasses those sensors without directly linking to a mind can transmit data through the speakers and glass. That said they can make you look like a nerd but... nerd power."
Hank stepping back in front of the class, said, "Well it's about that time. Catch you later."
Chapter 2: New Players
A brown ponytail dangled as a woman walked upside down along the bottom of a brick skyscrapers ledge. She was enjoying the cool breeze of night and eying her prey. She zeroed in on two thieves through the scope of her crossbow.
"Silver."
The woman looked up to the moon. "Not now," she said glancing at the moon just after releasing a bolt.
Before it could hit its target she fell from the ledge. Landing on her feet she ran to the dregs. Kicking up rain water, her foot made contact with the chin of one of her marks.
"I'm sorry Silvia but, Circe keeps bugging me."
"Just give me five minutes," the ponytailed woman says as she twirled two knives in her hands. One of the gangsters tries to shoot her. The bullet bounced off a metal crimson bracer she is wearing.
A face identical to the girl's appeared in the moon. "Look I can't get any peace until you talk to these guys."
"Alright." The muggers disappeared into blue pixels and man and two woman replaced them. "You know I was really having a great time."
"Yeah", a man with sunglasses said. "Artemis gave both me and Circe an earful." He points to a woman who looks like the ponytailed girl except with her hair untied. "Uh anyway I got a friend and I was wondering if he can join our game on Saturday."
"How much of a newb is he?"
"Okay. So he's new. We let you bring in Alley."
"Fine, fine. He can play but if we lose because of him Forge-."
"I'll take responsibility. Don't worry I'll tell him what he needs to know."
Water spouted from a large round concrete fountain. While drinking coffee, Alexandria sat on its rim while reading a book for her philosophy class.
"Hey."
She looks up to see a fedora. "Hey Mal."
"Studying for your next class? I have philosophy 120 too. I think we might be in the same section."
"There you are," an out of breath Seamus said has he ran to the fountain. "You might as well hear this too Alley. You know that TA you guys met. Well back when he was a student he formed a game club. Well, he left after he graduated but he occasionally plays with us still. This Saturday Silvia, Alley's sister and some friends of ours are going to battle it out with the old bastard. Are you two in?"
"Sure. I got nothing going Seamus."
"Hey I love an opportunity to show up sis."
"Wo there, Calamity Jane. Aim your guns the other way. You're on our team. Okay I'll give you guys the details on the game later but right now you need to learn how to use your seeds. Alley has a little experience but you Mal. You're running in the dark ages. I loaded a tutorial on your seed to help you out. Custom made it myself. You're welcome. By the way this is the only free software you're getting out of me.
"Thanks but I should be headed for class now anyway," Mal said.
"Oh by the way Silvia's teaching that philosophy class you guys are headed for."
"What!"
"Yeah it's her major and her prof was so impressed with her that he gave her a chance to TA as a senior. Figured she probably wouldn't tell you till you got there. I just didn't want you to wig out."
"Yeah. Thanks"
Sixteen desks in a circle surrounded a brunette haired girl in a wool mesh trench coat.
"Alright let's get started. It's the first day in an intro class so I won't get to heavy on you. By the way I'm Silvia Katrina, and this is Phl120 Philosophy in a digital age. Okay so I don't expect you guys to have a bunch of knowledge about stuff if you understood the world you wouldn't need to be here, but this is mainly a discussion course. Say what you think, make good arguments, and write a couple of essays and you should be fine. You can grab the syllabus on the net. Nothing too unexpected on it. Throughout the semester you guys have to write 3 papers. I'll tell you guys more about that later and the detail are on the syllabus anyway. If you have any questions just message me and I'll get back to you. So I guess I'll just put out a few questions. Why are you here? I don't mean in that deep why do we exist sense. I just mean why you are taking the class."
A red haired guy in the back row stands up and says, "Because the registrar says we have to?"
"Okaaaay."
"Anyone else," no one raises their hand "Okay zombies well here's why I decided to TA it. We're living in interesting times. The lines between illusion and reality are being blurred, where an intangible idea can become caporal. Its disorienting and I know I sometimes I can't even make sense out of it all. I'm hoping what you guys say may shed some light on it. I want to hear what you guys think. Anyway here's the gist of the class. Well, talk normally about some topic. I'm hoping that the conversations will naturally flow but if they don't. I have a list of topics. Based on the previous class I'll e-mail you guys reading material. I'll try to do it no less than two hour after class. Okay, so let's get started. Most of you guys are only able to use seeds just now. Why?."
"The law says we have to be seventeen before we can use them," the redhead said.
"And why would that be the law," Katrina said.
A girl with pink hair and a pink hoodie said, "because in order to use the seed you have to use the ID chip in your head and people don't like the idea of kids brains doing the unnatural."
"Mind if I ask you your name"
"Joanne but my friends call me Jo."
"Cool. Well, this is a good time to cover some history, originally the chip was a voluntary identification system to aid in fighting identity theft. At first people weren't crazy about the idea but it was voluntary so no body gave a fuck. Eventually 75 percent of the population had the chips. The government then decided that the cost of maintaining older identification systems and the chip were expensive and made it mandatory for everyone.
