#as those in the major leagues. you are‚ for all intents and purposes‚ alone. all your friends are still in kbo. your family is in korea

[howdytherepardner]

a tale of two fountains or maybe tributes to "great men"

spires of caverns and pits and spikes; all in aggregate seem to suggest that it could not all have been constructed with care yet each one constructed with too much care for one to bear. cascading semi-chlorinated water separated and dispersed through multitude arteries abruptly exposed to the world around it, standing alone in a vernal pool tucked between decadence and the machines driving legacies of wealth and influence. despite the drapings of grandeur and the mythos surrounding it, it is not unknowable. any outside perspective would give you something to remember it by, but the spears are not a strong enough defense to hides its insides. this unrelenting, static chaos holds an eye of stability; not precise to guarantee protection, but enough to assure that anyone brave enough to venture within will know some measure of relief from the world that surrounds it and the world that it is.

~

i wander down an exposed stairwell with my prox and a towel, wearing only a linting mask and old swim shorts. the paved surfaces that my journey follows range from smoother cement to asphalt jagged with berries from trees that would never realize their evolutionary purpose. it is not the first time i have decided to sit under the fountain of freedom ahead of me arriving at it, but it is the first in memory that i have been so prepared. normally, a pair of briefs would get soaked while too many things sat on the stairs anticipating the emergence of my dripping form, which would continue until i made it back to my room. but there i was. i have never been particularly good at meditation, and would only claim to have “achieved” a meditative state a few moments in my life, but media depictions of water falls as a particular source for finding some form of releasing outer thoughts; it seems to work well enough, but perhaps i just enjoy the spectacle. this night, there were only a few pairs that sat along the side of water, so not too much of an audience, but enough for me to wonder what they thought as i hung my towel and mask on “Double Sights” and sloshed my way to the tower. normally i might set myself directly under a narrow cascade or in the eye, but this session i remained at a static point in orbit: my legs soaked and my arms quickly coated by innumerable droplets, but my hair only catching the most divergent skydivers, the back of my neck losing its dryness only to sweat and humidity.

it’s a place of security, your conversations drowned out by incessant waters, and in close enough proximity, your own thoughts as well. that was the aim of my venture up campus. i’ve been struggling to fall asleep lately. my body will be exhausted from interactions and activities (walking to class? inconceivable) enough that i give up on work earlier in the night and pray that an earlier sleep will restore some greater stamina. the mind however is plagued with sensations of the time that i’m wasting THERE ARE ONLY 22 WEEKS OF SCHOOL LEFT AND YOU’RE SITTING IN YOUR FUCKING ROOM WHAT HAPPENED TO THE YOU THIS SUMMER WHO WAS READY TO SEE PEOPLE AND LIVE AGAIN, the regrets i am well beyond amending THIS IS JUST HOW YOU WERE FRESHMAN AND SOPHOMORE YEAR HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING WITH YOUR IVY LEAGUE TRANSCRIPT, and other anxieties I AM FAILING ALREADY. I AM INDEED TAKING IT ALL FOR GRANTED, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT PRINCETON OPINION PERSON? I AM DISAPPOINTING MY FRIENDS AND EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER INVESTED CAUSE OR CONCERN IN MY SUCCESS AND WELL-BEING. of course, the mind is of body as well, and these permeate through the rest of me. i haven’t felt health for a while THOUGH I’M SURE THAT’S JUST THE COVID THAT I’VE DEFINITELY CONTRACTED AND SPREAD TO MY LOVED ONES or the scattered eating and sleeping schedule compounding into no full restoration. most of the time, this leads to a shirtless run on the towpath (if i’m not doing school work, i might as well perfect this bag of bones), but Ida has eroded many segments to the bottom of the canal, so darker nights may not be the best for it AND MY VISION SEEMS TO BE GETTING WORSE EVERY DAY, SO IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL THE BODY SURRENDERS ANY SHRED OF WORTH ENTIRELY.

but that night was not humid, and chilly waters woke me to ensure i was fully experiencing my slate slowly being washed away. worries seem to just slip away from me, like a patagonia in any of the clubs’ coat rooms. i feel the effortless mind of my body switch on the ignition, turning all engines to ensure that i freezen’t in the water, and i can stretch each muscle individually as i am asked to confront the prospect of how this form is treated. and i can breathe again, full and deep, and i feel like i am able to get up and face the world as it comes once more.

~

Scudder Plaza may be the most relaxing spot on campus: you can catch the cooling spray from James FitzGerald’s monumental sculpture, Fountain of Freedom, or be soothed by the sounds of its cascading water. At twenty-three feet high, Fountain of Freedom is one of the largest cast bronze sculptures in the U.S. Inspired by the rugged beauty of the artist’s native Pacific Northwest, the grooves, channels, and spires of the six-ton sculpture—reminiscent of naturally eroded forms—are meant to symbolize Woodrow Wilson’s aspirations and frustrations. … Seven hundred gallons of water are recirculated through the fountain each minute and are sprayed through an intricate system of fifty major pressure valves and more than 1,000 pin-hold jets. (x)

~

but tower 4 is some distance from those 4 towers. and without jets pushing them back, many things come crawling back. i am looking down to the basement cafe with its lights out, wondering if the people coming my way were laughing at my relative under-dress, when i decide that i cannot go home yet. i complete another barefoot walk across campus, and lay my towel down as a seat at my penultimate resting place.

~

its silhouette a vague enough [cardioid of sorts] to prevent any association based on shape alone, your expectations may be higher than what you need. it is a piece of furniture in name and in relativity to form, something regarded briefly in the minds’ eye and then passed by just as quickly. its flows ooze at a steady rate, in synch such that it never appears to be moving at all; the only proof that it is, really, is the shading below coming from beyond the light and the drippings at its bottom hidden from view. those surface shimmers make a soft sound, but on touch simply flow between the fingertips. a single indentation on the surface has received a few stones of the many that live below its form, placed there by hands other than its creator; certainly, they gave their vision the precise amount of care and intent required to manifest it. an illusion that what it emits has eroded it over many years to a smooth shape, but with the truth that it is still very young and remains solid within.

~

it would not feel quite right to sit atop einstein’s table, so i sit on the concrete next to the square of rocks. even with consistent eye contact, its subtle streaming does little to shield spectators from the world outside. a car driving by listening to top hits from summers past, a few pedestrians making their pilgrimage for late night snacks; every little itch on the surface of my skin, and of course, bare exposure to every THIS and THAT in a state of overwhelming stillness. but in all, it comes to pass, and my brain is left backtracking to the overwhelming stillness i have known in recent months. i am nostalgic for my University Mandated Quarantine Walks, particularly one alone in the mountain lakes preserve after my first snow back. i am nostalgic for early autumn days looking at the sun reflected off a pond. i am nostalgic for the waiting to find out where i’d spend my junior year, the waiting to receive messages and letters from friends. restless simplicity, anticipation for better things that, well, i guess are supposed to be the present. it doesn’t really feel that way now. as SENTIMENTS have alluded to, i am struggling to make it through right now. instead of a senior year that serves as the culmination of all that came before, i feel instead trapped in shitty replays of the past 3 years. like a script composed of false cognates, it feels like i understand what is happening right now and it makes no sense.

~

Near the earthwork is “Einstein’s Table,” made of jet mist granite and inspired by Albert Einstein’s theory on black holes. Lin noted that the theory was validated last year during the creation of the table. Outer space and constellations were a source of inspiration for both projects, she said.

During the hourlong conversation, Lin shared details of her process from start to finish, which included many adjustments along the way. “With every artwork there might be six to eight models,” she said. “I’m always teaching myself about the site, so that I’m preparing myself for what it’s going to be like to be on site.” (x)

~

but i think i am mostly wondering about how similarly others are feeling. it appears to me that my peers are sliding right back into the chaos of the now, festive in the face of it all and doing everything i tell myself i should be doing right now. do i come off that way to them? does anyone really know how to express these feelings 100 leagues below the surface, or is it just me? what feels true to me, and what leads me to rise from my seat next to the table and return home, is that i must continue. there is little option now but to follow through on this all until the end of the line, whenever it may come; maybe that comes easier for some people now, but i think i’ll make it eventually. i am not entirely sad and i am not entirely happy, but i am here. i think i want to help people despite not being perfect at it, and i am here. all things for granted or not, i am here. i will continue to get cold under one monument and never deny the temptation to touch another passing by, because i know those are things i like to think. i hope you know you can talk to me always.

[catsnuggler]

What didn't help my whole subconsciously-missionary-minded, silent-echoes-of-Mormonism socialism illusion, which made me think it would be selfish and wrong to demand my own liberation, was the misapplication of standpoint epistemology - put simply, when "identity politics" goes bad.

Putting the rest under a cut, because this is a long post.

While it's crude and ultimately incorrect to only say, for example, "Listen to Black voices", without emphasizing the critical thinking skills and empathy necessary to listen to Cornel West, and dismiss Candace Owens for the right-wing corporate hack that she is, what is for certain is that someone like me, a 100% white American settler of Mormon pioneer stock (on one side of my family, anyway), and with no formal education on the subject matter, doesn't have authority to speak on the experience of Black people in America. I have no argument against that, because it's true.

Continuing further, just because, in spite of the fact neither racism nor colonialism oppresses me, capitalism still does, this doesn't mean I have as much authority to speak on it as a Black member of the working class does, as anti-Black racism and capitalism compound on and depend on each other, making the lives of Black working class people more difficult than the lives of white working class people. Doesn't mean I can't speak on capitalism, just means I'm not the leading voice.

That being said - I'm going to talk as if I'm still a believing Mormon, let alone Christian, in this and the next paragraph, to better explain the subconscious workings of my mind, due to their brainwashing - the difference in our positions can be wrongly perceived, especially by someone raised in the illusory colonial missionary mindset, similar to the position of those with "the gospel" and those "of the world", where those with "the truth" have more, but are, like all, oppressed by "sin", yet at least believe themselves to have the knowledge and wherewithal to resist, while those "worldly" people aren't blessed with the wealth of God's Word, nor the solidarity of the church, and are thus further deprived of the perfection God desires for his children than those of His Flock already are, and must be ministered to, brought into the Fold, and Saved from On High.

Yet there must ever be a humility to such actions, there must ever be self-denial, for all are imperfect, even those in the church, as, just as Christ shed His blood, and allowed His flesh to be pierced, even to His death, in limitless sacrifice for the sins of all of the Children of Men, that they may be redeemed, so have countless socialist, communist, and anarchist revolutionaries died for the cause, and yet all who live, who do not seclude themselves from the world and its markets, facilitate the continued exploitation and robbery of each other by the capitalist class. All are imperfect, and all would deserve bondage and bloodshed, were it not for the bleeding hearts of the martyrs.

So, you see, even someone who consciously attempts to reject Christianity can still fall victim to its logic, even after abandoning the official doctrine of it, if proper safeguards against the general thought processes of it are not taken. Returning to the original point I've tried to raise, I've fallen for a long time to a Christian-esque stance of personal martyrdom for the sake of "saving others" to the point I believed pursuing my own liberation would be selfish.

I'm mentally ill and neurodivergent to the point that getting myself to even get into the habit of seeking jobs is difficult, much more so landing myself an interview; and getting an offer of employment? Only happened once, at the end of my first interview. As you predicted, the job sucked, they were desperate to hire me because it sucks, and it wasn't 3 months before I quit. I quit in late September of 2018. It's been almost 3 years of me not having a job.

I got my driver's license in mid 2019, but got into a minor parking accident that only broke a headlight on the car I drove, and didn't damage the other car, in September of that year. It was over a year before I drove again, because of the depth of my depression and anxiety over one accident, which cost about $150. Since January of this year, I've driven somewhat regularly, and have some measure of confidence, but am still anxious every time I'm behind the wheel. I could drive to and from a job, if needed, but it would be a while before that would be comfortable.

I still live with my dad, at the age of 23, and barely have any friends where I live anymore; those local friends I still have, I haven't seen face-to-face for a long time. My dad... my dad could die any day, and I would be royally fucked. Something happened earlier this month, and he wasn't healthy before, but this was really serious. He amazingly got away with few symptoms, and can make a full recovery with the right effort, except... it could still happen again, it would just be less likely. If it does, he could die. Again, I would be royally fucked. I don't know how much his treatment cost, but I know it must be a pretty penny. There's only so long I can continue like this.

Due to my dependence and general impotent state, I can't do a goddamn thing for what I believe in right now. I have to fight self-hatred with the argument that if I die, I'll have died useless and unhelpful, when I could potentially have kept living til I got my act together and finally done something helpful before passing.

I have a college degree. Not a "real" degree, in the sense of it mattering, but I have an Associate degree, DTA. No major; I never could figure out what I wanted to do. It would have been a close call between anything in political science, which would have led toward a government job, which would be unacceptable as an anarchist, or perhaps a professorial job, teaching would-be politicians and bureaucrats, hardly educating anyone of revolutionary intent; or something in chemistry, perhaps biochemistry, leading to some kind of colonial agrichem shit, or making expensive medicines nobody would be able to afford for private entities' profits, possibly having research appropriated by Uncle Sam for weapons purposes - I don't know, but none of that was appealing. I graduated community college with Honors, as a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. I could have had promise as some or other kind of technocrat or bureaucrat - but I wouldn't be able to live with myself. It seems the less one is exploited, the more they exploit others. I don't know what job I can take that would exploit me enough that I wouldn't hurt others so much, while leaving me alone enough that I wouldn't kill myself, which... which has been a temptation, at times. Not too strong, but it is fucking there. I have promise; at short-term memorization and obedience, at least, like a mongrel dog who can read; but no conviction, no confidence, and a surplus of fear.

There are more woes I can recollect, I can continue this pity party in a book, but enough of that. Suffice it to say, all this time, I should have wanted my own liberation. Colonized people (in an American context, Turtle Island Indigenous and Black) have it worse, LGBT* people have it worse, women have it worse, physically disabled people have it worse, people with greater mental disabilities than my own have it worse, and I can't lead any of their struggles. But I do have the right to demand my own liberation, and I shouldn't convince myself otherwise.

*I don't oppose the use of the other word, except people of my demographic have abused that word so goddamn much, I don't want to type it, myself, let alone say it. It's always tainted when it comes from those who aren't of that community. Please don't think I'm either a radfem or a libfem just because I didn't use that word. I support people identifying with that label in using it.

This post became increasingly personal toward the end. However, I hope my flawed perspective, perhaps unique (read: unrelatable) in some aspects, perhaps explaining, at least in part, some of the fucked-up mental hurdles of white socialist "allies" that we need to get our asses over yesterday, might help - whatever I might have illuminated, and whatever I surely missed. I can understand why someone might want to share and add, share and criticize, or leave this alone with a like, nothing at all, or an unfollow.

Not that I can prevent this from being shared in any way, except by not posting in the first place, but I'm okay with it being shared by other socialists, for whatever it's worth... although I understand the more traction it gets, the more likely I'll get anon hate about being full of myself (deserved, to an extent at least), for being some dumb socialist cuck (not exactly wrong, but rude, and likely from a Nazi, so fuck you), or perhaps from non-Mormon Christians accusing me, someone they'd call a Mormon (which is arguably almost a new ethnicity (not race though) as much as it is a religion) of daring to throw the Christian god and Christianity, in general, under the bus, accusing me of being in league with the devil. So be it.

If you're not a reactionary, nor a liberal, nor somewhere in-between, and you want to share this for some reason or another, you may do so.

[jbuffyangel]

Mid Life Crisis: Arrow 6x20 Review (Shifting Allegiances)

“Shifting Allegiances” is a step up from “The Dragon.” A small step, but a step none the less. I’m coping with back to back bad episodes by viewing them as the filler stepping stones to 6x21-6x23 that they are. Who’s with me?

We’ll make this short & hopefully painless. Let’s dig in…

Diggle and The Noobs

I will stop calling the Noobs the Noobs when they stop acting link dinkleheads. This is not that episode.  

Rene is back and it makes me sad because I did not miss him at all. Curtis and Dinah can say what they want, but it’s not a “hero’s welcome” when the hero tried to kill another hero with an axe.  

Annnd… then a bunch of stuff happens. Listen, I tried to pay attention. Really I did. I just couldn’t because I was so bored. 

The Noobs go up against The Quadrant, but all that matters is a Quadrant flunkie has a rocket launcher and it’s nifty. I have all the Buffy feels.

Rene has some form of PTSD and is now afraid to go into the field because he might die. I guess? Is this PTSD from Oliver kicking him in the chest? Listen up Hoss, you went all Jack Torrance on Oliver. 

Actually, I think Jack may have been more reasonable. There’s a very linear cause and effect line to draw. So, here’s some tips:

1.    Don’t swing an axe at Oliver.

2.    Then Oliver won’t kick you in the chest.

3.    Thus avoiding accidental near death experiences.

 Follow this simple three step process and you’ll be fine Rene. 

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to Rene before this that he could die in the field, but I can assure him it won’t be at Oliver’s hand – as long as Rene PUTS DOWN THE FUCKING AXE. I am a little bitter. I doubt that will be fading.

Diggle spends the majority of the episode saving the Noobs’ ass, so really nothing has changed by switching from Team Arrow to A.R.G.U.S. Can we please talk about that uniform? I’ve seen flight attendants with better uniforms than that. How is this “suit” any better than SPARTAN? For god sake Diggle, you switched from Kevlar leather to polyester. The fashion alone points to what a colossal error this is.

Diggle also apologizes to the Noobs. Just insert all my screaming about Felicity apologizing to Curtis in my 6x19 review here. 