"At this point people were sort of freaked out that their brains could be hacked so a bunch of patchwork laws and government organizations were created to ensure the safety and security of people with chips which at this point was everyone. One of the goals of these organizations was to research the chips and make it harder for people to crack them. Well this lead to the development of the MUI, the mental user interface, that we use today. Anyway one of the mental safeguard laws is that you can't use the MUI until age 17.
"It might not sound weird to you guys but there was a time when having government chip in your head would be considered the start of fascism. What do you guys feel about it?"
"Never really thought about it like that. I always knew the chip could identify me but I never had a problem with it. I never really noticed. By the way name's, Malcolm my friends call me Mal."
" Well, according, to the law the chip's government identifier can only be used in government buildings such as the police station, and the Secretary of State's office, but after activating your seeds you can add other identifiers to the seed. I have. You guys will probably get one soon for the university. Up until now you guys probably just used a paper trail for all the docs you had to put in to get here. Well, when you start using seeds you'll see things are a lot faster. Anyway, other than identification the only thing the chip can be used for is interfacing with your seeds. All the processing for the MUI is handled by the seed. Yeah Alley."
"Well, the 45st through 64th amendments are often called the second bill of rights. They list the things the government can't do in regards to digital and mental technologies. I always had faith that the government would follow its own rules."
"But how do you know. There could be a secret database with all our thoughts recorded on it," Silvia responded
"True I guess but if the government ever wanted to do anything with that information they would have to follow due process and a judge would never allow that info as evidence or even probable cause I mean hell that is one of our a oldest laws," said Alex
"There are ways to bend the law even the law of those who make it. Anyway I didn't want things to get that heavy on the first day so I'll leave that conversation here until next class. By the way Alley, Mal could you guys stick around for a while."
"Sure," Mal said.
"You guys are in the game. At least that's what Seamus says. It's been a while since everyone played together so we're having a meeting at the diner on Park Street and Babbage Ave on Friday afternoon be there at 3 got it.
"Yeah," Alley said.
" I've got some stuff to take care of back at my apartment so I probably won't see you guys 'till then.
Mal, was lying in bed watching Kiss Me Deadly on the ceiling screen. He had started the movie as a room hologram, but he eventually got tired and decided to watch the story while lying down. The sun had set hours ago, but with all of the light and sound he hadn't realized. The only sign he had of the passing hours was the weariness of his muscles. He had thought of his new seed, but he hadn't tried it. Things just kept coming up that he would rather do. After class he spent half the day at the park. Although everyone called it a park it was more of a mall. To a newcomer like Mal it looked like a city. Hallways as wide as roads with railways and motorized walkways along their centers. Mal had grown up in a small town. He had never dreamed that places like that existed.
Mal had decided that before he went to sleep he wanted to try his seed, if only for a few minutes. He closed his eyes and then opened them. He was not where he was a moment ago. Miniscule moving blue numbers surrounded him. He realized two things immediately. The first was that while his mind was still half asleep his muscles were no longer fatigued. The second was that he was not alone.
"Hey it took you long enough"
"Seamus?"
"Sorry bro. I'm not Seamus I'm just a tutorial programmed by him."
"But"
"Hey I'm well he's a techno genius. Anyway while he doesn't doubt Henri's teaching ability we need you set in days not months so I'm going to help you get up to scruff."
"Okay I guess but where is this place?"
"This is the default construct. You can change it however you want.
"Just think of a place you would like to be. Most of the ones programmed that way are pretty simple though but simple might be best for now. Also you could always go back to the store and get the brilliant guy who programmed me to program you a more complex one."
Mal thought of a black and white office with an old typewriter and black analogue rotary phone. He thought of bookcases that had been obsolete for a good century. Blue turned to gray and the numbers shifted forming a desk and a lamp.
"You thought up a gray box. A bit boring but at least you have the idea. Alright next thing and this is important. In this place your body is irrelevant. Do me a favor. Think about the old track at Adam's Park.
The tiles on the floor shifted to gravel and the gray turned to green. Trees sprang from nowhere and a streaming river could be seen from iron guard rails. Orange leaves floated down the stream.
"No way."
"Yeah shocking ain't it. Anyway run the track."
"Come on man you know I was always the slowest guy in gym"
"Just run the damn track Mal."
Mal ran the track while mentally ranting. He hated running track, especially with someone watching. Even if it was just a program Mal couldn't help but confuse it with Seamus. Just as Seamus would, the program chided Mal about his speed.
" Four minutes for the quarter mile you are slow check this out"
Mal watched Seamus' tutorial run the quarter mile in 9 seconds. "
"Now here is the question. Do you think my creator's physical counterpart could do that back at the park?"
"No. You ... I mean Seamus was always faster than me but not by much, but then again you aren't him."
"Good point but for the time being let's assume that Seamus can do everything I can do and vice-versa. That's not exactly the case but I'm trying to make a point. Here a body's form and function is nearly completely based on its user's or designer's mental intention and projection."
"In other words you're fast because you want to be fast?"
"Exactly. That's something simple, but let's do something more complex. What's your favorite animal?"
"Dude you should know this. I always liked wolves"
Seamus shimmered blue for a moment and where he was standing a wolf took his place. Then he returned to human form.