Of course, the Noobs say absolutely NOTHING in return because they are the most petulant toddlers to ever exist. Where is Super Nanny when you need her?!!!

I don’t mind that Diggle and Felicity apologize. They are the bigger people. They always have been. This is not a shock or out of character. They were the bigger and better people weeks ago when they apologized with Oliver and tried to squash this beef.  OTA has always been on the high road.

However, I do mind that the Noobs haven’t apologized in return yet.  No one apologizes to John for messing with his chip and putting his life in danger. So, the Noobs can suck it. SO. MUCH. SUCK. IT.

There’s a significantly pregnant pause from Rene after John’s apology. It’s the perfect time to apologize and he just… doesn’t. Yet, this pause highlights how necessary it is for Rene to apologize even more and how awful it is he hasn’t. It feels intentional because the same thing happened with Curtis when Felicity apologized.

So, my only conclusion is the Noobs haven’t apologized yet because their spiral into toddlerdom is a 23-episode arc and they will remove head from ass by the finale. Or at least that’s my hope. 

The other possibility is the Arrow writers have forgotten how apologies work and someone will need to reintroduce them to the rules we all learned in kindergarten. The massive pregnant pause does offer a glimmer this is not the case though.

Diggle decides he’s going to trust the Noobs (the same people who messed with his chip and put his life in danger) more than Oliver Queen, his best friend and brother of six years. 

You know what? Imma gonna cut Diggle some slack because Diggle is not Diggle right now. This version of John Diggle is having a midlife crisis. 

His boy is all done and grow’d up.  This has sent John into a tailspin. He is asking the questions we all ask when we inevitably hit the midpoint of life. What is the meaning of all of this? What is my purpose? WHO AM I?

Has Oliver gone to Diggle for advice this season? I honestly can’t think of one time. In fact, Oliver has been giving Diggle advice. We’ve all had the major case of the wiggins from Oliver’s whole and healed routine. We’re more annoyed with John than Oliver right now. This season is just really unnerving.

Sure, Oliver finally married Felicity – something Diggle told him to do three years ago. So, John can chalk that up to Oliver finally doing what he’s told. But I bet John was banking on some colossal fuck ups parenting William, but Oliver went to FELICITY for that.

Diggle, as first wife, graciously steps aside for the second wife. Then, Oliver gives him the Green Arrow mantle and suddenly John has a new lease on life. The nagging question of “How am I needed?” is answered with a new purpose. Rather than raising the Green Arrow, Diggle will be the Green Arrow. But then Oliver asks for the hood back and Diggle is back to square one. Those questions come rushing back.

So I’m equating this break up with Team Arrow and his alliance with the Noobs to Diggle buying a sports car. At least he didn’t lose his mind completely and cheat on Lyla. Although, technically speaking Oliver is his second wife (Lyla is one and three), so we could make the argument that’s exactly what Diggle did in “Shifting Allegiances.”

Never mind Diggle still has a son to raise. Never mind he’s a crucial and integral member of Team Arrow as Spartan. Never mind Oliver Queen will always need John (even if he needs him in a different way now.) These are all details Diggle can’t see right now because he’s taking a big swig from the Crazy Jar. It happens to the best of us. My dad bought a really big boat. My mother bought a new house. I’m almost 37.  When I round 40 I’ll probably buy some obscenely expensive jewelry because sparkly things make me happy. We all cope with our inevitable and looming demise, and the meaning of life questions that come with it, differently. For Diggle, it’s breaking up with his bromance partner and wearing really bad polyester.

Oliver Queen

Oliver is still on his “I work alone” mantra. He tries to get Anatoly’s position back in the Bratva… I think? I am mostly annoyed Oliver went to Russia without Felicity and we were cheated yet again from a Russian rendezvous love scene.

Anatoly doesn’t want the Bratva anymore, which then begs the question then why is he still mad at Oliver? Nobody is really here for logic though right? Right.

When Anatoly asks about Oliver’s friends he responds

Source: @olivergifs​

See, this is what I love about Oliver Queen. John Diggle dumps him and life ceases to have meaning – friendship wise. What about Felicity or Lance? Hell, I’ll even toss in William! Nope. Oliver has no friends. Not without John.

Anatoly kidnaps Oliver and brings him to Diaz, except Oliver wants to get kidnapped so it’s not really kidnapping. Dragon agrees to leave Star City if Oliver can kick his ass. I am happy to report Arrow has not completely lost their damn mind. Oliver promptly kicks Dragon’s ass. However, Oliver is still a bowl full of rainbows and gives Ricardo the chance to yield before snapping his neck. Season 1 Oliver did have his good points.  Ricardo pulls a knife out and stabs Oliver. 

I can accept the only way Ricardo Diaz can win a fight with Oliver Queen is by cheating. What I cannot accept is Oliver “I was trained by Slade, Shado, Maseo, The Bratva and Ra's Al Ghul" Queen didn't see it coming.

Source: @olivergifs​

He did THANK GOD. The point was to show Anatoly which man has honor.  It’s Oliver.

Whatever. Oliver could prove the same point by drinking Diaz under the table with Russian vodka. It’d be a whole lot more fun and less messy. Well… more fun at least.

Source: @olivergifs​

Anyways, enough of the filler. Diaz decides to speed up Oliver’s court date and we’re off to the races. Literally, the only thing keeping me holding on during this episode is we will see THIS FACE next week.

Source:  the-scarlet-archer

Bl*ck S*ren

Arrow continually telling me Diaz is the biggest bad we've ever faced and is all the evil that evil can be every five minutes doesn't equate to the character actually BEING those things.

Bl*ck S*ren’s behavior towards Diaz shines a glaring light on this issue. BS is a meta human. She can scream until a person’s blood vessels pop. We’ve seen her do it several times. So all of this “Diaz is so cruel. He burned a man,” is a bunch of bullshit and really insulting to Bl*ck S*ren.

LL fans were ready to tear the writers apart when Felicity knocked BS on her ass with one punch. *excuse to use this gif again*

But DIAZ they are okay with? I have yet to see Diaz do anything that would put him in the same league as Merlyn, Slade, Ra’s Al Ghul, Damien Darhk and Prometheus. Honestly, what does it say about BS that she’s afraid of him? Nothing good my friends! If Diaz is Arrow’s lamest Big Bad then this fear shtick automatically makes BS even lamer than Diaz. That’s just maths.

Sadly, BS is the ball in the ping pong game between Diaz and Lance. Either Diaz is teaching her how to villain or Lance is teaching BS how to be low level human.  She can pretend she’s the toughest baddie in town, but BS basically sits around waiting for a man to tell her what to do. No thanks. I’d like to order a strong female character with a side of agency, please.

This is also the reason why her “redemption” is feeling unearned. BS flip flops back and forth so many times it’s hard to believe she’s truly invested in good or evil.  She’s just hitching her ride to the man who fits her mood.

I’ve probably said this before, but I would have preferred that the writers go balls to the wall with BS and make her the season’s Big Bad versus the season’s Big Bad’s girlfriend. It just feels like a lot of untapped potential. It’d be a hell of a lot more interesting for Team Arrow to fight with the woman wearing their friend’s face, but is intent on destroying the city. Rather than watch this substandard goon clunking around and BS kowtowing to him. THY NAME IS AGENCY.

At least Lance grew a pair for half a second this episode. More evidence he’s going to die. I guess we’re supposed to infer Bl*ck S*ren’s fear while Diaz pawed her like a kitty in front of Lance, but the whole scene is just off putting. The idea of these two people snogging gives me no joy, but I was never under the impression BS was banging this bag of dicks because she was scared of him. When did we get to sex under duress? I feel like we missed a step. Ugh. I’m trying to logic my way through this and there’s just no point. 

The one thing I can always count on in any version of L*urel L*nce’s character are the inconsistencies. I wear them like a warm blanket.

Stray Thoughts

Amell was really wearing that black coat.

The blood really brings out his eyes. Pretty. Source: @olivergifs

“Where in the ever loving fuck is Felicity?” – Me 15 minutes into the episode.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 6x20 gifs credited.

[davidjjohnston3]

Facebook Insomnia 7.25.2021 1. I am still sad to conceptualize life in terms of fiction and the condition of fiction rather than Christianity undivided.   Today I had a lot of images of Japan in my mind.  I heard the phrase 'Japanese Breakfast' which is the rock-star name of the author of 'Crying at H-Mart' a famous book. I remembered someone who once dated someone who became my enemy. This person I respected I now realize and I am happy that I didn't say anything excessively stupid that would have implied I look down on her, saw her as easy, saw her as 'material to work on,' someone to have a plan for etc.   I asked her once for help getting someone to interview at Deloitte for consulting only this person was in Accounting. I never really saw this person as in my league or anything to me except as a 'Curriculum Developer' I guess I outranked her and so wasn't shy of talking to / with her in official functions.   Later we drank together and I said a few random things like that I stress- / binge-eat apples, like 5 apples a night. My friend once did a funny imitation of her that in retrospect sounded a little like my Taiwanese ex-girlfriend's imitation of Kaori Mochida from Every Little Thing; the funny thing I now realize is that he too had lingering affection for her despite everything.  I feel he became anti-Korean racist and I don't know where he is now but in retrospect he definitely never crossed a line with her that I know of except for asking questions I would never ask.  He called her by her Asian name which was something I never did in those days feeling it pretentious.   'The mysterious maiden of the Moon...' - It's a line from Yi Kwangsu's 'The Soil' in which a married man is comparing his wife with someone else like his former student.  In good Korean custom since his former student once had a puppy-crush on him and gave him some corn, when her husband finds out, he kicks her to death in her pregnant stomach and this is why I oppose many things in principle such as tribalism, marriage, and for all intent and purposes the nuclear family. Yi Kwangsu is a problematic figure and as a Christian or aspiring Christian / 'Christianist' I don't recommend it.  It has incredibly exquisite descriptions of women that could make you brain-dead.  Yi Kwangsu also supposed Japan's occupation of Korea so that to this day talking about Yi Kwangsu can get you crucified.   I also seem to recall something like '_ _-ya, you got run over by a train you one-legged prostitute; now you have to love your husband even more.'  But I don't remember the context. Ironically or not 'The Soil' is the title of a Knut Hamsun novel the author of which supported Hitler; I do not.   I wonder where she is now. This person got shot at a lot and I regret adding to her burdens with my sin-eater-type confessions or just shooting my mouth off when stuff happened.  I had a crush on someone else and started saying I was sad I lost my virginity in college; IDK why I said anything. This person also had high alcohol-tolerance - extremely high for a female Asian - and although I could also drink a lot I always did bad self-destructive things. In the Middle Ages one form of 'trial by ordeal' was to reach your hand in to boiling water to pull out a pearl and if the boiled skin healed well you were exonerated or sth.   She must be 'somebody's everything; my impossible girl.'  IDK why she talked to me and I made fun of her and all my fictionalized versions of her and theories of her were derogations.   Like me she played the piano. She once said '_ _ is popular' which was a burn I appreciate since I'm anti-popularity and anti-personality-cults. She went to a school part of which is Victoria College where a literary critic I admire(d) taught for many years. I am stuck in America, hounded by Satan through the personages of my Maoist biological family and 'family tree' of America torn between past and future, un-death and life; due in large part to my excessive tendency to defend myself, to lash out, to wash my hands on the outside without cleaning my 'interior mentality' to paraphrase the 'Da Xue,' or to blaspheme the Spirit in some respects, I feel. I regret talking about her and at the same time why would I talk about lesser maidens? IDK what her favorite piano-piece was as I never endeavored to enage her in discourse about art or aesthetics given she is not a 'kisaeng' or 'geisha' and I am not a museum-curator or whatever.  Other people would be like 'Oh!  You lke the Grande Valse Brilliante; I know you spent the summer of 2003 teaching yourself repeat-notes.'   Everyone wants to drag everyone in to their mud or graves these days.  Am reminded of Endo Shusaku's 'Silence' about why Jesuits would apostasize in medieval Japan.  His conclusion was that the 'swamp of Japan' was too full of sensualism, the Portuguese Jesuit wanted a Japanese mistress or wife.  I once yelled 'swamp f-ggot' at someone due to their tendency to emotionalize and 'contextualize' everything which was an underhanded way of trying to make me change my sex as well.  In an effort to mitigate some of the tempting evil pornographic things I said about KR over the years I said a few more but this is a person, whose name means 'Pearl' as in 'the pearl of great price for which oe sold everything else.'  It is said that AAPI Twitter, America, house-slave Am-Kor own-goal Korean self-exploitation honor-killing squadsters, etc. want to these people in the trash. I found my Gideon Kor-Eng NT Psalms with the 'victory song' that sounds like Mandarin in its Revelation, that I had worried I'd lost.  That might be the 'most grateful' thing that 'happened.' I also remembered what my Mandarin name used to be though I had many in different classes I took. I was going to say many things, but in the end: the mystery of Charity.

*

I never considered the full implications of socialism or mental socialism till today.  I assumed that it was valid mitigation.  Some are born rich, some are born poor, it's wrong to let the latter starve on principle alone.   I don't even know how to say this.  I remember during the Iraq War being struck by how much the government - like my mom - was asking outsiders for advice about how to fight.  Dick Cheney got in trouble.  Years later I was skeptical of the F-35 because a lot of idiots with no skin in the game wanted to build it here or there. Wisconsin wanted to build the 'Littoral Combat Ship' which who cares. It made people worse and worse. The only thing is, the CCP - who ultimately serve I dare not even say whom, but clearly not the ghosts of Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin or perhaps even Mao Zedong - figured out awesome killer ways to troll Republicans like Scott Walker w/ their 'FoxConn Fallujah hokey-pokey' whereby they got an avowed capitalist to promise socialists something that actually came from-post-hyper-anti-socialist hyper-capitalists with a plan to kill all white people or something. My father used to talk about the University of Chicago School of Economics all the time and it made me sulkily ask myself why 'Poor Dad' is talking so much about stuff that supposedly makes people billionaires while Jacob's English major dad is Bloomberg's 'chief of staff.'   I say again it's just like Biden saying all the right stuff, 'knee on the neck of the American soul, bone of our bone, winter of peril, hey dumbfuck, articulate, they're killing people.' Writing grant-proposals to the government to fund private research in to brain-injury that is itself applied by the government to veterans sent to get brain-damaged by a government that said good things and did retarded things based on their readings of the good things they said a bit like Karenin in 'Anna Karenina.'   I remember when George W. Bush said 'I'm the decider.'  I once told my dad to get out of my face so he got really sloshed up and vapored, 'I'm in your face!'  I'm not even saying that to defame someone but welcome to reality. Every so often every male seems to try to man up then they defend themselves like, 'No that is not the way in which I meant that I was manning up.'  You could call this 'self-draft-dodging.' It's ancient history but if I had been wiser I would have tried to predict the future for myself rather than visualize it as an abstract spectatorial notion.  At day's end mental socialists can literally not understand why it is wrong to steal.  Stealing is compulsory under socialism - I again come back to 'Pearl' since her ex-suitor and I used to reflect on how Korean collectivism drove people into themselves.  Similarly mental socialists cannot but hoard 'capabilities' so that in the end they'll falsify anything, steal anything; the only limit I guess is living with themselves.

I keep giving myself to fantasy and coping of all kinds like a 'mental Changrae Lee novel, mental David Guterson novel,' or ultimately Vergil (Virgil).  There has to be a new music, a new dream, something, a new city, though it is odd to think about pre-Christian times and a legend of what came before Rome in a Christian moment amid realignment in 'late Roman history.' My favorite YAL book still perhaps is 'The Giver' since it deals with the uses of history, with abortion, and with escape or exile.   I was going to say a while back something about 'Light in August' which relates to escape - as well to complacence - and to interracial relationships, pregnancy, the right to live.  I was in Minneapolis but mind was on Japan, on all these swords, not the Olympics but histories of swords and strange armor, halberds.  There was a huge sword called a 'field sword' in translation. I don't even want to see these people again; I sincerely pray the Japanese Prime Minister, the men and women of their armed forces, Tokyo's apparently amazing counter-terrorism and response capabilities for NBC / WMD / etc. attacks since the Aum Shinrikyo Sarin subway attacks and maybe their counter-nuclear or ability to respond after a nuclear blast will be enough.  People in America are trying to live by a little of the old, a little of the new, but it seems utterly impossible. When people abuse me I get really dreamy.  I read Virgil in high school; I was thinking of 'post-Covid YAL' or so in which people are just on the run, harrowing themselves, not even nostalgic for Babylon or anything in it.  It is almost like 'the meaning of the soul.'  I realized that in addition to new churches and new government laws Covid will engender new birth-defects and there will have to be new medicine.  Japan is a country that I said bad things about especially when in Korea but she never did anything bad to me - I remember playing 'Final Fantasy' and thinking someone out there loves me; they made an investment in children worldwide.  The only thing is I'm too old for such adventures and I fall apart quickly. All these birds in Japan, colors of red - people get obsessed with the Otherness of Japan and want to abnegate Belial-like (a demon or fallen angel of sensualism, to my understanding).  

I took so many notes and voice-notes yesterday that I devoutly hope my visions will pass to someone.  The future is going to be so beautiful for somebody but I have lost so much faith in my ability to mitigate or restrain evil.  Those who I had thought were simply stupid but were diabolically opposed to my existence - whom I did not wish to understand and whom I had 'fancied' I could placate or appease through offerings - turned out to be radically evil, unconditionally evil.  I feel that my father (biological) would steal my soul if he could; would eat it in a way.  My mom is always sitting on the porch and gives a look of hope like I could change her mind but it'll never happen.  I want to kill myself; I think things worldwide will get worse before they get better; I don't trust Biden or anyone who says the right things without showing exactly what they are doing.  Christians seem so petty sometimes like melanin, hairy legs, in Japan this therefore that, Native American Indian manhood rituals.   I just want to know which pastor has the 'batting average' I can believe in but it has to be John MacArthur doesn't it?  

[antemortem-rp-blog]

WELCOME, Lynn !! You’ve been accepted for the role of Caroline Forbes. We’re so excited to have you join the ante mortem family. Please look over the checklist and make sure to send in your account within 48 hours. We look forward to seeing you on our dash.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name / Alias: Lynn

Age: 23

Pronouns: she/her

Timezone: est

Anything Else?: I just graduated university and moved back to America? I suppose as a fun fact if that’s what you’re looking for, oh and I love to bake pies.

IN CHARACTER

Desired Character: Caroline Forbes

Why?: It’s probably redundant to say that I love Caroline, most likely even more so to say that it has to do with the fact that she has some of the best character growth that I’ve ever seen in a tv show. Followed unfortunately by a pretty strong regression, but she still has remained my favourite character that always seems to rear her head again once I think I’ve forgotten about her, which is a stubborn hearted persistence which honestly is pure Caroline. I think my favourite thing about Caroline isn’t the label that she’s good because there’s a lot of times where Caroline isn’t a good person or falters as a good vampire, what she is however and what is probably leagues more important is kind. Caroline grows to be exceptionally kind and perceptive and I think it’s amazing. I could go on more but then my application would be a 30 page rant about why Caroline Forbes is amazing and honestly if you accept me you’ll get it in small snippets at a time. Why I want to write her in this rp specifically however is that Caroline is by far the best at being a Vampire, it’s her at her best self and in a lot of ways I think it’s her final destiny. But here she’s a human instead and that is fascinating to me, it’s refreshing from always tackling her from one end of her story. I like the fact that she was able to grow into herself a bit by going into college, but there’s still those human insecurities woven into her at the same time that I get to play with. I think this is a once in a life time writing wise chance to explore this, as it doesn’t appear to be a very common theme. I also like that she has family, family relationships is one of my favourite things to write next to friendships. They really define a person and I think Caroline benefits from having family around her and her cousin just seems like a fun interaction to me. She’s an excessively loyal person after all and with how heavily she lays that loyalty upon her friends imagine the sort of things she’d be willing to go through for blood.

Character Pronouns: she/her

Sexuality & Ships: I personally see Caroline as Pansexual, I think she doesn’t really care much for gender so much as the person and just what about them attracts her. Caroline just wants someone who will love and listen to her, just someone who will care half as much as she does. Not even considering what she’s always settling for unfortunately. I also like to think of it as a bonding point for her and her Dad, just a sweet little hc of mine. I’m fairly open with shipping for Caroline I like her with people who respect her so that’s a very low statistic in her actual dating life, I liked her and Matt not as a forever situation but they were good at the time, I like Klaroline he had a lot of respect for her agency and wanted more for her which was lovely. I don’t ship Steroline I think being with Stefan really regressed a lot of Care’s progression which was frustrating and I’m also not a huge fan of Forwood I liked them for a short while but their relationship in the end just ended up being bad for the both of them. Outside of that I’m pretty open with her as a person and who she dates it really just comes down to chemistry. I love her having an ex though in Jake and I really love that at the end of their relationship even if she got him to start opening up in the end it was someone else who made the true positive change in him. It really falls into the inferiority complex she grew up with and I think would be an even bigger slap in the face than him dumping her in the first place. At the time, she would definitely still be petty enough to be angry that he found that happiness somewhere else rather than with her. Now however that’s definitely has changed although she’s not too thrilled about seeing him again considering how shitty of a boyfriend he was.

Occupation: In Legacies Caroline is a headmistress and I understand it she has a fantastic skill of purely just being an excellent Vampire and helping others master the art too, it makes sense. Their choice of putting her in broadcast journalism felt a little out of left field, I suppose it plays into her inquisitive nature Care does have a habit of wheedling information out of people but for who she was then it didn’t make all too much sense. I’d like to believe Caroline did start out as a drama major in school but soon transferred over to business when she found her passionate singing voice wasn’t getting her where she wanted to be. She swapped over to a basic business major graduating top of her class as is only the Forbes way. At the end however she was felt with an empty feeling of having no real set plan for what she wanted to do with her business degree so she took the only reasonable follow up. Getting a Master’s degree, it felt like the easiest answer to avoid making a choice while also continuing forward with an upward momentum while she went about figuring it out. Caroline Forbes did not fumble anything in life and she wasn’t about to let anyone catch her at odds end especially with the strain in all of her relationships recently. Currently her degree is in business administration as she feels a tentative pull towards making a career out of event planning. I’d like to see in the future her straying away and possibly changing her major to something in paper journalism following her trying to figure out what the hell it is everyone is so intent on keeping hidden from her. But her final destination with her degree and job will come out when she discovers her purpose. I like the idea of someone as pointed and goal oriented as Caroline floundering slightly in settling down her future for now she tells people she has event planning in her future with all the confidence an actual sure Caroline Forbes would use. I have no idea how much sense this makes.

Headcanons:

·       Caroline knows how to shoot a gun and is licenced, but not just that she’s good at it too. It’s not a skill many would expect of her but her Mother is one of the sheriffs of the town and even in a place as safe as she’s been told as Chance Falls it’s still been taught to her as a necessary skill. There’s a shotgun in the house and she’s been taught where it is and the combo for the safe to get to it. What Caroline isn’t aware of however is that the shot gun has been loaded with wooden bullets for many years now. She’s been taught to never welcome anyone into their home without her Mom’s express permission, and when she was a teenager the habit stuck around for a while, at times due to her cousin’s pointed reminders. Since going away to college however the habit has waned to the point of her welcoming and natural hostess nature often leading her now to welcome those she doesn’t know quite so well into her home. While it hasn’t led to anything bad yet only time can tell if this habit will come back to bite her. Tristan’s slow return to her life, as Caroline can hold a rather icy grudge will be good for this, help him have a nice starting base to work from.

·       As a teenager Caroline existed as the defining factor of what was cool, effortless party planning, dating bad boys, always having perfectly curled hair and being at the top academically and a leader? Easy. What wasn’t easy in her endless quest to be seen at the pinnacle of her school’s social scene was getting a tattoo. Especially when your Mother was one of the sheriffs, however that very title also meant that little attention was paid to Caroline on the regular that she was able to do this grand feat. She started simple, a small star on her foot done at a seedy parlour willing to overlook a poorly done fake ID. Naturally enough she brought along Bonnie and Elena, as her best friends and no matter the pleading and pulling after one shot of tequila a 14 year old Caroline Forbes left officially tattooed.

·       The second tattoo came when she was 17 following a string of heart break. This time Caroline went to the tattoo parlour alone with an immensely better fake ID in hand and no friends trailing behind her begging her to reconsider. Unlike the spontaneous choice of her star the blonde lingered for a bit taking into consideration her different options before deciding on a small swallow taking flight on her wrist. It drew her in and as the plastic was wrapped around the freshly done ink set for her to leave Care couldn’t help but feel like that blank space of skin on her had been sitting there waiting for the bird to settle down. It belonged on her. Her Mother did in fact figure out her tattoos and it led to yet another horrible fight.

·       Caroline has several nervous ticks, she tends to bite her lip, she glowers, brushes a thumb gently over her swallow tattoo or, most infamously she cleaned everything around her to an inch of its life.

·       Caroline is one of those people who carries her purse strap on her inner arm. This has a lot to do with southern societal living and creating a more glamorous effect around herself. Purses are also one of the things she’ll splurge on. Specifically purses, moisturizer, perfumes and shoes. She also believes it’s important to own at least a few tubes of high quality lipstick, one for each colour pallet.

·      Marilyn Monroe’s favourite lipstick was Guerlain’s ‘Diabolique’ the colour is now discontinued but they then released ‘Red Insolence’ a near identical shade which Caroline of course owns. It smells like vanilla and berries and while she may model her life after Scarlett O’Hara there will always be a bit of Marilyn in her. Besides, everyone needs to own a timeless red.

·       Caroline is well aware that she was a shallow bitch in high school, she’d had a whole break down about it once to prove it and at times she still felt that lingering push in her gut that she was just as shallow as before but that wasn’t the point. She’d been a supremely shitty teenager even going so far as to on occasion snub one of her closest friends Stiles, all because he wasn’t what anyone would really be calling cool back then. His social status did eventually change and Care is ashamed to admit now that she’d started being seen more in public with him around that time. There were times even when she was publically ignoring him that she would step in if someone appeared to be being too mean to him. The fact that he seems to be pulling away from her now feels like karma. If she’d always been the sort of friend he deserved every time maybe he wouldn’t be ignoring her now.

·       Less serious one but listen Caroline was 100% pissed to find out everything horrible that goes bump in the night is real but unicorns aren’t. It’s something she will be bringing up at some point.

·       Caroline doesn’t just love bubble gum pop music, she loves classic rock anthems. I’m taking this headcanon based off of her karaoke preferences. Her reasoning is that classic rock ballads from the 80s are some of the most powerful and romantic things you can find. It’s not something she advertises and you might not notice it unless you’ve heard her do karaoke or watch her get ready in the morning.

·       Caroline as student body president, valedictorian and head of too many committees to name applied to a vast variety of colleges and was accepted to many including Ivy’s. However, she wasn’t brave enough to leave, she didn’t believe in herself so she decided to play it safe and go to Constance with Elena instead. She doesn’t regret her decision even with the way her friend has been pulling away but a secret deep part of her does wish that she’d at least gone out the visit those colleges she got into. It’ll stick in her mind as a what if especially as she continues to be frustrated by the isolation and exclusion she’s going through.

·       Caroline’s underwear always matches, it’s just a little tic of hers and helps her feel more put together every morning. There’s nothing like concurring the world knowing you’re put together from literal top to bottom. She’ll shamelessly walk by having just purchased three new lingerie sets, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of after all, she has cute taste and if anything she’s setting an example of what everyone should be doing.

·       There is a handheld vacuum in her possession specifically for cleaning up post party confetti and glitter, because that’s the sort of thing that will never come out of a vacuum and she’s not about to infect her other. It’s clearly labeled so as to make sure no one mixes up, not that she’s about to let anyone clear for her.

Para Sample:

Sitting in front of her vanity Caroline gently ran her curling iron one last time through the heaviest lock she’d have on show. The face that stared back at her was perfect, brows arched correctly, lashes thick but not clumpy. Leaning forward, she ran a finger carefully around the corner of her lip gloss, making sure it remained within the lines. But it was only for show really, to draw the eyes of the other girls around her, because every piece of her look was utterly flawless. A green dress was hung up beside her vanity, perfectly ironed and steamed as she’d done so herself. Somewhere out there in town her Mom was doing police things, her cousin was god knows where not that she particularly cared. As a flash of pain snapped through her system the blonde firmly shoved it down once again reenforcing that she truly didn’t. Her Dad though, she’d half expected him to show up. After all he was always the one who supported her in these things. The one who took her shopping before every school year, who helped drill her for gymnastics, and then for cheer. The parent who paid her the most attention and made sure that she was able to get the vast amount of attention that she so required, picking up the slack for her Mother who’d become so sucked into her work.

At the sound of a laugh her eyes drifted away from her own reflection instead landing on the back of her best friend and her aunt. How was it that Elena had most of her family die and still managed to have someone with her for the pageant? She shouldn’t be the one alone. As soon as the vicious thought slipped through her head she felt horrible, but it was true. She had the perfect boyfriend downstairs waiting for her, while Caroline had to dance with some substitute. All because her boyfriend, who she was still half sure was still half in love with her friend, was working. Caroline had almost been pathetic enough to ask Jake to escort her but not only would it royally piss of Matt, but her ego couldn’t take that kind of hit especially since her ex had recently been galavanting around with Faye Chamberline of all people. Her eyes remained locked on the happy little mixed up family unit as they at the same time unfocused.

She could see it in her mind’s eye now, standing next to her, probably holding hands with a death grip waiting for the news. Because Elena was her best friend and of course she’d want to stand beside her, because she loved her and she couldn’t imagine anyone else there next to her. So she would be standing there holding onto her, hearing Elena win and pasting a smile onto her features. Elena would get to feel a bit closer to her Mom a previous Miss Chance Falls and Caroline would get to feel her heart throb in pain at the loss of something she wanted so badly, and also feel like a horrible friend for hating her just a bit in that moment.

A hand softly reached up to brush against the heart-shaped necklace Elena had given her, just because she cared. Because that was the kind of person Elena was and it was, of course, the perfect piece of jewellery. Caroline did everything right, volunteering for everything within her reach, writing a killer essay, keeping a perfect smile with perfect posture before the judges. Answering every question with grace during the closed interview, she’d even googled how the royal family sat so as to make sure she was just that little bit more than everyone else. More what she did not know, but just more.

Her eyes dropped from looking at the reflection of her friend down to the vanity table. Elena would get the pity vote, because not only was she effortlessly beautiful and kind she had the perfect tragedy, and with her Aunt watching happily, and her perfect boyfriend standing beside the stage the committee would announce her name. Caroline would hug her and then she’d change out of her dress and walk herself home, leave a message for Matt and complain about her escort who would likely forget one or two of the steps she’d ruthlessly drilled into him. Her Mom would come home and if she remembered to ask Caroline would tell her about the pageant as well, or bring it up in a petty moment of anger during their next fight if she didn’t. Later she’d send a text to Tristan or Stiles, and the former might at the very least read the message and the later might commiserate with her over it being bullshit because even if she was on occasion a terrible friend/sudo-sibling he always seemed to come through. Bonnie she’d leave alone to celebrate with Elena, because Elena deserved to have a best friend who was for real happy for her in those moments.

Steeling herself Caroline sat up a bit straighter inspecting herself from her best angle and even her less flattering one, only slightly less of course. She’d meant it when she’d talked to Bonnie, when she’d softly tried to gather up her hope and confidence for this thing that she wanted so badly. She deserved this, she’d worked and earned this. So no matter what happened like Scarlett O’Hara she would preserve. She’d be so stunning that the town would gossip for weeks about how cheated she was out of the crown. Taking a small breath in and then out she smiled at her reflecting plastering her papier-mâché confidence back on before standing up and grabbing her dress bag. Caroline Forbes had a pageant to dominate.

Anything Else?:  A future plot point for Caroline I’d really like to explore would be her becoming a Vampire as I think she’s meant to be. It’s not something I’m looking to rush however, I like drawing things out and reestablishing some relationships, just layering up a multitude of things so that when it happens the pile can topple over and we’re left with a lot of angst and conflicting emotions. I think it’d be especially interesting considering Tristan having killed the person he’s been intending to marry. So it’s really important to me to have a Tristan rper and their relationship rather strong before that happens.

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/goseabrook1/care/

Inspo Blog: https://luminescentgirl.tumblr.com/

[ellyzsx]

Story time

Suicidal thoughts run keen through my head. Driving through Krakow country side I saw a housing estate next to lovely tall trees - forest like - and thought what a lovely area to be able to play as children. Then I wondered which is the tallest tree could I hang myself from? No former context, no sadness, just my empty emotions triggering my brain to tell myself I should be dead. This is how my life is now.

I dream most days and nights of my life ending in disasters. Lachesism. I say I'm scared of when lorrys drive to close or fast past me. But I'm scared for the moments when they don't kill me. People point out that I drive recklessly because they are afraid of the end; I'm not afraid. Driving that way feels like freedom, my chance to escape, even with intent to cause self harm.

I don't want a grave stone, I don't want my ashes to be spread. I want my organs donated and the rest burnt. The ashes can be used in cooking because I am one spicy mother fucker! Joking!! Don't worry, I really just want them turned in to jewelry so I can still shine while I'm gone.

The ironic thing about my situation is that I want to die to end my suffocating thoughts but at the same time I still have little bits of me that knows some of my self worth. Contradictory as it may be, I probably laugh and smile everyday without a doubt but my thoughts of disaster never leave. I work and study hard but I'm still occasionally believe I am a failure in my mind; like I'm always worse than everyone in the room. I love people and helping out everyone, but I think everyone hates me and would be better off not having me around. It's complicated in my mind.

I feel on the road to recovery, I can admit that I'm not okay when I don't feel okay, I know the past history that has gotten me to how I am and I'm seeking help; 3rd increase dose of Anti-depressants, Cognative Behavioural Therapy and many other forms of help I can get. I have supportive friends and family, I'm very lucky that I have my dream career job and I get to go on amazing holidays like just travelling in Poland for the past weekend. I just don't know what it is that drives myself hatrid other than... well myself.

It's a viscious cycle that I can't get escape. I'm motivated and feeling fine one day, something goes wrong very easily that affects me for weeks and then I find a little bit of motivation to build myself back up and it happens again... and again... and again. I try and count my blessings but in order to do that I draw Venn diagrams to see the wrong, okay and right things in my life. It's an occasional thing and the amount of varience I get each time seems like a uncoordinating joke. But It gives me a sense of assurance when things are okay or right for a few weeks in a row.

I've been taught many coping mechanisms in my past 4 years of anxiety and depression. Even writing them down in this form feels weirdly like a strategy. I'm explaining my dark and ugly, following my long journey ahead, and explaining what works for me. Even if one person gains usefulness then this is all worth it.

As we are on the topic of helpfulness: I like being helpful - it gives me a purpose other than selfish motives. If I've been helpful to one person and not to the rest of the crowd I feel like a failure. I desire to be the famous hero who didn't do it for fame but for the sheer enjoyment of people liking them and for a purpose in other people's lives. So I try to help - I volunteer at my local explorer scout group, I help raise and organise charity events, I help and support friends and family. I even try to go the extra mile at work to raise awareness of women in engineering to help inspire and shape them little girls to be the change our industry needs. I also help educate teams on mental well-being and illnesses with in the work place to bring the awareness to here and now.