"Okay that was just to show off. The point is that in your construct you control pretty much everything, your environment and yourself. The problem is that the game isn't happening in a construct or any personal cyber space. That world will have rules. Seamus will tell you those rules later. My job is to get you used to the weirdness of having a body other than your physical one. In the game your body is going to be limited to your usual physical form, or at least an avatar similar to your usual physical form, but your strength, speed, and agility can be augmented by your mental state. Before the game starts Seamus wants you to have an avatar and a handle that you're comfortable with. You can have more than one and you can change them but at least for this game your avatar has to be recognizable as human. Two arms two legs, one head walking upright Between 4 and 7.5 feet tall and weighing 95 to 300 pounds. In short you can't be anything ridicules. "
"So my avatar can totally compensate for my normal scrawniness. I can be a 200 pound football player"
"Sure but keep in mind that how your body interacts with the world will be based on its form. Let's say you want to hide behind a rock, for cover. What's better, that 200 pound 7 football guy or something smaller." On the other hand though your physical capabilities can be augmented by your mind, the physics engine of the game is based on the physics of our world. So that 200 pound guy will be able to punch a lot harder than a smaller person. Another thing is familiarity of the avatar. For stuff that's highly physical like the games most people use avatars that are close to their physical selves. Seamus knows how to control his body fairly well, but if you add or take away too much weight or height things get weird. You probably haven't really thought about it."
"Nope"
"Okay you and Seamus used to play baseball right."
"All the time."
"You more or less know how to throw the ball to get it to go where you want.
"I've got a curve you wouldn't believe."
"But what happens when your arm is heavier, or faster, or stronger than you're expecting."
"I guess the ball would move differently."
"Exactly. Well that's all I can say unprompted if you have any questions just ask."
"What avatar are... is Seamus using for the game."
"He guessed you would ask that."
The hologram shimmered and a short man who appeared not to fit into his own skin walked into him. Long blond hair was tied behind a leather jacket with one sleeve cut off.
"And I told him err programmed it to IM me when you did."
"Look at you, all road warrior like."
"I prefer to think of it as more of a terminator look. Anyway this is how I roll not exactly original but it has a certain appeal in the games. By the way I only use this AV in the games. But I'll leave that other stuff to Henri.
Chapter 3 Character Select
Morning hit Mal like a train. He wished he had it in him to sleep more, but he could never figure out how to shut the blinds completely. He thought he should probably start this routine on his seed. He didn't know how so he did it the old way. He moved to the terminal he brought from home and checked his schedule. It was Friday and he didn't have any classes but there were still things to do. He was in a new town and the sun was out. He wasn't sure if he should buy paper books or not. His professors had put course packs on the net and had told him it would be easier to print them as needed.
Other than the mall the place everyone kept talking about was Babbage Avenue. The union was on that street but it also had a bunch of stores and restaurants. There was also a huge diagonal public square right between the union and the library on the street. This early in the semester there was bound to be some concert or faire there.
Walking around Mal wondered what everyone was doing right now. He thought they were probably doing the same thing as he was walking around. Walking down the street, Mal passed an Arcade. He had never been in one before so he didn't know what to expect as he walked in.
There were old school terminal arcade games but there were also plenty of seeders. In the middle of two small arenas there were holograms of people playing the games.
Alley Cat and Silver Cat were playing a game of basketball. On the screen there were five copies of each girl. Katrina was winning. Each copy of her seemed to move almost as an individual, while some of Alex's copies wouldn't move as she focuses her attention on controlling the ones closest to the ball. Just then Mal saw Henri.
"Hey. What's up Henri" How you doing Mal. Seamus normally hangs out here. I guess when we find him us and the girls can head to the diner."
"Alex really needs some practice"
"Yeah so which one is the real one"
"They all are I guess. A skilled person can use each one of those players almost like a limbs, but from the looks of it Alley isn't used to it yet. Oh well."
There were two minutes left on the clock. Katrina was ahead by 15 points, but Alley had no intention of giving up. Suddenly one of her player's stole the ball and passed to the other end of the court to a copy of herself that was in the air. The copy in the air without landing then slammed the ball into the basket.
"Wow. I thought that Alley would be too short to pull off a move like that."
"In real life maybe but she's in one of the games, still though I wouldn't have expected her to be able to pull off that move"
A buzzer rang. Alley and Silvia opened their eyes in a corner of the arcade where they were sitting.
"At least you're getting better, but you still need tons of practice," Silvia said.
"Yeah" Alley said bitterly. "Anyway Mal and Hammer are here."
Mal and hammer went over to sit with the girls.
"So what do you guys think we should do? We still have a while before we said we would officially meet and we can't do much until we catch up with Forge and Mr. Universe."
"Who's Mr. Universe?" said Alley
"A disgusting pig" Silvia replied.
" Eh, I'll admit he can be a bit crude but he's alright. And if you have a sense of humor, which sorry Silvia you don't he's a barrel of laughs," said Henri.
"Anyway," Alley interrupted, "He'll probably be at the dinner. We should head over there. See you later Henri."
"See you guys letter"
The party decided to wait outside the dinner for Mr. Universe, who arrived 15 minutes late.
"Good evening ladies and Gentlemen. The lord master of everything has arrived. Let's get this party started. Eh who are these people?"
"Meet Mal, a friend of mine and Alley, Silvia's little sister"
"Hey I met you before. Yeah on the first day of classes you were talking on a phone."
"I have no clue what you're talking about. Anyway let's eat."
"So what will it be?" a waitress asked the group.