All positive were written there, but the underlying negative abuse I hurl at myself for everything I've not been enough help on or not doing at all hurts:

"I'm not helpful I'm just in the way, I'm pathetic, I'm a waste of space, they don't need me, they'd be better off without me, it's not working you're a failure, you are making it more worse, stop trying you aren't a good person for doing it."

Just as them thoughts constantly pass through my mind another extreme example from this evening I write on - I was on the train back from Birmingham walking through derby station, I had the thought that I could run away on any train go ahead and not look back and when I'm on the train I can take every single tablet I own and swallow it to die. Or i could come back another night with a home made bomb and make sure I'm in a carraige with no people in it. Why not die? Make it a dramatic escape. Even in the last few typed words I had the thought of jumping in front of a train which would take no effort and only affect 1 person's life than my own. Why do I have these thoughts? Am I a physco path planning my death at every opportunity?

Reading back the first few paragraphs I see how contradicting my thought patterns are. Living with Anxiety and Depression for me is being followed by a voice, it knowing all my insicurities and how to use them against me. It gets to a point where it's the loudest voice in a room, that I can't hear anything else. I don't remember a time when it wasn't like this, when the voices didn't make me feel empty and alone inside. What's even worse is a lot of the people I have opened my heart to have let me down, causing me to shut down further.

My past history is not brilliant, I never felt secure with my friends, I was harassed in college and I've always struggled to maintain my apperance. I've been through some tough break ups of friends and partners and my relationships with family has not always been stable. One thing I find hard is to love myself and know myself worth when the people around you don't like you and tell you that you aren't good enough. But through all this at the same time I've had some amazing times.

I do want to be happy. I just feel useless most days. I try not to complain but the grass isn't always greener and I feel in constant mud. It sounds pathetic but I feel like I'm in a rut. At the moment everything is fine with friends and work. It I don't feel important. I don't feel as if there is any worth to my day's. I get up, go to work, and then do nothing until I get home and sleep. I mean sure I go to netball, dance, yoga and I volunteer at a scout group but it doesn't feel like I'm doing any of it for myself and I'm slowly giving up on trying to please those around me.

But I guess I do it for the hope of my future, for the one, for the wedding, for the kids, for the house, for the lazy Sunday morning lie ins with the loved ones. It's all a fantasy.

Tonight at explorers we were doing first aid training and one scenario was that one of the boys had a cut on his wrist and he was bleeding out. Through those discussions I was thinking how I could slit my wrists and drown in the bath and no one would be able to put me in the recovery position. Another perfect idea but inconveniencing whomever finds me. It doesn't sicken me thinking of myself this way. Maybe it's how I'm meant to be.

My mum tells me I should think positive thoughts but it's like an urge to plan how I should die. Another disaster I saw was a crash this morning. I wish I was in the place of the other person.

Not paying attention to lectures is becoming a really bad habit. I still haven't started writing for my digital assignment which is due in 5 days! But I have decided I would like to end up working for the Naval group in Adelaide Australia! I finally have an aim!! It feels good and when I travel there next year I will get to see if it's what I desire!

Another person has just unfriended me on Snapchat? What the hell have I done wrong now? I'm getting sick of being made out to be the bad guy all of the time :/ And now Facebook!! All for shutting him down over complaining that people can't be themselves or get offended. I've had enough of this work force, it literally is a battle every week just to keep peace. I don't want to listen to your political opinion every 2 minutes I'm sorry but I'm here to work. The ignorance of some people.

Do you know what I'm going to work my arse off and start this assignment today and prepare the manufacturing question to prove to the haters that they only make me more powerful :) oh the contrast in these paragraphs is funny.

This afternoon I spoke to my mum on how all my emotional trauma started. She understands now and it feels like a relief to be honest. I've just been to netball and I feel like I've played really well!

I have decided on a main goal within my career! Naval group Adalaide Australia! (Not long term but a few years in Australia won't do me harm in my life time! Now I've explored the majority of Europe it's time to step in to the big leagues!) Naval group design submarines for the Australian Navy and with my career path I hope that I will have the opportunity to be able to try and apply for a job there some day in the next 15 years! Now I just need to maintain motivation.

What to do when motivation is running low in the future:

• Find the worth of what you are doing

• research and re-inspire!

• be powerful enough to overcome the ruts!

• believe in yourself - you are capable!

• remove any distractions

I just read a quote that said 'don't worry darling this is just a chapter, not your whole story' and I thought well it's a fucking long one! I'm sat drinking mocha staring outside of a uni window in a corridor I look so depressed it's funny! I just needed to get away from the noise and the stress. I only want to talk to one person but he doesn't know that and it's starting to stress me out but it's my own fault for falling for him when he told me not to. On the plus side I definitely want a nice view in my house when i move to Aussie! I mean looking outside to wet britain it's really nice but sunny aus will be tonnes better!

I'm stressed, my brain hurts and I'm tired. I really want this assignment gone. I'm physically in pain from yoga and I'm exhausted :( moan moan moan moan I'm even pissing myself off. I could do with a power nap or somewhere comfortable to sit. I also miss my earphones :(

Just met a lovely man and had a chinwag it was distracting but it's nice to get to know people without it being depressing all the time!

I was in a one night stand with a 28 year old in a 7 year relationship. Put myself on tinder.

I'm tired of people they never fail to disappoint me

Netball is good though! Proper enjoyed chatting with everyone! Good stress relief and even though I haven't done much it took my mind off the crap earlier.

It's been a while

It's working

I feel ok

I'm no longer a mess

I can stop these thoughts

I counter act them

Not everyone hates me

[davidfostercomedyblog]

The Time I Bombed Trying to Open for Peter Frampton

“What happens if nobody laughs?” people ask.

“Nothing,” I tell them. “Literally, nothing happens.” No one is laughing or doing much of anything. Maybe self-loathing personified decides to occasionally kick the weak when he’s down in the form of a heckle or boo, but other than that nothing happens.

Internally, everything is happening. Thoughts race, feelings emerge, issues of anger and/or insecurity come to the forefront or recede deeper into our subconscious, per our choice of response to each varying degree of disappointment. Our feelings likely run the same gamut as those of all human beings off stage in any realization of failure on display. It’s the worst.

Call it what you will: Sucking, tanking, going down in flames, it all means the same thing. Eating my dick, seems to be the latest contemporary slang for a failed set, which I can only speculate refers to its being an awfully pathetic act of self-abuse that each of us least wants to do. Most universally it is known as bombing, another etymology I can only speculate as suggestive of the unanimous death in the room resembling that of a small village after being hit with a bomb. The crowd is “dead” - not in the good way; but devoid of energy, and their lack of joy has returned the favor to the comedian, his ego and confidence. Everyone is checked out and gone, said void filled either with judgment, sympathy or disgust.

Everyone bombs. Every comic you’ve ever seen, as well as just about every bit you’ve ever busted a gut laughing at, has bombed at some point en route to the marriage of its perfection meeting the crowd primed to appreciate it. The construction of a bit, whether long and ranty or a short one liner, is like the evolution of a barber’s haircut drawn out over weeks, months or years in a barber’s chair set on a city sidewalk for people from all walks of life and mentalities to walk by at all different times throughout its development to voice their opinion, as if it were finished. Of course, we’ve all had our hair cut hundreds of times, and thus all are aware that if we see the man with the clippers still looming over a funny looking “do,” there is still work to be done; whereas comics don’t get such a pass. Every audience assumes and expects, understandably, that they are receiving a finished product. I paid to see a show.Give me “your show.” Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Wedo not work like that. It’d be nice if we could – trust that we wish as much as you do for our bits to be completed fresh off the notebook. But a bit is not a bit until it’s been worked out many times in experimentation of how it impacts others. Like skateboarders have to try new and increasingly difficult tricks to become great, we must constantly work out new material, often crashing and burning, breaking our pride, dislocating our energies, getting bruised in the process. So while all art forms are attempting to connect and create a dynamic with its recipients, ours is one where immediate connection wholly defines it. We have to see and feel how it is received, and then based on the quantity and quality of the people in that room we can begin to determine how we can improve. It is a long term, polygamous relationship in which you probably only get to fuck us once. Sorry. We’re whores; whores who are required to be always adding to our repertoire if we wish to grow.  

For all intents and purposes, each crowd as they exist takes on the mindset of one individual. A blind date, if you will. Some start awkwardly, but turn great once the ice is broken. Others start wonderfully but hit a mutual wall of disappointment that leaves both parties considering removing their online dating profiles as soon as they get home. Some dates are downright awful the whole time, some are so good they lead to the bedroom that night, and/or to the altar eventually.

For a new/young comic, bombs feel pretty similar to what laypeople might imagine them to (this is logical, as the brand new comic is still very much a layperson). It’s humiliating, with every joke being thrown out more desperately from their heels like Apollo Creed going inevitably down in flames against the Russian. Like a rookie baseball player in the first week of the season who is so far 1/10, his sample size is still minute. He boasts an embarrassing .100 average, which over a full year would get anyone sent down to the minors. What’s important to keep in mind is there are still 25 weeks left in the season.

The veteran comic, by contrast, has had between 5-10,000 at bats. Sure, he’s struck out, popped out, and hit into double plays nearly 2,000 times, but he’s batting .800 career, for Christ’s sake. He’s good. He knows he’s good, and everyone in “the league” who’s been around for any respectable amount of time knows he is never in danger of being sent down to the minors. He is mostly unfazed by your silence, comfortable in taking his time to think how best to respond to your heckles. Laughter need not come tonight, as it has already come countless times before, and is sure to come again tomorrow or the next night. So, although bad sets still exist as disappointing missed opportunities to connect and enjoy, they eventually taste, digest, and come out the other side much differently through a vessel of greater information, confidence and awareness. Blame, if it exists at all, turns more outward than inward, and the significance of each set diminishes as it becomes a smaller mathematical part of his lifetime batting average.

We never saw Jerry have a great set on Seinfeld. We heard about great sets and could assume they made up the majority of his track record, as his character was a professional comedian who’d appeared on The Tonight Show. Surely this was no amateur; but he and Larry David both knew that if a live set was to appear in an episode it had to go poorly, because failure is funny.

Watch any sitcom, movie, or any comic on stage. Misfortune and disappointment are the integral themes of every joke, as everyone knows there is no humor in great wealth, good looks, a level-headed peace of mind, or getting the girl, performing immaculately in bed and manifesting the perfect marriage. The only thing funny about that is how apparently unrealistic it is for most. This calls back to the reality that there is nothing at all ironic about comedians’ ultimate embrace of misery or symptoms of depression. Spare us the praise for “finding the humor in bad situations,” as bad situations are the actually the only places to find humor, and there is also a part of us that loves to laugh at the suffering of others.

Unfortunately, my mother and cousin were present for one of the most explosive bombs of my career. I’d gotten booked for a $500 feature spot at a theater in Englewood, Jersey, an unheard of gig for such a young comic. What was the catch?

“The catch,” which was not intentional, was that I was opening for a nationally famous musician who I was apparently a jerk for having never heard of: Peter Frampton, a legend in many circles, one of which would surely fill the theater, a demographic of mostly blue-collared, middle-aged, white biker types from middle and southern New Jersey. Guys whose middle school manifestations hated mine for being an honors class pussy with parents who loved him. Guys whose adult manifestations hated mine for being a hip hop, wanna-be, dumb “wigger.” It was quite possible I was not the right man for this job.

I researched Frampton before the show and became acutely aware that I couldn’t do the same jokes I’d been doing in the Bronx. Still in only my embryonic stage of development, I felt a bit dishonest telling the booker that 20 minutes would be “no problem.” I figured it might be a stretch and/or problem, but my 26-year old brain existed mostly between an admirable confidence and delusional arrogance that I could do anything, at least on one given night. Any given Sunday, as they say,not to mention that no comedian is ever going to turn down a challenge or money, let alone a coincidence of the two. And it wasa Sunday! As Mom and cousin were coming from opposite directions than I from the city, the plan was to meet after my set and go out for dinner to celebrate (mourn).

I waited alone backstage, Frampton nowhere in sight. I wore the only outfit I owned that didn’t obviously scream Hip Hop. A removal of my crooked baseball cap, slightly less baggy jeans, and a sweater instead of a hoody, although it was still Polo, with sleeves longer than my arms, much baggier than anything anyone in the building had ever owned in their life, truly a pathetic attempt. I looked like a white guy trying to look black trying to look white.

A disturbing calm came over me just before preparing to go on stage. While excessive nerves should be tamed with positive thought, breathing or whatever works for you, a complete absence of nerves is never a good sign either. A healthy amount of adrenaline beforehand is more than just normal, but almost necessary to do well. Personally, I’ve never had a good set drunk, as alcohol induces a very organic physiological apathy, which in spite of wanting to care very much, makes it impossible to connect with one’s listeners. On the other hand, the experience of nerves mean you care enough to calculate, think on your toes, and ironically, that you believe you can do it. In hindsight of my Frampton experience, I may have been intuitively precognitive that this was all wrong, and beyond some unforeseeable miracle there was no way it could go well.

The external situation was poorly set to boot. The crowd filling the venue was not made aware of any opening comedian. Stand-up is a relationship, and like any good relationship requires active listening, a different frequency and demand than music, which can be more passive and discontinuous. Inexperienced show producers classically make this mistake. They want to mesh two of their favorite things, comedy and music, in hopes of the result being greater than the sum of its parts. Sadly, this usually works about as well as George Costanza’s attempt to combine sex with watching sports and eating his favorite sandwich. Add to that the fact that the crowd was geared up for one of their very faves of all time, and Unknown Joke-teller is given a steep hill to climb.

As I stood behind the curtains with the stage director dividing his time and manic energy between whoever was giving direction into his headphones and tending to me, coordination seemed disheveled. I knew I’d be going on soon, but figured it would be after some kind of introduction to a dark room of seated people.

The house lights were still on. People were filing into their seats and there was no host or announcement over any speaker, when suddenly the stage director nudged my shoulder: “Go, go, you gotta go!”

“Right now? Just go and… What?”

“Yes!” he panicked. “We gotta get you off by 8:20, go!”

Little did he know this set wouldn’t make it anywhere close to 8:20.

I felt as naked and alone on the stage as laypeople imagine we feel.

“Hey, hey,” I weakly greeted them with the assertiveness of the guy who knows he has no chance with the girl.

“Take your seats, everyone.” I felt compelled to instruct them to where I desperately wished they already were.

God, the room was bright, and I could see them all. As nobody knew as much, and I didn’t know any better creatively, I dutifully informed them: “I am… a comedian – just here to tell you some… jokes, before the great, Peter Frampton comes out.”

A lone cheer in the distance for Frampton… people were still filing in. It’s never a good sign when you feel the need to practically apologize for your presence on stage or explain what you’ll be doing.“

“Take your seats, take your seats,”I continued.

I had nothing. No segue, no idea of where to begin, not an ounce of confidence in my pubescent well of material or the experience to improvise through such unexplored terrain. It was unlike any setting I’d yet been thrust into, and as feared, I was unqualified for the job.

I tried a since retired mediocre joke and got nothing. I tried two or three more of the same and got even less. Most of my stronger bits were geared more to the Bronx and urban crowds, and I hadn’t yet really learned how to write more universal material. As the lights finally went out in the house, the proverbial lights were going out on my set. Three strikes on stage are usually enough to acknowledge that you’re out.

“Alright,” I acknowledged the elephant in the room: “you guys obviously weren’t feeling those jokes…”

It was awful. I was rapidly dying, and like that quick realization of being physically overmatched in a fight, I had no idea how to get out of the stranglehold. I’ve got nothing for these people.

Disdain is as contagious as laughter, and the sentiment in the room became quickly unanimous. I can’t recall whether the first boo or heckle came first, but one surely immediately followed the other. It is rare for most humans to mature much past mob mentality, so once the green light is given for any animalistic behavior, it tends to snowball. It couldn’t have been much past 8:10 when the theater-filled boo’s looked and sounded no different than the notoriously disapproving Apollo Theater. They grew louder and more expansive. Finally someone started the perfectly two-syllabled “Frampton” chant, and although I had not yet been given the official signal to exit, this Monty Python-esq tirade was clearly demanding my time was up.

I thought of the show bookers sitting in the crowd. I thought again of my mom and cousin, and wondered where in the crowd they were sitting. Might they have been seated next to one of the loudest, most vicious hecklers in the room? Might they have beenthe loudest, most vicious hecklers in the room?  

“Frampton” chants poured down like rotten tomatoes, and finally I couldn’t help but laugh at the scenario (at least one of us could amuse the other). Although I don’t remember myself ever booing someone off stage, I surely have silently done so in my mind, and been “that guy” in the stadium at sports events and had a blast every time. I knew the show was a bad situation to begin with, and the blame wasn’t entirely mine. I felt okay. However, as soon as I decided to hopelessly join in the “Frampton” chant into the mic, I knew my time was up.  

I exited just before 8:15. The stage manager offered me a pat on the shoulder and an apology, handing me the least deserved $500 I’ve ever been given in my life. In fairness, there would be literally thousands more instances I’d earn $20 or even $0 in exchange for performances worth at least $500. Like accidental squibbed base hits in baseball, the good luck balances out with how often we get shafted.

I went backstage and quickly grabbed my things. Frampton wasn’t there, thank God. I’ve never so badly wanted to avoid meeting a celebrity. Is he even here yet? Who cares…

I snuck out the backdoor, praying not to see anyone who’d been in the theater. I wished I could change back into Clark Kent (or backinto Superman). Suddenly, I was 17-years old again, attempting to dart stealthily away from a wall I’d just covered in graffiti. My walk transformed into a scamper to go meet my mommy.

I heard a voice in the quiet suburban distance, a man outside the theater on his cell phone: “No, yeah, he still hasn’t gone on yet. Some comedian...” A pause, then a chuckle: “Poor. Very, very poor.” Of course I believed him, and felt bad about myself.

I called Mom and told her to leave – that I would not meet them in the lobby per the original plan. She understood. We sat down in the restaurant and Mom looked at me: “Those people were horrible! So rude! I’ve never seen anything like that!”Moms are the best.

I never heard from the booking company again. I think they shortly thereafter folded tent on the showbiz pursuit, returning back to the more stable world of high finance, their original trade. Is it possible my brightly lit expiration drained all of their hopes for success or belief in ability to spot talent, and I’d single-handedly shut down an entire company in just 15 minutes of bad jokes?

Although I’d been “wrongly cast” and the situation was poor, it left an awfully sour taste in my mouth. In typical human fashion, I chose to transform my inner sadness around it into outward anger and labeled the experience as (all) white people prejudging me, which caused me to hate them in return. I made the decision that my humor was not for white crowds, as they could not appreciate or understand me, in spite of the fact that this was a very specific kind of white crowd and I’d still only boasted a microscopic sample size. Apparently I learned how easily one can become racist: No more than a pinch of experience and a dash of maturity with a huge helping of rejection, and the broad strokes flow in excess. The fact is I’d just been a newbie in way over my head, still without the tools or experience to handle the curve balls, obstacles, and bullshit that come to comedians on a regular basis. As we finished our Chinese food and drove from the suburbs of Englewood, New Jersey over the bridge into Washington Heights where I lived, I thought it to be symbolic. I was back home, back amongst “my people,” ironically I suppose. I was done with suburban, white shows. I just didn’t want to feel that way anymore.

Sorry, Pete. 

[4-now-incognito]

Walk A Mile (With You Beside Me) Chapter 6/?

“You like chasing. You don’t like having.” The words Mike Lawson’s ex-wife once told him play like a mantra in his head sometimes. It might have dulled as his budding relationship with Ginny Baker begins to soar (even when they are the only ones to know). But the baggage Mike carries through life can’t be ignored forever. Not by him. And not by Ginny. So where does that take them both when Ginny begins to ask the questions? And where does that leave them when Mike begins drowning in that mantra again?

AO3  

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

If he was honest with himself…

Mike couldn’t regret the way he’d chosen to live his life or the way he’d played hard throughout every game in his career. So how could he complain about the consequences for it? How could he complain about how twinges in his knees, or particularly today his left knee, as the treadmill had him running a pace of more than eight mile an hour? Honestly… Well, in all honesty, he couldn’t. What he could do, what he shouldn’t do, was…

The treadmill beside his was empty. The gym wasn’t empty, but for all intents and purposes, it could have been. Because Ginny wasn’t there with him. It didn’t stop him from imagining her right there.

She had this tunnel vision focus when she worked out. How many times had she reminded Mike that the biological differences between not only her and him, not only her and her teammates, but also her and the entire roster of Major League Baseball, was often seen as a disadvantage? She had to work hard to be taken seriously. And she had always worked that hard to be taken serious.

So… although she had been a distraction for him plenty of times… Like now, right now, because it was that laser-focus that had her strong arms pumping in perfect unison with her strong legs that his mind had conjured up. The eight miles per hour that she would be running would look effortless for the young and apt athlete. That alone was enough to have Mike panting for reasons other than matching her speed. But it would be the focus on a particular drop of sweat travelling across her body, dipping into the crevasse of her cleavage...

Shit.

Another twinge of pain rain up Mike’s knee, pulling his thoughts away from Ginny for at least a second. It wasn’t enough to cause him to slow down as he chose to work through the pain. There wasn’t too many moments where he let himself give into pain when Ginny was around, and the fact that she wasn’t there now wasn’t going to lessen his resolve. In fact, the thought of her probably had something to do with spurring him on.

Ginny…

Mike grimaced, his brows drawing downward, his lips pursing, and a quiet grunt that no one heard but him.

If she’d been there, if she hadn’t canceled on their workout, she wouldn’t have even looked at him then. The thought turned the grimace on his face into a smile. Ginny would have missed the slight hiccup, thankfully. No amount of taunting, no amount of teasing, would have distracted her. And wasn’t that sexy as hell?

The twinge of pain disappeared as quickly as it had come, thank God. Mike dropped his head, a low growl emanating from his throat as his own sweat drip-dropped down his face, his chest, his back.

Fuck.

Mike wasn’t halfway through his routine. He wasn’t halfway through his time on the treadmill, he realized. And what was his mind busy with? Ginny fucking Baker. It he wasn’t working hard to keep his breathing in check, he would’ve huffed out a laugh. Fuck if she didn’t keep his mind occupied enough as it was.

So why, with that realization, was his first thought of that wide and toothy smile smirking right at him?

There was a part of him that was annoyed to the point of refusing to analyze the reasons as to why she was clearly on his mind. There was another part of him that silently accepted it for what it was, a part of him that understood but chose not to outwardly acknowledge it for more than the face value.

Resigned with both parts of him, resigned to the fact that he had a workout to get through, Mike bit out one more curse. Ginny might’ve not been there, but he had work to accomplish.

****

 “You didn’t take it easy just because I wasn’t there, did you?” Ginny’s quiet voice on the other end of the phone didn’t take away from the teasing.

Mike’s hand tightened over his own phone as he pressed it closer against him. He leaned heavily against the gym bag over his shoulder, which was held up against a now-empty corner of wall near the exit.

He tucked the small wad of chewing gum between him gums and cheek and out of his way with his tongue before throwing back, “Big words for someone who wasn’t here at all. And, hell no, I didn’t take it easy,” he added, a smile forming on his face as he listened to her laugh. Leaning into the wall securely, one foot crossed over the other one easily. “It was a good day.”

“Well, it probably helped to not have my ass there to stare at,” Ginny muttered happily.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Mike muttered back honestly, his free arm crossing over his chest and a quick brow lifting at the thought. There was a reason she had been on his mind for a lot of his workout.

“Mm… sounds like you missed me?” she asked lightly.

How in the hell had it come out as a question?

“You just trying to get me to say it, Baker?” Mike wondered, his chin dipping down to meet his chest as he arm tightened once more around himself.

“Well, if you don’t-”

“I missed that perfect pear-shaped ass of yours,” he cut in, being once again honest with her. “Happy now?” he asked, his head nodding in acknowledgement of what he’d admitted.

“Yeah…” Ginny answered slowly. “I’m happy,” she added, sounding as much.

Unlike her, although teasing may have been the cause of it, Mike didn’t need to hear the words in that moment. Just as she’d known, he knew the truth as well.

“Long day, right?” he asked with a sigh, His head came up then, his eyes squinting as he surveyed the gym.

“Yeah, a long day,” Ginny confirmed on a sigh much like his. “And after taking care of some business, I also have those plans with Ev later today. So… it won’t be until tonight that I’d have the chance to catch up with you.”

“Right.” Mike took in a small breath, his chest heaving slightly as he pe pressed even more firmly into the wall. “Then get off the phone and get to,” he muttered quickly. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Talk to you later, Lawson,” she said back with a laugh.

It put a smile on his face as he pulled the phone away from his ear and disconnected the call. It was then slipped into the back pocket of his jeans.

Flicking the chewing gum from one side of his mouth to the other, Mike hefted his gym bag over his shoulder. The knot in right along the edge of the shoulder blade had been effectively and thoroughly knocked out by the masseuse, making the task all the easier. Still, he rotated his neck from one side to the other, stretching and appreciating the feeling. His sunglasses slipped down the bridge of his nose as he let his gaze survey the exit and the way the bright sun shone through the glass windows and doors.

Mike felt… good. Energized. Even without Ginny at his side, he’d taken advantage of his gym time. Maybe it was just what he’d needed, he realized.

Pressing a forearm into the glass door, he was hit by the early morning heat. But that sun already beating down on his was just another positive.

The already-blazing sun beating down on him reminded him of the glasses sitting on top of his head. He grabbed at them, letting them fall into place with a little push of his fingers as the gum in his mouth found its way on the other side of his mouth again. It was only the buzzing vibration coming from inside his pocket that made him pause.

It was a short buzz, so Mike wasn’t surprised by a text message popping up once he flipped and turned the phone in a fluid motion. No, that wasn’t what had him cocking his head while his eyes darted across the entire phone screen.

He wasn’t expecting it to be her. Not that they were on bad terms. After everything that they’d been through together, the ups and downs and everything in between, it rarely had them on bad terms. It was just…

Mike inhaled a deep and involuntary breath through his nose just as he swiped his free hand across his forehead. He noticed then that the text had had him stopped dead in his tracks. Sweeping his gaze across the half-filled parking lot, he took a sidestep that was unnecessary since no one was around him. Pulling himself off to the side, he looked back down at the phone.

Hi Mike.

That was simple enough, right?

Mike pushed the gum up with his tongue, leaving it between his front teeth. His eyes widened at the thought of the prospect before him, then blinking twice on the phone. He let his thumb swipe across the screen, opening up the message before…

How you doing Rachel?

Leaving it at that, Mike hefted the gym bag once more. There was a part of him that could have stayed right there, waiting for her answer. There was a greater part of him that was over the surprise. It was that part of him that had him moving and on the hunt for his car.

I’m fine. How about you?

The text hadn’t taken long to come in. And with an easy question like the one she shot back, it hadn’t taken him long to answer either.

Real good.

And then he was curious once more, which had he stopping once again in his tracks.

They were civil with one another. They were more than just civil with one another. Even if the last time they’d seen each other was soon after that fateful and one-time hookup. It was… something that didn’t seem to mean that much, right? Mike had been pretty clear on what her expectations were.

Okay, I’ll bite. What’s up?

He’d sent it less than a second before her text came in.

I’m glad to hear that. Are you busy?

It was followed by her response to his question.

I’m in town. It’s been a while since we’ve talked. Thought I’d check in on you.

Mike took a moment to re-read the last two messages. It was only then that he ran his hand over his beard and he let one foot follow the other as he continued his trek into the parking lot..

Text messages. Yeah, he’d read each and every single word. Even more than once. It was just that intent wasn’t always easily interpreted.

They’d left on solid ground. This wasn’t Rachel suggesting anything torrid, even if she’d mentioned she was in town. And, for some reason, he wasn’t in the mindset to go and make the snap judgement call that this was her attempt at getting him back.

I’m good. And I’m free to talk.

Good.

It wasn’t much longer after that confirmation text came in before Mike’s phone was vibrating again, with Rachel’s call coming through.

 ****

 There had been many thoughts rolling around Mike’s mind during the three and a half hours between that first text message from Rachel and sitting across from her at the small restaurant of her choice. None of those thoughts had made him want to miss this meeting.

There was a lot of history between them. Rachel had been a part of his life, a part of him, for so many years. And even after the marriage, even after she cheated on him and his attempt at reconciliation and everything in between… Rachel was a part of his life.

That was probably the reason of ease on his soul. Because this could have been awkward. Maybe this should’ve been awkward.

The truth of the matter was that… for everything they’d been through- everything he’d said, everything she’d done- there wasn’t a bone in his body that wasn’t over their past. For good or for bad, for when he wasn’t playing the part of the conceited asshole, he could realize and acknowledge the friendship and bond they’d had. And it hadn’t disappeared completely either. Probably never would.

Honestly, and he was finally honest with himself, there were reasons for everything that transpired between them. Because they had never been meant to be anything more than this: friends. Good friends. Confidante in some instances, too. But…

Mike let his arm glide across the table. His hand reaching and taking hold of the glass of water next to his plate that hel his burger and fries. His tongue came out to wet his bottom lip even as his squinted eyes focused on the plate across from him.

Kale chicken caesar salad.

His chin lifted all of an inch before he noticed and could stop himself.

“What?”

Rachel’s question sounded curious. And as Mike looked up at her. He saw the way she leaned closer into the table.

“Didn’t say anything,” he reminded her, his shoulder lifting in a shrug.

“Maybe…you didn’t have to?” was her questioning response.

“Then… what?” he tossed back at her. He matched her position, leaning his body into the table.

There was a brief moment, maybe five or six seconds, where they stayed in that staring contest.

Rachel was the first to break, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth as she slipped back just so.

It was at that moment that Mike grabbed up the water glass, lifting it and taking a sip. He couldn’t help but look back at her plate again.

It wasn’t anything. It hadn’t been anything. Not really. It was just that…

Why had Ginny come to mind so clearly?

If Ginny was there, it wouldn’t have been a kale chicken caesar salad sitting across from his burger and fries. There would have been something more closely related to his own calorie-loaded lunch. And there was something completely sexy about that fact.

“Okay, Mike,” Rachel drawled out, grabbing his attention once more. “You look… happy.”

This time, there wasn’t a question in the statement, but something about the way she said it made him curious.

“I look happy?” he asked, thinking over the words as he said them.

Rachel gave a sound and firm nod.

“You look happy,” she repeated easily. “Genuinely happy.”

Mike felt the way his lips twisted just as he closed his arms over his chest.

“Is that a trick or something?” he asked, the words leaving his mouth slowly.

“No,” she assured him with a laugh.

Mike watched Rachel shake his head before she picked up the almost-forgotten fork. Her first bite was a small one, first dipping the chicken into a heavy area of dressing.

“Okay,” he huffed. His arms fell away from his chest, but he slouched more comfortably in his seat, his left leg coming out from under the table and stretching out. “I look happy.”

Rachel smile behind her hand and finished her small bite before she said anything.

“It can’t be because of me,” she noted easily. She shook her head again, her red waves shifting just slightly. “This looks like… something bigger than that, something substantial.”

Something substantial…

You look happy…

And, okay, as far as stages in life were concerned, he had to agree with her: Mike Lawson was a happy man. The reasons for that happiness crossed his mind, with Ginny Baker sitting right on top of that list. He instantly froze at the thought, but shook it off immediately.

“You were... maybe expecting something different?” Mike asked in a murmur. He eyed his plate, moved his hand over towards it, and pinched two of the steak fries before shoving them into his mouth and swooping them down. They shifted on her as he leaned back into the table before whispering conspiratorially, “It’s the off-season, Rachel. There’s usually less gossip to go around during this point of the year, right?” His gaze dropped onto his plate again, picking up a couple more fries and filling his mouth.

Mike didn’t see, but heard the clinking of silverware as Rachel went back into her own plate.

“Same sarcasm, I see,” she noted.

Mike’s single brow lifted at that comment.

“But…” she added.

He looked back up at her that time, falling back against his chair and extending his leg once more.

Okay, was it reporter or ex-wife nosiness going on with her at that moment?

“There’s been changes in my life since the last time we were together,” Mike murmured. His shoulders were quick to hunch, probably adding emphasis to the scowl he felt on his face. “I’m at a good place.” His hand came up swiftly, waving across his face. “Glad it’s so noticeable right here.”

Rachel rested her fork on her plate. She took that moment to adjust herself in her seating, a smile still planted on her face as her back hit the chair.

“You look good,” she finally said, sounding completely firn. Her own hand fell out in between them over the table. “Be it off-season or something else, it’s good to see.”

See, sometimes it could be easy with Rachel.

“Maybe I took your advice,” Mike said, the words falling from his mouth. He tilted his head just so as he watched her intently.

She looked confused, her fingers falling to the edge of the table and hold there. “My advice?”

When she’d said it that night, when she had been a sounding board for all his fucked up thoughts and pain, he’d appreciated it more than she probably even realized. And when he was able to actually take her advice.

“Maybe I took some time to figure out what I really wanted,” he clarified, recalling that pivotal conversation they’d had once upon a time.

At a time, and it felt a hell of a lot longer than it had actually been, Mike had thought what he’d wanted was Rachel. He’d thought that what he’d needed in his life was… that old like. Or the old life that could have been, or maybe should’ve been. Because in all honesty, in all honesty, what he had with Rachel hadn’t been the perfect marriage. A friendship? Yeah, she would probably always be a friend of his, and a good one at that. But… she had been right that night. There wasn’t a future for the two of them when it came to something more. The divorce had been the only realistic choice for either of them

Every single feature on her face froze, a look of wonder there. Her fingers gripping at the table were the first to go, dragging away until her hands disappeared under the table. And then it was with a blink of her eyes and the corners of her mouth curving up that showed any reaction.

“I’m sure it took a lot for you to commit to the decision to make this upcoming season your last,” Rachel said softly, the belief of those were mirrored in the way her shoulders caved in.

“Retirement?” It came out as a question. Maybe it shouldn’t have come out as a question. “Yeah. Yeah.” Something was caught in Mike’s throat, causing him to clear it, but not too loudly. His eyes darted across the table as his closed fist came up to cover his mouth. She’d told him to figure out what he really wanted… “Phase one not has a expiration date.” His eyes grew a little wider as they settled on her while his hands disappeared under the table before tangling together. Figuring out what he really wanted in life had been an important step to getting out of a negative space. And yeah, retirement was a part of it, but it wasn’t the whole. And maybe Rachel had dismissed that part of the pivotal conversation that had once included her.

Rachel lifted a single shoulder slowly, looking almost cautious. “The seeds of retirement had been planted for a while though,” she reminded him. She leaned over to one side, her attention being caught by something behind him.

Before Mike had a chance to turn to see what it was, she asked, “So how’s your back been doing?”