"Flapjacks for me," says Seamus
"It's almost four. I never get how you can eat breakfast at dinner, by the way a fish sandwich for me", Silvia said
"Simple this place serves the best pancakes I'll have the flapjacks too", Alex said
Everyone else ordered a grilled cheese
"So what's the plan Silver" Mr. Universe said
"The first thing is that we need to brief the newbie's. Forge"
"I'm on it. Okay so over the summer Henri and I designed this game together this is kind of a beta test. It's your standard FPS with a few exceptions. The map will be chosen randomly but I was the guy who designed that part of the game so it gives us a bit of an advantage. The way it works is one team defends and the other attacks. The defending team will have 30 minutes to set up their traps, vehicles and starting position. Both teams get to choose their weapons using points but the defending team gets to choose the location of their vehicles, ammo, and guns. The other team has to carry theirs from a random spawn point Henri and I programmed.
"Doesn't that put the attacker at a disadvantage", Alex said.
"That brings me to my next point to be fair I told Henri we would be the attackers for the first round because I know so much about the maps. That said this will be a two out of three match. And whoever wins each round earns the right to be the defender. Also everything you do in the game earns points, kills, stunts, you get the picture . We can use those points in the second and third games to get more firepower. Even though Henri's team is the defender if they get lazy and just dig in it will eventually give us enough points to overcome their position through firepower, but in the spirit of fairness if the gap between the two teams points gets to high the game resets them both to 200.
"So any ideas on how to attack this." Alley said.
"It's your standard fps so I say we all just do not motherfucking die." Silvia said.
"Speaking of which what happens if we die," Mal said.
"You're out for 5 minutes or when the round ends which ever happens first. The round ends when all the players on one side are dead at the same time. While you're out of the game you get to hang at this nifty player lounge we created. The AIs can't get into the game proper but if they want they can hang back at the lounge and watch. I figured Circe, Artemis, and Thor would get a kick out of that. It's rare they get to hang out together these days. Each team also gets a war lounge. You could spend your time in the common lounge or the war lounge." Forge said
"Wait there's five us isn't that unfair to Henri." Alley said
"No prob. It's been a while, and I hate to say it but he has a new crew running with him. I've met a few of them. They're alright guys but they don't stand a chance." Universe said. "Oh by the way one of them is his girlfriend. I saw them snogging. Another is a cousin of his. "
"That would be Zach." Seamus said. "It's his freshmen year too. He's a spitfire. Seen him play a few games with the ole hammer. Dude is all heart and no brains. He doesn't know when to hold and when to fold."
"He fights when he ought to run huh." Mal said.
Seamus nodded
"So in the second round how are we choosing to use our points?" Silver asked.
"I don't know. For now I say we split the points into sevenths. Each of us gets one seventh and then they remaining two can go towards common things like vehicles. It seems fair but if we want to change up we always can in the war lounge. By the way I say we meet up there a half hour before the game field can be seen from the lounge and looking down will give us a better idea of a plan."
"Deal." Universe said. "So are you two ready to get your battle cherries busted?"
"Don't worry they're game." Seamus said.
"I don't know what'll happen but it's only a game right," Mal said. Silvia raised her left eyebrow and glared at Seamus.
"Hey all of our pride is on the line. I say we kick ass harder than it's ever been kicked. Show them exactly who the hell we are!" Silvia said.
Chapter 4 Fight
After a long night of writing down ideas for his class, Henri was cyber trancing with his girlfriend. He was lying down on a couch face up with his head in her lap, in their mental apartment. The apartment was not unlike their real ones. It was small with plain walls and a hard wood floor. When the day was over and all that needed to be said and done was said and done, they liked to just sit, not talking but just being.
"So Han, what's the plan for tomorrow?"
"Huh"
"The game, Elizabeth said, while lightly punching his arm"
"Oh that, well you and the guys already know the rules, so I thought we'd improvise"
"We need a plan"
"Don't worry about it we'll have time to come up with one in the war room, and the terrain is randomized so any plan we came up with we would have to adapt on the spot."
"Fair enough, but you should probably at least get some sleep," Elizabeth said, kissing Henri's forehead.
"You're probably right, but I do my some of best work on caffeine, a few more minutes won't cost us the game."
"Still if I believe your stories of the old days we are in for one hell of a fight."
The first to arrive to the mutual war room were Henri and Seamus.
"Sup" Henri said.
"That's all you can say"
"Hey, it's too early to be verbose"
"Heard that brother, while kicking your ass I'm going to have to listen to battle track number 9."
"'Symphony of Destruction'? I'm going with 'Battle without honor or 'Humanity myself.' I know your girl and your cousin. So who else you get to roll in your crew?
"I let my cousin handle it?"
"Man you do live on the edge."
"Heads up we have incoming."
The two turned their heads to see Alexandria and Silvia materializing into the war room.
"Universe is on his way I'm sad to say." Silvia said.
At nearly the same time Zach arrived with two others, a boy and a girl.
"I know you." said the girl.
"You two are students of mine, Jo and Mr. I have too."
"Call me Mike."
"Got it."
"Alright let's generate that map," Hank said.
The walls of the common war room began to shift into what appeared like glass windows. Outside there was an endless craggy desert landscape. The war room was positioned a great height above the ground.
"We already decided you guys would be the defenders go do what you need to do," Silvia said.