The question produced a tight smile on Mike’s face and a squeeze of his fingers together. “I’m retiring after one more season. What does that tell you?” He brought a hand back out from underneath the table and let his fingers reach over towards his  plate, grabbing up another couple of fries. He looked at Rachel’s plate that had been untouched for more than a minute now, and another smile came across his face for a whole new reason.

“That it’s still not at a hundred percent,” Rachel answered.

Mike’s shrug was a bit rougher than hers had been.

“One more season,” he reminded her gruffly. “And then-”

“And then phase two.”

The way she’d set it had Mike tilted his head just so at her, his eyebrows falling low over his eyes.

Rachel offered up a simple smile as she sat up just a little bit straighter. “So you figured it out.” She let her hand wave out in front of him. “You figure out what you really wanted that will make you happy.”

Mike’s smile matched hers in simplicity, but his first thought was of Ginny. When Rachel had told him that he needed to figure out what he really wanted, it was because she felt he had been rushing back to her and the life he thought he wanted in that moment. When Mike thought about what he really wanted in life, it wasn’t just about his career. As he had told Rachel on more than one occasion, what he wanted extended far past career goals…

He’d found something much more than career. And… he was happy. Ginny… made him happy…

“What?” Rachel asked with a tiny laugh.

That question and her laugh brought Mike back to the present, having slipped away in his own head for a moment too long.

“Mike, what?” she asked again, sounding wondrous this time.

Mike quickly gave a shake of his head,glancing down at his plate and going back in for another fry or two. His initial answer was a low grunt without anything to follow.

“Unless… unless there’s something… something more?” And it was another question.

Mike looked up at her from under lowered lashes.

“Oh damn, Rachel,” he muttered at her. “Don’t go all journalistic reporter on me, okay?”

His command didn’t put an end to the curious glint in her eyes or the wonder that he knew was swirling around in that head of hers. But, he could give her credit. Instead of asking whatever certain question that was on the tip of her tongue, Rachel picked up her underused fork and stabbed at a piece of grilled chicken from her plate.

Mike felt the prickling at the corners of his mouth, a smile attempting to form.

“I’m just thinking…”

“Shit,” Mike muttered, rolling his eyes, “that didn’t last long.”

“That maybe ESPN or Fox Sports haven’t reached out to you just yet on the future of Mike Lawson’s broadcasting career,” Rachel continued, apparently unperturbed by his mouth. “Maybe this aura of happiness has to do with something else.”

Mike went in for his half-eaten burger, hefting it up in his hand and readily into his mouth for a generous bite.

“Ending your playing career wasn’t the only thing you thought you wanted,” she said quietly, sounding as if she was voicing the thoughts as they went through her head. “That was something you wanted, along with…” She paused there, maybe for good reason.

“I assumed we had a tacit agreement to not mention that,” Mike said, the rest of the burger dropping to the plate. Instead of looking at his ex-wife, he searched out the napkin that was beside his lunch.

“Over me?” Rachel asked.

Based on her tone, it was meant as a joke. Mike glanced up at her as he ran the napkin across his face.

“What you always wanted, right?” he threw back, his voice low and even. “Moved on and over you.”

Rachel huffed out a small laugh, her eyes travelling the whole of his face before sliding off to the side and behind him.

“Now don’t go all to pieces and start regretting what could have been,” Mike muttered at her jokingly. Because no matter what was no running through that brain of hers, he knew clear as day it had nothing to do with that. She had been there first. Mike was the one that had taken the longest to understand that it was over, and for good reason.

“You look happy, Mike.”

The genuinity of that statement radiated out from her.

Mike gave a brief nod of his head at that. “Well… Like I said.” And for now… he returned her smile with one of his own.

Later… Later, he would wonder why it couldn’t have stayed just like that. But then he would remember that Rachel was his ex-wife. He would remember that it was not always easy to leave that journalistic thought process for far too long.

Later, he would wonder why happy couldn’t just be happy. Later, he would wonder why it was so easy to doubt what he’d thought he’d known for a long time.

[jaysgirlemily]

Dear Mr. Mainsplainer,

(That comment from before had actually been deleted from the site before I saw it, therefore it was still in the comment notifications but I can’t actually reply to it, as such. Anyway I wrote this and decided to stick it here - maybe I spent altogether too much time on it, but I had fun with it and didn’t really have anything I needed to do today!)

If you think that because I don’t approve of retaliation in baseball, I must be new to the sport, you must be new to this blog. I have, in fact, been watching (and writing about) baseball regularly for several years. I am deeply familiar with the idea of ‘message’ pitches and have watched many such situations, including escalations and brawls, play out between numerous teams; therefore your paragraphs detailing hypothetical situations of retribution are unnecessary and I’m truly sorry you wasted your time on them.

However, being aware that these things have a historical precedent in no way obligates me to like the practice, or prevent me from thinking it needs changing. As you put it (twice!) ‘understanding doesn’t mean condoning or agreeing’. Similarly, my condemning those actions doesn’t indicate ignorance about their context.

The images of the strike zones and ‘graphs’ are there as a ‘visual aid’ for the readers. They are to illustrate and add to a point, not prove it. Not everyone reading this had the advantage of watching the game live, and therefore the pitch tracker was included to demonstrate precisely where the pitch landed.

John Gibbons is about as ‘old-school’ as they come, and he stated there should be some form of punishment doled out by Major League Baseball for Archer’s actions. He’s never said such severe things before – as I mentioned – which is why it took me by surprise. Usually he is quite happy to just let things play out on the field, therefore the fact that he verbally appealed to MLB for a punishment was out of character for him, and I am not ‘kidding myself’ by noting this.

I presented the events as they occurred, and left room for ambiguity about Archer’s intentions lest I be accused of making assumptions or being biased (his action, intentional or not, was directed towards my team, after all). This is called being ‘objective’. Nobody but Chris Archer actually knows the real intent behind his pitch, and though we may be able to speculate, we cannot know with absolute certainty unless he says so – and it is irresponsible to present a speculation as a fact.

Additionally, as someone who tends to believe the best in people, I would like to think someone who has demonstrated the type of character Archer has would be above such things, but perhaps not. Trust me, when I say it’s an ‘interesting coincidence’ for it to have ‘gotten away from him’ given the circumstances, it means I’m skeptical of his simple explanation. Everyone says that in these situations. I debated spelling that out in my article, but didn’t want to talk down to my readers (who, like me, have also watched plenty of baseball and are no doubt aware that pitchers always say that).

How foolish of me to forget the possibility of responses like yours. You see, in being aware that sometimes people make mistakes (like Biagini), I forgot that everything in baseball, even a mistake, requires a macho display of pride to make up for it. Souza, as an adult, should know that people make mistakes, and he shouldn’t need a Popsicle (or another player to get hurt) in order to feel better because he got hit accidentally. I completely understood the way the Rays felt about it, as well as the way the Jays felt about Archer’s pitch to Bautista.

The line about an entire team being suspended tied in with the concept of ‘eye-for-an-eye’-style justice because the old phrase is ‘an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.’ In this case, a beanball for a beanball leaves the whole team hurt/suspended. (‘Justice’, by the way, was the term used because it properly represents how the players feel that they alone are the authority within the game – also I’d used ‘vengeance’ already in that paragraph so it would have been repetitive, do try to keep up).

That line also used what is called ‘hyperbole’, where an exaggeration is made to the point of being humourous, in order to prove a point. You see, that ‘absurd’ idea was used to add levity to a serious situation, and was not at all one that I took seriously. A similarly ‘absurd’ idea would be that someone who is unfamiliar with baseball would dedicate her time to regularly writing about it.

My questions toward the end were, for the most part, rhetorical. A rhetorical question is one which doesn’t actually require a response, but is merely intended to make the reader think. You see, I do in fact know what they’re seeking revenge for, how they decided to do it, and why they go about it the way they do.  The purpose of those questions is to poke holes in their reasoning. It was to point out that in spite of this ‘being the way it’s always been’, there is no true logic behind the practice – that it is rather silly. Bautista had nothing to do with Souza being hurt, and any rational person (perhaps that is to say, not a baseball player) would understand that. ‘Sending a message’ accomplishes nothing other than saying ‘we are displeased’ – a sentiment no doubt already understood by the Blue Jays. I understand the ‘old-school’ point of view very well – I simply think it’s ridiculous. I thought I had made that clear.

Once again, being familiar with something doesn’t mean I have to like the way it plays out. You said yourself you don’t agree with the way these things are handled, yet you’re content to just let it happen because ‘that’s the way these things work’. That’s not an acceptable explanation to me, and was the whole point behind this article. I am well aware of baseball history (and culture) and the fact that it’s less violent now than it used to be. Change is possible, I would just like for it to accelerate somewhat. I am also well aware I will see more incidents like this in the future, and I will continue to be equally displeased when they occur. 

Now, before firing off another well-meaning (I assume) but thoroughly ill-advised message like this to someone else, I would politely advise you to consider whether you would have presumed the author was unfamiliar with the game had this article been published under a different name, say… Eric? Truth is, there are plenty of knowledgeable sports fans (male and female) out there who disagree with the way things are handled in the game they love, yet still comprehend it. Should you keep leaving comments like this, the curtain will rise and it may turn out you’ve insulted numerous female bloggers with your presumption of their ignorance.

By the way – even when you delete a comment, it’s still visible in the notification section to administrators on the site. The next time you choose to leave a comment, perhaps it’s wise to rethink your words prior to clicking ‘send’, rather than after. You’ve been warned.

 Cordially,

Emily Martin

Proud MLB & Blue Jays Fan since 1999

[Please note - I don’t feel this level of contempt towards all mainsplainers, I was trying to match his tone and assumption that I didn’t comprehend baseball with a mocking assumption that he didn’t understand the writing process]

[gman-003]

Aesthetics - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword analyzed, Part Five

(This is part of my ongoing series analyzing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, part of a bigger series where I play through and then talk excessively about every game in the Zelda series. If you want to catch up, earlier installments discussed the use of patterns, the story and how it fits into the chronology, the controls, and the flow and friction)

Video games are composite art. They combine dozens of artistic (and non-artistic) disciplines. You have game designers, writers, musicians, and an entire array of visual artists, specializing in textures, models, animation, lighting, and all kinds of other things. I've been focusing a lot on the game design, since that's an understudied field, but all the other elements deserve analysis too. We've already examined the story, so today, we'll take a look at the look of Skyward Sword.

Good: Overall art direction, graphics

When I review games, I make a distinction between "art" and "graphics". The former, as I use the term, is the timeless quality of the art direction, divorced from that specific implementation in the game; the latter is the technical work of making the software turn the artistic vision into reality, judged by what the hardware can theoretically handle. "Art" is that which shows up even in the manual and advertising, that which is unchanged in remakes and ports. Skyward Sword, on the whole, does an excellent job on both fronts.

The graphics are nothing to write home about by 2017 standards, but for a Wii game, it looks excellent. It's important to remember just how weak the Wii was, even compared to the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. It also has some real limitations on what you can do with it, beyond just strength - since the processor design was identical to the Gamecube, it had very little flexibility, requiring a lot of trickery from programmers to get many special effects.

I'm not really equipped to dig into the technical functioning of it, but just from playing, it seems to hold a mostly-stable 30fps, rendering the game at 360p and upscaling to 480p before rendering UI elements. This is a common trick for console games - this hides the jaggies you get with no antialiasing, and fonts benefit far more from the increased resolution than the 3D environment does, while not costing nearly so much processing time to render. There was some consistent framerate drops during certain cutscenes - most scenes of a Timeshift Stone have some really nasty reduction in framerate - but during gameplay, it seems to be solid, which is when it really matters.

Some very interesting effect is done to create a depth-of-field-like effect, blurring the far background in a painting-like way. Again, I don't have the tools (or, quite frankly, the skills and time) to dig into exactly how this is done, but the effect is really well-done. This serves a gameplay purpose too, by making foreground objects (like enemies or items) stand out more from the background.

The design of most of the characters is also spot-on. Everything is stylized, anatomy is often exaggerated, and colors are bright and vibrant. There's visual depth to everything, lots of layers, which balances out the flatter colors. Faces are expressive. Costumes are iconic without being overly simple.

Even lots of the fully background characters look pretty good. Wander through Skyloft, and you'll see lots of interesting characters. There are very few background characters with a bland or boring design.

Okay: The Heroes

Which makes it so weird that the two central characters of the game are so dull. Skyward Sword's Link and Zelda aren't bad, really. They're just... completely unremarkable. 

Link is bland. He doesn't have any of that exaggerated styling that made other characters fun. He just looks like the Link from Twilight Princess with new textures. There's very little depth or layering - the dominant feature is just that blank green tunic. Given how much green there is in the environment, Link often fades into the background. This never reached the level of a gameplay issue, at least for me, but it's still not great when the player character isn't visually distinct from the game world, especially when the story is about him entering a strange new world.

Link also just doesn't fit in. His proportions are far more realistic than the rest, making him look out of place next to caricatures like Beedle or Strich or Gondo. It's not consistent - he looks fine beside Pipit or Kina or Peatrice - but that inconsistency is itself a minor problem.

Zelda's first design in the game is fine. It's got contrast, it's got depth, it's not the best thing ever but it's pretty good. And she's very well animated - I won't call it Pixar quality but it's leagues ahead of where they were even a few years prior. She's emotionally expressive and responsive. But then she has a costume change, and it's just... nothing.

It's a white dress. No other color. No layers. No depth. No frills or poofs or anything, besides a bit of lace designs that you can only see in the concept art. They still have her moving well but it's just... so... wasted. Could they really think of nothing more visually interesting than a featureless white dress to symbolize the purification stuff? You don't see her in this outfit all that much, but it's the outfit she's in for the majority of the game, so it's still very important. It wouldn't have taken much to make her design better. Give her any splash of color - a red rope belt (red string has a suitable symbolic meaning in east-asian culture), a purple feather from her Loftwing in her hair, anything really that isn't plain featureless white. Even making that lace rendition of the Hyrulian Royal Crest more visible would have worked. Even if you absolutely insisted on flat white, you could layer the clothing to give depth instead of a featureless white void. Or give her more to wear - a wimple or veil over her head even adds to that "purification" intent (and it's not like Zelda games haven't borrowed religious imagery before). I can't really point to anything that was actually done wrong with Link or Zelda. They just aren't nearly as good as many of the other characters.

Bad: The Villains

Some stuff was just outright bad, though.

Tentalus, the boss of the Sandship dungeon, is a bizarrely cartoonish enemy design. If its battle was intentionally funny, that could have worked - but the fight is framed as one of the most dramatic in the game. The ship shudders under its attack from the moment it appears, twisting in a section reminiscent of the Call of Duty 4 level "Crew Expendable", of all things. The skies are dark under the pouring rain, lit by distant lightning... the music builds to an ominous tension... as this Baby's First Lovecraftian Horror shows up. It's purple Cthulhu with tentacle dreadlocks. As more than one fan artist has noted, Tentalus looks like it came from a Monsters Inc. knockoff, not a Zelda game with a French Impressionist aesthetic.

And the single eye as a weak point, in this late stage of the game, is frankly unnecessary. Any player who's made it this far knows how boss weak points work. Absent a gameplay justification, it just further serves to make the boss look child-like.

For a boss that features so prominently in the game, The Imprisoned is also quite poorly designed. His core problem is his lack of features, and how the "gameplay-oriented" features look so out of place.

On the face of it, a dark behemoth, featureless except for a gaping maw, seems like a perfectly fine idea. The early concept art certainly looks good. But now add some white blobs as "toes" that serve as weak points - first, it distracts from that singular focus on the mouth, and second it undercuts the intimidating look of the boss, because seriously, you kill the boss by stabbing its toes? The same thing happens when, in the second and third forms, they added some ungainly long arms, tipped with white blobs as "fingers". They were certainly necessary to make the boss fight playable, but there had to have been another way to do it. It just reeks of a boss that was designed by an artist, and then had to have gameplay elements tacked on.

The Imprisoned also fits very poorly with the painterly aesthetic of the rest of the game. It, almost alone in the game, is harshly geometric, with his hundreds of identical scales. The concept art is quite a bit more abstract, so maybe it's a matter of the Wii not having the horsepower for all those particle effects. But I have to judge the game they released, not the game they wanted to make, and this game has a central villain that doesn't fit.

Had that felt more deliberate, it could have worked. The Twili had that sort of effect in Twilight Princess, with a techno-ish sound and harsh digital effects to play up their alien-ness to Hyrule. But in every way except its appearance, The Imprisoned fits the game normally - normal music, normal gameplay, normal sound effects.

Overall, the game's aesthetic sensibilities are on point. It really is a lovely game. But those few mistakes are all the more glaring when they're surrounded by excellence.

Next time: the greatest flaw of Skyward Sword

[photographerguide-blog]

The future of photography is code

New Post has been published on https://photographyguideto.com/must-see/the-future-of-photography-is-code-2/

The future of photography is code

What’s in a camera? A lens, a shutter, a light-sensitive surface and, increasingly, a set of highly sophisticated algorithms. While the physical components are still improving bit by bit, Google, Samsung and Apple are increasingly investing in (and showcasing) improvements wrought entirely from code. Computational photography is the only real battleground now.

The reason for this shift is pretty simple: Cameras can’t get too much better than they are right now, or at least not without some rather extreme shifts in how they work. Here’s how smartphone makers hit the wall on photography, and how they were forced to jump over it.

Not enough buckets

An image sensor one might find in a digital camera

The sensors in our smartphone cameras are truly amazing things. The work that’s been done by the likes of Sony, OmniVision, Samsung and others to design and fabricate tiny yet sensitive and versatile chips is really pretty mind-blowing. For a photographer who’s watched the evolution of digital photography from the early days, the level of quality these microscopic sensors deliver is nothing short of astonishing.

But there’s no Moore’s Law for those sensors. Or rather, just as Moore’s Law is now running into quantum limits at sub-10-nanometer levels, camera sensors hit physical limits much earlier. Think about light hitting the sensor as rain falling on a bunch of buckets; you can place bigger buckets, but there are fewer of them; you can put smaller ones, but they can’t catch as much each; you can make them square or stagger them or do all kinds of other tricks, but ultimately there are only so many raindrops and no amount of bucket-rearranging can change that.

Sensors are getting better, yes, but not only is this pace too slow to keep consumers buying new phones year after year (imagine trying to sell a camera that’s 3 percent better), but phone manufacturers often use the same or similar camera stacks, so the improvements (like the recent switch to backside illumination) are shared amongst them. So no one is getting ahead on sensors alone.

See the new iPhone’s ‘focus pixels’ up close

Perhaps they could improve the lens? Not really. Lenses have arrived at a level of sophistication and perfection that is hard to improve on, especially at small scale. To say space is limited inside a smartphone’s camera stack is a major understatement — there’s hardly a square micron to spare. You might be able to improve them slightly as far as how much light passes through and how little distortion there is, but these are old problems that have been mostly optimized.

The only way to gather more light would be to increase the size of the lens, either by having it A: project outwards from the body; B: displace critical components within the body; or C: increase the thickness of the phone. Which of those options does Apple seem likely to find acceptable?

In retrospect it was inevitable that Apple (and Samsung, and Huawei, and others) would have to choose D: none of the above. If you can’t get more light, you just have to do more with the light you’ve got.

Isn’t all photography computational?

The broadest definition of computational photography includes just about any digital imaging at all. Unlike film, even the most basic digital camera requires computation to turn the light hitting the sensor into a usable image. And camera makers differ widely in the way they do this, producing different JPEG processing methods, RAW formats and color science.

For a long time there wasn’t much of interest on top of this basic layer, partly from a lack of processing power. Sure, there have been filters, and quick in-camera tweaks to improve contrast and color. But ultimately these just amount to automated dial-twiddling.

The first real computational photography features were arguably object identification and tracking for the purposes of autofocus. Face and eye tracking made it easier to capture people in complex lighting or poses, and object tracking made sports and action photography easier as the system adjusted its AF point to a target moving across the frame.

These were early examples of deriving metadata from the image and using it proactively, to improve that image or feeding forward to the next.

In DSLRs, autofocus accuracy and flexibility are marquee features, so this early use case made sense; but outside a few gimmicks, these “serious” cameras generally deployed computation in a fairly vanilla way. Faster image sensors meant faster sensor offloading and burst speeds, some extra cycles dedicated to color and detail preservation and so on. DSLRs weren’t being used for live video or augmented reality. And until fairly recently, the same was true of smartphone cameras, which were more like point and shoots than the all-purpose media tools we know them as today.

The limits of traditional imaging

Despite experimentation here and there and the occasional outlier, smartphone cameras are pretty much the same. They have to fit within a few millimeters of depth, which limits their optics to a few configurations. The size of the sensor is likewise limited — a DSLR might use an APS-C sensor 23 by 15 millimeters across, making an area of 345 mm2; the sensor in the iPhone XS, probably the largest and most advanced on the market right now, is 7 by 5.8 mm or so, for a total of 40.6 mm2.

Roughly speaking, it’s collecting an order of magnitude less light than a “normal” camera, but is expected to reconstruct a scene with roughly the same fidelity, colors and such — around the same number of megapixels, too. On its face this is sort of an impossible problem.

Improvements in the traditional sense help out — optical and electronic stabilization, for instance, make it possible to expose for longer without blurring, collecting more light. But these devices are still being asked to spin straw into gold.

Luckily, as I mentioned, everyone is pretty much in the same boat. Because of the fundamental limitations in play, there’s no way Apple or Samsung can reinvent the camera or come up with some crazy lens structure that puts them leagues ahead of the competition. They’ve all been given the same basic foundation.

All competition therefore comprises what these companies build on top of that foundation.

Image as stream

The key insight in computational photography is that an image coming from a digital camera’s sensor isn’t a snapshot, the way it is generally thought of. In traditional cameras the shutter opens and closes, exposing the light-sensitive medium for a fraction of a second. That’s not what digital cameras do, or at least not what they can do.

A camera’s sensor is constantly bombarded with light; rain is constantly falling on the field of buckets, to return to our metaphor, but when you’re not taking a picture, these buckets are bottomless and no one is checking their contents. But the rain is falling nevertheless.

To capture an image the camera system picks a point at which to start counting the raindrops, measuring the light that hits the sensor. Then it picks a point to stop. For the purposes of traditional photography, this enables nearly arbitrarily short shutter speeds, which isn’t much use to tiny sensors.

Why not just always be recording? Theoretically you could, but it would drain the battery and produce a lot of heat. Fortunately, in the last few years image processing chips have gotten efficient enough that they can, when the camera app is open, keep a certain duration of that stream — limited resolution captures of the last 60 frames, for instance. Sure, it costs a little battery, but it’s worth it.

Access to the stream allows the camera to do all kinds of things. It adds context.

Context can mean a lot of things. It can be photographic elements like the lighting and distance to subject. But it can also be motion, objects, intention.

A simple example of context is what is commonly referred to as HDR, or high dynamic range imagery. This technique uses multiple images taken in a row with different exposures to more accurately capture areas of the image that might have been underexposed or overexposed in a single exposure. The context in this case is understanding which areas those are and how to intelligently combine the images together.

This can be accomplished with exposure bracketing, a very old photographic technique, but it can be accomplished instantly and without warning if the image stream is being manipulated to produce multiple exposure ranges all the time. That’s exactly what Google and Apple now do.

Something more complex is of course the “portrait mode” and artificial background blur or bokeh that is becoming more and more common. Context here is not simply the distance of a face, but an understanding of what parts of the image constitute a particular physical object, and the exact contours of that object. This can be derived from motion in the stream, from stereo separation in multiple cameras, and from machine learning models that have been trained to identify and delineate human shapes.

These techniques are only possible, first, because the requisite imagery has been captured from the stream in the first place (an advance in image sensor and RAM speed), and second, because companies developed highly efficient algorithms to perform these calculations, trained on enormous data sets and immense amounts of computation time.

What’s important about these techniques, however, is not simply that they can be done, but that one company may do them better than the other. And this quality is entirely a function of the software engineering work and artistic oversight that goes into them.

A system to tell good fake bokeh from bad

DxOMark did a comparison of some early artificial bokeh systems; the results, however, were somewhat unsatisfying. It was less a question of which looked better, and more of whether they failed or succeeded in applying the effect. Computational photography is in such early days that it is enough for the feature to simply work to impress people. Like a dog walking on its hind legs, we are amazed that it occurs at all.

But Apple has pulled ahead with what some would say is an almost absurdly over-engineered solution to the bokeh problem. It didn’t just learn how to replicate the effect — it used the computing power it has at its disposal to create virtual physical models of the optical phenomenon that produces it. It’s like the difference between animating a bouncing ball and simulating realistic gravity and elastic material physics.

Why go to such lengths? Because Apple knows what is becoming clear to others: that it is absurd to worry about the limits of computational capability at all. There are limits to how well an optical phenomenon can be replicated if you are taking shortcuts like Gaussian blurring. There are no limits to how well it can be replicated if you simulate it at the level of the photon.

Similarly the idea of combining five, 10, or 100 images into a single HDR image seems absurd, but the truth is that in photography, more information is almost always better. If the cost of these computational acrobatics is negligible and the results measurable, why shouldn’t our devices be performing these calculations? In a few years they too will seem ordinary.

If the result is a better product, the computational power and engineering ability has been deployed with success; just as Leica or Canon might spend millions to eke fractional performance improvements out of a stable optical system like a $2,000 zoom lens, Apple and others are spending money where they can create value: not in glass, but in silicon.

Double vision

One trend that may appear to conflict with the computational photography narrative I’ve described is the advent of systems comprising multiple cameras.

This technique doesn’t add more light to the sensor — that would be prohibitively complex and expensive optically, and probably wouldn’t work anyway. But if you can free up a little space lengthwise (rather than depthwise, which we found impractical) you can put a whole separate camera right by the first that captures photos extremely similar to those taken by the first.

A mock-up of what a line of color iPhones could look like

Now, if all you want to do is re-enact Wayne’s World at an imperceptible scale (camera one, camera two… camera one, camera two…) that’s all you need. But no one actually wants to take two images simultaneously, a fraction of an inch apart.

These two cameras operate either independently (as wide-angle and zoom) or one is used to augment the other, forming a single system with multiple inputs.

The thing is that taking the data from one camera and using it to enhance the data from another is — you guessed it — extremely computationally intensive. It’s like the HDR problem of multiple exposures, except far more complex as the images aren’t taken with the same lens and sensor. It can be optimized, but that doesn’t make it easy.

So although adding a second camera is indeed a way to improve the imaging system by physical means, the possibility only exists because of the state of computational photography. And it is the quality of that computational imagery that results in a better photograph — or doesn’t. The Light camera with its 16 sensors and lenses is an example of an ambitious effort that simply didn’t produce better images, though it was using established computational photography techniques to harvest and winnow an even larger collection of images.

Light and code

The future of photography is computational, not optical. This is a massive shift in paradigm and one that every company that makes or uses cameras is currently grappling with. There will be repercussions in traditional cameras like SLRs (rapidly giving way to mirrorless systems), in phones, in embedded devices and everywhere that light is captured and turned into images.

Sometimes this means that the cameras we hear about will be much the same as last year’s, as far as megapixel counts, ISO ranges, f-numbers and so on. That’s okay. With some exceptions these have gotten as good as we can reasonably expect them to be: Glass isn’t getting any clearer, and our vision isn’t getting any more acute. The way light moves through our devices and eyeballs isn’t likely to change much.

What those devices do with that light, however, is changing at an incredible rate. This will produce features that sound ridiculous, or pseudoscience babble on stage, or drained batteries. That’s okay, too. Just as we have experimented with other parts of the camera for the last century and brought them to varying levels of perfection, we have moved onto a new, non-physical “part” which nonetheless has a very important effect on the quality and even possibility of the images we take.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com

[juditmiltz]

The $70B loophole, or: How to turn your mansion into an offshore account

From left: Roger Ailes, 10000 Holloway Way Drive, Tom Hicks, and OJ Simpson (Credit: Getty Images, iStock, and Concierge Auctions)

In the fall of 2016, Roger Ailes was by all accounts a very wealthy man. Fox News had just pushed him out from the company he built over allegations of sexual harassment, but paid him $40 million for his troubles. So he did what many other rich retirees before him have done: he bought a house in Florida.

Through a trust, Ailes paid $36 million in cash for a six-bedroom, 12,747-square-foot mansion in Palm Beach. In November that year, the longtime Putnam County, NY resident filed a declaration of domicile in Florida, public records show, making the new property at 6 Ocean Lane his primary home.

The declaration had its perks. Ailes was a defendant in a potentially expensive sexual-harassment lawsuit by former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros and was about to become a defendant in another, by former contributor Julie Roginsky. A judgment against him could put his assets on the line. But making the Palm Beach mansion his primary residence could insulate the house and up to half an acre of land around it from any legal claims, thanks to a handy Florida law known as the “homestead exemption.”

Ailes died in May 2017 at age 77. Fox News, also a defendant in the suits, settled Roginsky’s lawsuit in December of that year and Tantaros’ lawsuit was dismissed in May 2018. Ailes’ widow, Elizabeth Ailes, declared the Palm Beach property her homestead for tax purposes in 2017 and 2018, property records show. A spokesperson for Elizabeth did not respond to requests for comment.

Curious if someone of means is in a financial pickle? Check if they recently bought a mansion in Florida or Texas.

Paying millions for a palatial home in the Sunshine State is usually an indicator of unfettered wealth. But it could also be a warning sign that the buyer may be trying to protect money from creditors or legal claims. Florida and Texas are among the few states with a so-called unlimited homestead exemption, a law enshrined in the state constitution stipulating that your home is off limits to creditors, no matter how much it is worth or how much you owe. For people staring down big debts or potentially costly lawsuits, this creates a powerful incentive to buy the priciest property they can find in a homestead state.

For people staring down big debts or potentially costly lawsuits, this creates a powerful incentive to buy the priciest property they can find in a homestead state.

Rising home prices mean more wealth is now beyond the reach of creditors. In three South Florida counties — Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach — alone, the combined appraised value of all luxury homes appraised at $1 million or more whose owners claim the homestead exemption in tax filings is $69.9 billion (see chart), according to The Real Deal’s analysis of the Florida Department of Revenue’s 2018 tax roll. The true market values of these properties could be much higher.*

“If you go to a lawyer and ask ‘how do I protect my assets?,’ the first thing they say is: ‘Buy a valuable homestead,’” said Jeffrey Davis, a law professor at the University of Florida. “Some people just sort of call it estate planning.”

“Some people just sort of call it estate planning.”

Funny laws

Residents of most U.S. states get a homestead exemption protecting some of their home equity from creditors. In California, for example, most people have a cap of $75,000, while in Virginia, the cap is $5,000.

Florida, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma and South Dakota, however, have no limit. In these states, buying an expensive property and claiming the homestead exemption has some of the perks of stashing your money in an offshore account — protection from creditors and lawsuits — without having to transfer money overseas.

“If you’re faced with losing what you have, the psychological toll it takes on you is the same whether you’re really rich or an average Joe,” said Wayne Patton, a Miami-based asset-protection attorney. “So the idea of moving somewhere where you can protect the bulk of what you have is very appealing.”

The list of the rich and famous who have taken advantage of the exemption is long, and it includes NFL legend O.J. Simpson, movie star Burt Reynolds and one of the original Miami Worldcenter developers, Marc Roberts.

Simpson had spent much of his life in California, but bought a home in Miami for $575,000 in 2000 and moved there after he lost a $33.5 million civil suit brought by the relatives of his murdered ex-wife.

“They got funny laws in this state,” Simpson told the New Yorker in 2001, explaining why he likes living in Florida.

The unlimited exemption has been around for more than a century, but its popularity is on the rise. Several offshore financial centers have increased transparency and made life harder for those looking to hide money abroad. Meanwhile, Florida’s rising property market over the past decade has made buying homes there more attractive.

In both Florida and Texas, debtors need to actually move into the property and show that they want to make it their permanent residence – by changing their voter registration, for example – to get the exemption. But they do not need to have lived in it for long. There are exceptions: those who buy a home with proceeds from criminal activity aren’t protected, and homeowners who fail to pay taxes or don’t make mortgage payments on their homestead can still see it seized.

10000 Holloway Way Drive

Evading creditors isn’t the main reason people claim the homestead exemption, asset-recovery lawyers say. Making a property your homestead carries significant tax benefits.

But even if people buy a property purely and explicitly to bilk their lenders, that’s totally legal – at least in Florida.

In 2001, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the exemption protects a property owner even if she bought the home with “the specific intent of hindering, delaying, or defrauding creditors.” The ruling has turned into a nightmare for lenders and asset-recovery lawyers nationwide. Because many debtors across the U.S. can, in theory, move to Florida at a moment’s notice and buy a house, they know that a part of their fortune equivalent to the value of a hypothetical Florida mansion can’t ever be seized by creditors. Of all of Florida’s eccentric laws, the homestead exemption is the one it sort of managed to force on the rest of the country as well.

“We’ll have a lawsuit against somebody where they will say ‘you can sue me, and might even win, but by the time you win I’m going to sell my house up here and all my other assets and I’m going to buy a house in Florida’,” said Schuyler Carroll, a New York-based asset-recovery attorney at Perkins Coie, adding that he’s been involved in dozens of cases where the exemption came up. “So we settle.”

Paupers with palaces

Tom Hicks made a fortune as a private-equity investor and a name for himself as the owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team and English soccer club Liverpool F.C. But the Dallas resident found himself in deep trouble after the financial crisis. In 2010, the Rangers filed for bankruptcy, and Hicks sold the team to pay off his creditors. In 2011, a group of former Rangers investors sued Hicks, claiming he had used the team to improperly enrich himself. JPMorgan Chase reportedly sought $35.4 million from him.

As Hicks fought for what was left of his wealth – he had also been forced to sell Liverpool F.C. – he could be fairly certain of one thing: no one could take away his palatial Dallas estate.

Hicks had bought the nearly 30,000-square-foot home at 10000 Holloway Drive in 1999 — the year his Dallas Stars hockey team won the Stanley Cup. Built by architect Maurice Fatio for Italian aristocrat Pio Crespi in the 1930s, the 25-acre property includes a library decked in walnut wood, crystal chandeliers, two guest houses, a pool and a lake. In 2013, Dallas County appraisers valued the property at $40 million. Property records show that Hicks claimed the homestead exemption on the property.

“He was pleading poverty, but everyone knew he had this absolutely phenomenal house,” recalled a source familiar with the Rangers bankruptcy. An attorney for Hicks declined to comment for this article.

Hicks can thank an earlier banking crisis for the law that shielded his mansion. In 1837, a year after Texas declared its independence from Mexico, a financial panic hit the U.S., leading to a wave of loan defaults and bank failures. The crisis would have a lasting impact on the state’s laws, according to Michael Ariens, a legal historian at St. Mary’s University.

“When Texas became a state in 1845, the idea that creditors could take the essentials of a farmer’s or workman’s way to earn a living was anathema,” Ariens said. “And there are always more debtors than creditors as voters.”