With that Hammer's team shifted away. They were still in the room but they could neither perceive, nor be perceived by Silver's team.
"That point," said hammer pointing to a mesa in the distance," I think that is where we should set up. It's not as high as the war room but it's higher than most everything else. Heck it's even high enough that their mortars might not be able to reach us."
"That's wishful thinking, and heck what's to say they don't grab a chopper with their points" Liz said," I say we dig, tunnel under the sand create a system of ropes that can use the tension to determine where they are and strike like a trap-door spider, quick and clean."
Jo and Mike looked at each other scared.
"I don't know if we have the time for that."
"We do if we all get started, then two will be spotters keeping an eye on the ropes, two of us will mobilize and whoever is left can man a sniper rifle on the that mesa you seem so determined to climb." Liz said.
"Standard Rook - Vet team up." Hank said
"Why not. Jo you're with me. We'll ride out on a jeep. I'm driving you're shooting."
"Zach you and Mike are our spotters. You'll be on the mesa with me but all you're doing is telling us where you see movement. Jo and me are doing the shooting," Said Hank.
"Ah come on I wanna make stuff go boom," said Zach.
"You heard 'em. But that gives me an idea. Instead of ropes we put in small mines. Zack you know how to calculate distance based on how tall the blasts appear to you."
"I don't want small explosions! I want a fourth of July extravaganza!."
"Zach!" Both Liz and Hank said simultaneously.
"Alright I'll mine the northwest quadrant, Zach you take the Southwest, the rooks will handle the Northeast and Hammer here will take the Southeast."
"Did I mention how much I love you when you talk tactics."
"No and don't this isn't the time Han."
"So any ideas," Silvia said. "Forge did you and Hammer program some sort of radar map into one."
"Yeah, we kind of thought it would be more interesting if we had to guess, but the map is so small that we'll meet one another eventually. All can say is keep your eyes open and pick up your visual scanning."
"There are too few us that I think it would be a good idea to screen the place alone. We should stick together," Universe said.
"Agreed, but we're the attacking team so we can't afford to wait for them to show up. If we pull our points we might be able to afford a tank. "Forge said
"And then what about individual guns. Nope I need my rocket launcher" Silvia said.
"Alright how about just an armored Jeep," Forge said
"Fine"
"Hey guys we're new to this whole thing, so what guns should we choose
"Speak for yourself shotgun, pistol and sniper rifle combo for me. I kind of know how I fight for you so I can choose those three, but for a guy like you I would say an assault riffle is your best bet. Ally said.
"And knives all around" Silver Cat said.
"Though I strongly suggest against getting in close enough to use one Mal," Forge said while eying a mortar launcher.
From the mesa, hank so a quickly rising tower of sand and what appeared to be a flipped jeep.
"Got ya", Hank said while pulling the trigger on his sniper riffle."Liz, they're about a half a mile northwest of our position."
After hearing a loud bang and realizing Mal was down Silver took cover behind the flipped jeep.
"God Damn it."
Forge took out the mortar and began to set it up. Firing it at the mesa where he guessed the fire had come from.
"Oh shit. Everybody get back!" Hank said.
Although the mortar fire had fallen short of Hank's position it had destabilized the mesa. The area where Hanks team had set up had crumbled and they were falling to the sand.
"Well, the battle plan never survives contact with the enemy. Screw it." Hank said.
"So what do we do now." said Mike
"Hope the others have our back and get down and dirty, but if we're doing it we're doing it right. So shut up and follow my lead.
Mal didn't know what had happened. One moment he was riding across the desert, next he was in what looked like an upscale nightclub. There were others looking at a screen.
"I got 20 bucks that Hank doesn't even get knocked out by the end of it." A woman who looked like Silvia said.
"I'll take that bet said .
A girl looking to be in her mid 20's turned from the screen to Mal.
"Welcome to the lounge. I'm Circe, Seamus' AI. He designed the game so that when you die you'll stick around here for about 5 minutes before being transported to a spawn point.
"AI?"
"Artificial Intelligence. People often use the seeds to create us but anyway I think right now it's more important for you to focus on the game. I bet that you guys would win.
"Well he didn't last long," said Silver Cat pointing at Mal's corpse.
"Wasn't his fault. Damn wasn't expecting that." said Forge Kicking the jeep. "We're traveling on foot."
"I hate this," universe said," In a landscape like this there aren't many places to hide."
"I still think we should stick together," said Forge.
"Agreed, we'll walk in single file to hide our numbers. Mal should respawn about 700 meters to the east, but I think he'll be able to handle himself while we go after the Hammer."
"No you don't you just don't want to deal with him."
"Okay, I don't. Happy. First shot last got."
"As much as I hate to admit it Forge we are on a clock and they're ahead." Ally Cat, said.
"Fine."
Climbing out of the rubble Hammer said, "Okay let's think. What weapons do we have? How should we fight? Where should we fight?"
"Mostly long range weapons. From a distance. Far from the other guys."
"So you learn. I can use the scope as a sort of binoculars to help us pen down where both we and everybody else is, the question is what do we do when we spot them? At this point all the plans we had are moot."
"What about Liz, Zach and Jo."
"They're out there somewhere, but at least for the time being we're on our own.
About a half mile away from the over turned jeep Liz, Jo, and Zach were watching Forge's team from a fox hole.
"I can't tell how many there are from this far away. Should we attack" Jo said.
"My head say's it's a stupid thing to do, but my heart says, what's a party without a few explosions," replied a smiling Liz as she finished attaching the barrel on her tripod mounted machine gun.
"Finally, I was starting to get bored said Zach."
"I'll stick here and provide cover fire with the guns. Use the reflection off one of your knives to signal me when I should start shooting so I don't give them too much advanced warning.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Forge, Silver Cat , Ally Cat and Mr. Universe were traveling in single file when they saw a bright light from a sand dune. Moments later machine gun fire tore through Universe's leg and left arm.
"Bummer. Avenge me. Avenge me," he said right before his body went limp.
"Yeah sure", said Silvia as she unholstered a Berretta M9 pistol from her suspenders rolling her eyes at Jo's colt 1845.
With both hands griping the pistol, legs spread and eying the sight Silvia quickly emptied her clip into Jo, immediately afterwards eying Universe's corpse and yelling, "Satisfied."
In that moment Zach knifed her right shoulder blade.
"Motherfucker," Silvia said as she fell to the sand.
At that moment Alley Cat put a hole through Zach with her shotgun.
Labels: Fiction, Unfinished
City Council Primary Election Poll
Hi I want to get a feel for well... how people feel about the city of Southfield. If you want to help please fill out this survey.
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Labels: City Council
Southfield July 20, 2011 Planning Commission Meeting
Planning Commission meeting held in Southfield, Michigan on July 20, 2011.
Public Hearings Regarding the Zoning and Site Plan For New Housing For The Local Lawrence Technological University.
Public Hearings Regarding the Building of a New Golden Corral
Audio of the meeting can be downloaded here.
Southfield Planning Commision July 20, 2011 Meeting from Greg Miles on Vimeo.
Labels: Lawrence Technological University, Planning Commission, Southfield
Album Review: 3 Doors Down: Time of My Life
The first rock song I ever liked was "Kryptonite". Before that it was all Disney songs and the Motown singles which were forced on me by my parents and grade school music teacher. Neither of which are bad, by the way. I can still recite the lyrics to both "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" and "A Whole New World". The point I'm trying to make is that me and 3 Doors Down go way back.
Therefore it is no suprise that I like this album. Note I said like not love. There isn't really any particular moment that I don't like, but the singles aren't going to be top picks for my playlists. All in all that's because it's fairly mellow album. The first track, "Time of my Life" will fool you though.
When I say mellow I don't mean emotionally num. The entire album has a lot of heart. What I mean is that it's introspective. It's not a party album. It's a "I got to figure out what I want, and if that means kicking a few doors open or closed well that's what it means" album.
Truth of the matter is that where I am right now I needed an album like this and I think a lot of people do. At least give her a listen.
Labels: 3 Doors Down, Music, Reviews
Southfield City Council Meeting July 18, 2011
City Council Meeting Held in Southfield, Michigan on July 18, 2011.
An ordinance that would allow for recreational commercial uses in light industrial zoning areas, change parking requirements, and regulate daycare facilities
Renewal of the City's Lobbyist Contract
Retaining the City's Youth
The Deteriorating Ramada Inn on 9-Mile
Lighting JL Hudson Drive
July 18, 2011 Southfield City Council Meeting from Greg Miles on Vimeo.
An agenda and related document's can be found here.
Labels: Government, Local Government, Politics, Southfield
The City Rebuilt
Camelot has fallen and must be rebuilt
Stone by stone steel foundations will be smelt
Not in a day nor a week results will be felt
but in time enough magnificence will be built
Loss of the old ways will force hard welts
but it will be done through muscle and machine belts
Of mind and iron and heart and will the rock shall melt
And in its stead will shine the city rebuilt
Album Review: Incubus: If Not Now, When?
Have you ever walked into a movie and realized how spectacular it was, yet still not like it. Writing? Great. Scenery? Awesome. Acting? Excellent? Cinematography? Unbelievable, in a good way. On a technical level probably one of the best of the decade yet... if given a choice you would skip it.
Well, that's this album. It sounds original and really good. Okay the correct word is beautiful. I hate, "beautiful" music. It's obvious a lot of effort was put into it. The lyrics are great. But still it's not kick ass. It's barely even rock. If you listen to it you can feel the artistry, and admire it, but it's missing something. To me it just felt too safe.
It also slightly hurts it that this is an album more or less written for a girl after a break up. Maybe that's why i don't like it. I'm not exactly part of its target audience.
There were a few standout tracks though. Check out "Thieves" and "Isadore"
Labels: Music, Reviews
How Did It Come To This, My View on the Debt Ceiling Debate
I swear that if we default on our debt my facebook and twitter status for a week will consist of nothing but a string of F-bombs and," What the hells." But how did we get here. Let's rewind the clock to summer 2009.
President Obama had promised that he would reform healthcare and he got on it. There was an incredible amount of resistance. Some of it for crazy reasons that made no sense.
But there was at least one reason that made an incredible amount of sense.
Less than year prior congress passed TARP, in response to what I dub, The Great Crash of '08. The regular crash of '08 was when I had to clean reinstall Windows 3 days before leaving for MSU after a blown fuse. I hated reinstalling everything.
Uh, anyway the cost of healthcare reform on top of the cost of the TARP started making people think about how much money the government spends, and the national debt.
This became one of the issues that The Tea Party championed and campaigned on, resulting in them through the Republican Party winning the majority of United States House of Representative seats in the 2010 elections.
The problem the country faces is a result of the two parties looking at the debt crisis in fundamentally different ways.
The national debt is only one of the reasons why the Tea Party wants to curtail government spending. They also believe that the size of government has ballooned over the last decade and feel that one of the most practical ways of shrinking it is to starve the beast. That way whenever someone wants to do something overly ambitious the obvious answer will be is in the budget. No, then shut up.
They also believe that high taxes have an adverse effect on the economy and that that for the economy to improve taxes must remain as low as they reasonably can. And for that to happen government spending must decrease, dramatically.
Both the Obama administration and the Republicans feel that the national debt is an important issue, but until a few months ago the Obama administration held the position that the government should try to spend its way out of the recession, and that dealing with the debt was a priority but not the priority.
Keynesian Economics - Click here for more blooper videos
That, at least to my ears was the point of the president's 2011 State of the Union Address. The government has work that needs to be done and several Americans need work to do. By spending the money necessary to hire on individuals to do the work we would kill two birds with one stone.
The Tea Party's rebuttal to that was, If not now when, for them this was a can that had been kicked down the road for over a decade, when it should be immediate issue that takes top priority in Washington.
During the budget talks earlier this year it became clear that this is not the same congress we had a year ago that mostly agreed with the president's position that we should spend our way out of the bad economy. Not only that but because a lot of that congress was elected over that one issue, even the politicians who do feel that way are afraid to be branded McSpendy in fear of losing their positions.
We are currently entering the 2012 election season. And many, including, though I hate to admit, it myself, feel that the American citizen votes on catchy slogans and commercials rather than on complex issues. To explain to the American voter why congress had to raise the debt ceiling would be incredibly difficult and risky.
This one of the reasons why the idea of a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling was abandoned. Even though most of both parties' leadership says this is something that needs to happen, neither party wants do it without looking to the American public that they asked the bank to raise the credit card limit after maxing it out. Not doing it is actually more like a chargeback, but the mudslinging ads, come next October, won't put it that way.
To put it simply they are assuming that the American public is too stupid to understand what the debt ceiling actually is, and why it needs to be raised.
The truth of the matter is that while the debt ceiling is the legal amount of debt the United States government is allowed to have, we've already committed the money. It's like you and your friends agreeing to go order a pizza. Before heading out, you all agree to split the bill. That's money that you've more or less already spent once you order. When the bill finally comes you can't say screw that. I ain't payin'.
I just wish that both parties would stop acting like that is an option. It ain't
Labels: Debt Crisis, Government, Politics, The Budget
City Council Meeting Held in Southfield,Michigan on July 11, 2011
Enforcement of Building Codes
Northland Mall
A streetlight project along J.L. Hudson Drive and Northland Drive
Amendments to the Zoning Ordinance that would affect Daycare, parking, and recreational facilities in light industrial zoning.
Ice arena and swimming pool refurbishing
Southfield City Council Meeting July 11 2011 Reupload from Greg Miles on Vimeo.
You can download audio of the meeting here.
Labels: City Council, Local Government, Michigan, Roads, Southfield
Detroit 2011 Warped Tour Montage
Basically a montage of stuff I saw at the Detroit 2011 Warped Tour. I'll probably upload a better edited version with band name overlays tomorrow, but tonight I wanted to have something up before I hit the hay.
Labels: 2011, Big B, Detroit, Moving Mountains, Sharks, Street Dogs, The Bots, Warped Tour
The Changing Workforce
As I said in my Eden of the East post I liked it because it talked about NEETS (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) in a way that wasn't the knee jerk, "They're lazy reaction." That reaction is a pet peeve of mine. Not necessarily because it isn't true. Indeed some individuals occasionally even myself are lazy jerks. The reason why I liked it is because it talked about or at least hinted at the fundamental ways the labor market is changing. What annoys me about that knee jerk reaction I mentioned is that it represents a classic ostrich syndrome.
I will say this again. The fundamental way the labor market works is changing. That affects everything, and as a society we cannot afford to ignore it. Whether it is good or bad, it is something that needs to be examined.
I don't just mean it's hard to get a job. I mean that both what employers and employees expect from each other is completely different than what it was in the past. Heck, what employees and employees expect from each other is starting to become completely different depending on which side of the office desk you sit on. Because of this our entire concept of work is changing.
Telecommuting is becoming more possible and prevalent meaning that less people spend work at work. A contingent workforce of freelancers and independent contractors that holds little loyalty to individual companies is factor. More and more college students and graduates are taking internships that offer very little monetary benefit. Employers are more reluctant to provide employee benefits as well as job training, expecting employees to handle those sides of the equation themselves.
These things are happening yet how individuals think about work and are educated regarding that concept work has not changed or at least has not changed as much as the practiced employee employer covenant. For now these changes are subtle, and therefore ignorable but sooner or later we as a society are going to have to reexamine the relationship between labor and management, the individual and the corporation.
These changes are difficult for everybody, but especially difficult for those, such as the younger generation, attempting to break into a workforce where the rules are in flux. It's no longer as simple as graduate, find a job, come to work on time, get paid.
Many don't find work for the next few years, but for the next few weeks. This especially true for writers, programmers, and designers. It takes an acquired skill set of self-marketing that is seldom mentioned let alone taught.
None of this excuses laziness, however it does postulate that there are new challenges in our labor market that are often not being considered and in some cases are completely ignored.
Note: NEET is not a US government classification, but I felt it could be used descriptively.
P.P.S. Note: I am not using the Japanese definition of NEET rather the name on the tin definition.
Labels: Essays, labor
Internet Rules
Name on the Tin
5. Don't be a douche if you can avoid it.
4. Don't look like a douche if you can avoid it.
3. Respect the fact that not everyone grew up in the same environment and or has the same opinion as you. (Re-read 5 and 4 )
2. Respect the interconnectedness of the web. I.e. try to restrain yourself when your parents put an embarrassing picture of their son on the web. (Ya heard that. Get those baby pictures off of my dang blasted Facebook already! And don't try to placate me by saying I look cute. Follow your own rule Miles.)
1. Hurley said it best. "Dude, don't be a douche. "
My thoughts on Eden of the East
Okay the reason why I don't do videos is because the only decent camera I have is my cell phone and windows movie maker can't edit it for some reason. I just got my hands on a new video editor and this was my experiment with it.
You can watch the anime on hulu at http://www.hulu.com/eden-of-the-east.
Labels: Anime, Eden of the East, Reviews
Album Review : Limp Bizkit : Gold Cobra
Gold Cobra
Fred Durst. Fred Durst. I got to be honest while now days it's pretty much the thing to bust on Limp Bizkit, back in the day I loved their sound. I mostly got into them with New Old Songs, then revisited Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water. I always thought the reason people ripped on them so much wasn't so much because their music sucked but because Fred Durst had such an abrasive personality. (Dude, tell it like it is. He's kind of an unapologetic douche.) Listening to this album his personality is everywhere in the lyrics, especially in the first half of the album. Sometimes it's fun machismo escapism and others it can get really grating. That said beyond Fred Durst being Fred Durst the drums and guitar are really cool. The guitar is heavy as hell, especially in the first half If you can get beyond the Durst effect it's a really fun album.
During the second half the album slows the tempo down a bit, but it still sounds really cool. I know I might be sticking my neck out a bit by saying it but people really should give this album a chance.
Labels: Gold Cobra, Limp Bizkit, Music, Reviews
How Did It Come To This, My View on the Debt Ceili...


Alfran has participated in an important seminar organized in Lima by Petroperú together with other leading international companies in the field of design and operation of furnaces and boilers. There, Alfran presented a paper on Energy Efficiency through the different refractory coatings.
This international seminar is aimed at professionals in the hydrocarbon sector. Its objective is to highlight the main aspects related to the furnaces and boilers of the oil refining industry.
In this way, important specialized companies gathered there, who presented different presentations. Also attending were exhibitors from Petroperú's Refining, Corporate Planning and PMRT Management Offices, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Mines, and other organizations.
From Alfran, we thank the trust and the opportunity provided by Petroperú.


text:
'Bad guy's dead': Community, former law enforcement respond to KCPD video
Some community members think KCPD Chief Rick Smith's "bad guy's dead" comment at the scene where Cameron Lamb was killed by an officer was a snap judgement. Others believe it was shop talk.
By: Jessica McMaster
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Members of the community, including a former police officer, are responding to audio that's raising questions about the deadly shooting of Cameron Lamb.
A source has confirmed to KSHB 41 that the audio pertains to the moments after Cameron Lamb was shot and killed by a Kansas City, Missouri, police detective, who was recently convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
The source also confirmed Kansas City Police Department Chief Rick Smith is the one heard saying, "Everyone's good? House is clear? Bad guy's dead?"
It's the last question that led to swift backlash from the community after the audio surfaced Tuesday.
Darron Edwards, a local pastor, said labeling Lamb a "bad guy" shortly after arriving to the scene is painful and further erodes trust between police and the community, particularly for people of color.
"The first thing that came to my mind was, what happened to decency and dignity?" Edwards said.
Edwards also took issue with the response to the question, "Everyone's good?"
"This family has lost a loved one and more attention is being given to, 'Everyone is fine.' Everyone was not fine at the crime scene and a person lost their life," Edwards said.
RELATED: Rick Smith out as chief of Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department in 2022
But, there are members of the community who see this situation differently.
Dr. John Hamilton, Professor of Criminal Justice at Park University and a former police officer, thinks the situation is being misinterpreted.
"I think part of the issue is looking at the context for which things occur," Hamilton said. "'Bad guy' is one of those general terms we would often use to indicate someone we believed either violated the law, or was a threat to the community or us. It really carries no other connotation than that."
Edwards said while he can understand how the choice of words could be viewed as "shop talk," he thinks the words display a lack of compassion. He said it indicates the situation was judged before the evidence was collected.
"I really just believe (Smith) was playing the judge and jury, " Edwards said. "He said what he needed to say, he was protecting his officers instead of serving and protecting the community."
Edwards and Hamilton do agree on one thing.
"I think there has to be a dialogue between the law enforcement agency and the community," Hamilton said.
Edward wants the chief to address the audio. He said police and the community need to communicate in order to break down barriers.
"When you're trying to build bridges and KCPD has walls it's hard to bring those courageous discussions," Edwards said.
Smith declined to be interviewed for this story.


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