“He was pleading poverty, but everyone knew he had this absolutely phenomenal house,”

The homestead exemption eventually became a “sacrosanct” part of the constitution, according to Joe Wielebinski, a Texas-based asset-recovery attorney at Winstead PC. “Texas is a state with a history of people from other areas coming to this free, open and large state for a lot of reasons,” he said. “Whether it’s embarrassing or not, one of the reasons they came here was to avoid creditors in other states.”

In Texas, the debtor protection covers up to 10 acres in cities and up to 100 acres for an individual (200 for a family) in the countryside from creditors. In Florida, which included the exemption in its constitution in 1868, it covers just half an acre in a municipality and 160 acres outside a municipality. But as property prices in Miami and Palm Beach rose in the 1990s and early 2000s, debtors realized that they could squeeze a lot of money into half an acre.

there are always more debtors than creditors as voters.”

So sue me

In late 1989, former Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn’s Manhattan law firm went bankrupt. Weeks later, Kuhn bought a $1 million, five-bedroom home in Ponte Vedra Beach and claimed the homestead exemption.

“There is nothing inappropriate about my actions,” he told the New York Times in 1993: “People do this all the time.”

In 1996, Burt Reynolds filed for bankruptcy but kept his $2.5 million property near Palm Beach. Paul Bilzerian, a former corporate raider who went bankrupt in Florida for the second time in 2001 with $140 million in debt, got to keep his $5 million, 11-bedroom home in Tampa Bay, which included an indoor basketball court and a cinema.

Roger Ailes’ Palm Beach property at 6 Ocean Drive

Martin Kenney, a British Virgin Islands-based asset-recovery lawyer, recalls representing a hedge fund in the early 2000s. The fund had lent $20 million to a Florida doctor, who defaulted on the loan and pleaded poverty even though he owned a $7 million home near Sarasota, according to Kenney.

“We didn’t litigate over the house because we thought, ‘why do that if you’re just going to waste your time and lose?’” he said. “Like all policy choices, you end up with people that are unethical, abusing the privilege, doing things that probably the folks who created that homestead law never envisioned would happen.”

As abuse spread, the banking industry lobbied to change bankruptcy laws, facing fierce resistance from the real-estate industry and property owners in homestead states. In 1998, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee arguing that a “homestead cap is a clear violation of states’ rights with regard to state private property.” Current Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a senator representing Alabama, found himself on the other side, telling the Times in 2001 that the unlimited exemption “isn’t just.”

Burt Reynolds (Credit: Wikipedia)

The bankers prevailed and in 2005, Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. It stipulated, among other changes, that those who file for bankruptcy can no longer claim the unlimited exemption unless they have lived in the property for at least 40 months.

“If a bankruptcy filing occurs today, it’s not clear that a homestead is bulletproof from all creditors’ claims,” said Wielebinski, the asset-recovery attorney. “Thirty years ago, if you put money into your homestead you were virtually immune from the claims of all creditors except for the mortgage lender and taxes. So it’s a dramatic change.”

The housing crisis further eroded the appeal of the exemption. Property prices plummeted, and there’s no point in claiming the exemption on a home that’s underwater anyway.

“Since 2008 we saw less people claiming it because there was no equity in the house,” said Michael Bakst, a Palm Beach-based attorney at Greenspoon Marder who specializes in bankruptcy and insolvency cases.

But as the Florida real estate market recovered from the crisis and the state attracted more of the world’s wealthy, so did the homestead exemption.

Marc Roberts, a former boxing promoter and one of the original developers behind the Miami Worldcenter project, claimed the homestead exemption on his $1.5 million home in Jupiter, Florida, when he filed for bankruptcy in March 2010, court records show. Roberts could not be reached for comment.

Green Mountain Keurig Coffee founder Robert Stiller reportedly paid $55 million for a mansion in Palm Beach through an LLC in January 2014 while he was still a defendant in three shareholder lawsuits against Green Mountain. He already owned a home in the same town but soon declared the new property his homestead, public records show. Although there is no indication Stiller bought the property because of the exemption, his role as a defendant meant he could potentially benefit from the law. An attorney representing Stiller did not comment.

The exemption continues to be highly effective. Gregory Grossman, a Miami-based asset-recovery attorney at Sequor Law, said he was unable to contest the exemption on behalf of creditors in more than 95 percent of the cases he was involved in.

And even the fact that your money is tied up in your home isn’t too much of a problem for those with patience.

Take Tom Hicks. While the lawsuits against him dragged on, he continued to claim the Dallas estate as his primary residence. Then, in late 2012, Hicks settled a legal dispute with the Rangers, and on January 11, 2013, a lawsuit brought by his lenders was dismissed.

Two weeks later, news broke that Hicks had put the home on the market for $135 million — at the time reportedly the most expensive residential listing in the country. He later cut the asking price to $100 million and sold it in January 2016 for a reported $58 million.

*Note on methodology: TRD only counted the appraised value of the building and the appraised value of the land for up to half an acre in municipalities and 160 acres outside. For example, if a one-acre plot of land in a municipality was appraised at $2 million, we would add $1 million to the count for the half acre protected by the exemption.

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/2018/10/23/the-70b-loophole-or-how-to-turn-your-mansion-into-an-offshore-account/#new_tab via IFTTT

[theinvinciblenoob]

What’s in a camera? A lens, a shutter, a light-sensitive surface and, increasingly, a set of highly sophisticated algorithms. While the physical components are still improving bit by bit, Google, Samsung and Apple are increasingly investing in (and showcasing) improvements wrought entirely from code. Computational photography is the only real battleground now.

The reason for this shift is pretty simple: Cameras can’t get too much better than they are right now, or at least not without some rather extreme shifts in how they work. Here’s how smartphone makers hit the wall on photography, and how they were forced to jump over it.

Not enough buckets

An image sensor one might find in a digital camera

The sensors in our smartphone cameras are truly amazing things. The work that’s been done by the likes of Sony, OmniVision, Samsung and others to design and fabricate tiny yet sensitive and versatile chips is really pretty mind-blowing. For a photographer who’s watched the evolution of digital photography from the early days, the level of quality these microscopic sensors deliver is nothing short of astonishing.

But there’s no Moore’s Law for those sensors. Or rather, just as Moore’s Law is now running into quantum limits at sub-10-nanometer levels, camera sensors hit physical limits much earlier. Think about light hitting the sensor as rain falling on a bunch of buckets; you can place bigger buckets, but there are fewer of them; you can put smaller ones, but they can’t catch as much each; you can make them square or stagger them or do all kinds of other tricks, but ultimately there are only so many raindrops and no amount of bucket-rearranging can change that.

Sensors are getting better, yes, but not only is this pace too slow to keep consumers buying new phones year after year (imagine trying to sell a camera that’s 3 percent better), but phone manufacturers often use the same or similar camera stacks, so the improvements (like the recent switch to backside illumination) are shared amongst them. So no one is getting ahead on sensors alone.

See the new iPhone’s ‘focus pixels’ up close

Perhaps they could improve the lens? Not really. Lenses have arrived at a level of sophistication and perfection that is hard to improve on, especially at small scale. To say space is limited inside a smartphone’s camera stack is a major understatement — there’s hardly a square micron to spare. You might be able to improve them slightly as far as how much light passes through and how little distortion there is, but these are old problems that have been mostly optimized.

The only way to gather more light would be to increase the size of the lens, either by having it A: project outwards from the body; B: displace critical components within the body; or C: increase the thickness of the phone. Which of those options does Apple seem likely to find acceptable?

In retrospect it was inevitable that Apple (and Samsung, and Huawei, and others) would have to choose D: none of the above. If you can’t get more light, you just have to do more with the light you’ve got.

Isn’t all photography computational?

The broadest definition of computational photography includes just about any digital imaging at all. Unlike film, even the most basic digital camera requires computation to turn the light hitting the sensor into a usable image. And camera makers differ widely in the way they do this, producing different JPEG processing methods, RAW formats and color science.

For a long time there wasn’t much of interest on top of this basic layer, partly from a lack of processing power. Sure, there have been filters, and quick in-camera tweaks to improve contrast and color. But ultimately these just amount to automated dial-twiddling.

The first real computational photography features were arguably object identification and tracking for the purposes of autofocus. Face and eye tracking made it easier to capture people in complex lighting or poses, and object tracking made sports and action photography easier as the system adjusted its AF point to a target moving across the frame.

These were early examples of deriving metadata from the image and using it proactively, to improve that image or feeding forward to the next.

In DSLRs, autofocus accuracy and flexibility are marquee features, so this early use case made sense; but outside a few gimmicks, these “serious” cameras generally deployed computation in a fairly vanilla way. Faster image sensors meant faster sensor offloading and burst speeds, some extra cycles dedicated to color and detail preservation and so on. DSLRs weren’t being used for live video or augmented reality. And until fairly recently, the same was true of smartphone cameras, which were more like point and shoots than the all-purpose media tools we know them as today.

The limits of traditional imaging

Despite experimentation here and there and the occasional outlier, smartphone cameras are pretty much the same. They have to fit within a few millimeters of depth, which limits their optics to a few configurations. The size of the sensor is likewise limited — a DSLR might use an APS-C sensor 23 by 15 millimeters across, making an area of 345 mm2; the sensor in the iPhone XS, probably the largest and most advanced on the market right now, is 7 by 5.8 mm or so, for a total of 40.6 mm2.

Roughly speaking, it’s collecting an order of magnitude less light than a “normal” camera, but is expected to reconstruct a scene with roughly the same fidelity, colors and such — around the same number of megapixels, too. On its face this is sort of an impossible problem.

Improvements in the traditional sense help out — optical and electronic stabilization, for instance, make it possible to expose for longer without blurring, collecting more light. But these devices are still being asked to spin straw into gold.

Luckily, as I mentioned, everyone is pretty much in the same boat. Because of the fundamental limitations in play, there’s no way Apple or Samsung can reinvent the camera or come up with some crazy lens structure that puts them leagues ahead of the competition. They’ve all been given the same basic foundation.

All competition therefore comprises what these companies build on top of that foundation.

Image as stream

The key insight in computational photography is that an image coming from a digital camera’s sensor isn’t a snapshot, the way it is generally thought of. In traditional cameras the shutter opens and closes, exposing the light-sensitive medium for a fraction of a second. That’s not what digital cameras do, or at least not what they can do.

A camera’s sensor is constantly bombarded with light; rain is constantly falling on the field of buckets, to return to our metaphor, but when you’re not taking a picture, these buckets are bottomless and no one is checking their contents. But the rain is falling nevertheless.

To capture an image the camera system picks a point at which to start counting the raindrops, measuring the light that hits the sensor. Then it picks a point to stop. For the purposes of traditional photography, this enables nearly arbitrarily short shutter speeds, which isn’t much use to tiny sensors.

Why not just always be recording? Theoretically you could, but it would drain the battery and produce a lot of heat. Fortunately, in the last few years image processing chips have gotten efficient enough that they can, when the camera app is open, keep a certain duration of that stream — limited resolution captures of the last 60 frames, for instance. Sure, it costs a little battery, but it’s worth it.

Access to the stream allows the camera to do all kinds of things. It adds context.

Context can mean a lot of things. It can be photographic elements like the lighting and distance to subject. But it can also be motion, objects, intention.

A simple example of context is what is commonly referred to as HDR, or high dynamic range imagery. This technique uses multiple images taken in a row with different exposures to more accurately capture areas of the image that might have been underexposed or overexposed in a single exposure. The context in this case is understanding which areas those are and how to intelligently combine the images together.

This can be accomplished with exposure bracketing, a very old photographic technique, but it can be accomplished instantly and without warning if the image stream is being manipulated to produce multiple exposure ranges all the time. That’s exactly what Google and Apple now do.

Something more complex is of course the “portrait mode” and artificial background blur or bokeh that is becoming more and more common. Context here is not simply the distance of a face, but an understanding of what parts of the image constitute a particular physical object, and the exact contours of that object. This can be derived from motion in the stream, from stereo separation in multiple cameras, and from machine learning models that have been trained to identify and delineate human shapes.

These techniques are only possible, first, because the requisite imagery has been captured from the stream in the first place (an advance in image sensor and RAM speed), and second, because companies developed highly efficient algorithms to perform these calculations, trained on enormous data sets and immense amounts of computation time.

What’s important about these techniques, however, is not simply that they can be done, but that one company may do them better than the other. And this quality is entirely a function of the software engineering work and artistic oversight that goes into them.

A system to tell good fake bokeh from bad

DxOMark did a comparison of some early artificial bokeh systems; the results, however, were somewhat unsatisfying. It was less a question of which looked better, and more of whether they failed or succeeded in applying the effect. Computational photography is in such early days that it is enough for the feature to simply work to impress people. Like a dog walking on its hind legs, we are amazed that it occurs at all.

But Apple has pulled ahead with what some would say is an almost absurdly over-engineered solution to the bokeh problem. It didn’t just learn how to replicate the effect — it used the computing power it has at its disposal to create virtual physical models of the optical phenomenon that produces it. It’s like the difference between animating a bouncing ball and simulating realistic gravity and elastic material physics.

Why go to such lengths? Because Apple knows what is becoming clear to others: that it is absurd to worry about the limits of computational capability at all. There are limits to how well an optical phenomenon can be replicated if you are taking shortcuts like Gaussian blurring. There are no limits to how well it can be replicated if you simulate it at the level of the photon.

Similarly the idea of combining five, 10, or 100 images into a single HDR image seems absurd, but the truth is that in photography, more information is almost always better. If the cost of these computational acrobatics is negligible and the results measurable, why shouldn’t our devices be performing these calculations? In a few years they too will seem ordinary.

If the result is a better product, the computational power and engineering ability has been deployed with success; just as Leica or Canon might spend millions to eke fractional performance improvements out of a stable optical system like a $2,000 zoom lens, Apple and others are spending money where they can create value: not in glass, but in silicon.

Double vision

One trend that may appear to conflict with the computational photography narrative I’ve described is the advent of systems comprising multiple cameras.

This technique doesn’t add more light to the sensor — that would be prohibitively complex and expensive optically, and probably wouldn’t work anyway. But if you can free up a little space lengthwise (rather than depthwise, which we found impractical) you can put a whole separate camera right by the first that captures photos extremely similar to those taken by the first.

A mock-up of what a line of color iPhones could look like

Now, if all you want to do is re-enact Wayne’s World at an imperceptible scale (camera one, camera two… camera one, camera two…) that’s all you need. But no one actually wants to take two images simultaneously, a fraction of an inch apart.

These two cameras operate either independently (as wide-angle and zoom) or one is used to augment the other, forming a single system with multiple inputs.

The thing is that taking the data from one camera and using it to enhance the data from another is — you guessed it — extremely computationally intensive. It’s like the HDR problem of multiple exposures, except far more complex as the images aren’t taken with the same lens and sensor. It can be optimized, but that doesn’t make it easy.

So although adding a second camera is indeed a way to improve the imaging system by physical means, the possibility only exists because of the state of computational photography. And it is the quality of that computational imagery that results in a better photograph — or doesn’t. The Light camera with its 16 sensors and lenses is an example of an ambitious effort that simply didn’t produce better images, though it was using established computational photography techniques to harvest and winnow an even larger collection of images.

Light and code

The future of photography is computational, not optical. This is a massive shift in paradigm and one that every company that makes or uses cameras is currently grappling with. There will be repercussions in traditional cameras like SLRs (rapidly giving way to mirrorless systems), in phones, in embedded devices and everywhere that light is captured and turned into images.

Sometimes this means that the cameras we hear about will be much the same as last year’s, as far as megapixel counts, ISO ranges, f-numbers and so on. That’s okay. With some exceptions these have gotten as good as we can reasonably expect them to be: Glass isn’t getting any clearer, and our vision isn’t getting any more acute. The way light moves through our devices and eyeballs isn’t likely to change much.

What those devices do with that light, however, is changing at an incredible rate. This will produce features that sound ridiculous, or pseudoscience babble on stage, or drained batteries. That’s okay, too. Just as we have experimented with other parts of the camera for the last century and brought them to varying levels of perfection, we have moved onto a new, non-physical “part” which nonetheless has a very important effect on the quality and even possibility of the images we take.

via TechCrunch

[thegloober]

The future of photography is code

What’s in a camera? A lens, a shutter, a light-sensitive surface, and, increasingly, a set of highly sophisticated algorithms. While the physical components are still improving bit by bit, Google, Samsung, and Apple are increasingly investing in (and showcasing) improvements wrought entirely from code. Computational photography is the only real battleground now.

The reason for this shift is pretty simple: cameras can’t get too much better than they are right now, or at least not without some rather extreme shifts in how they work. Here’s how smartphone makers hit the wall on photography, and how they were forced to jump over it.

Not enough buckets

An image sensor one might find in a digital camera.

The sensors in our smartphone cameras are truly amazing things. The work that’s been done by the likes of Sony, Omnivision, Samsung and others to design and fabricate tiny yet sensitive and versatile chips is really pretty mind-blowing. For a photographer who’s watched the evolution of digital photography from the early days, the level of quality these microscopic sensors deliver is nothing short of astonishing.

But there’s no Moore’s Law for those sensors. Or rather, just as Moore’s Law is now running into quantum limits at sub-10-nanometer levels, camera sensors hit physical limits much earlier. Think about light hitting the sensor as rain falling on a bunch of buckets; you can place bigger buckets, but there are fewer of them; you can put smaller ones, but they can’t catch as much each; you can make them square or stagger them or do all kinds of other tricks, but ultimately there are only so many raindrops and no amount of bucket-rearranging can change that.

Sensors are getting better, yes, but not only is this pace too slow to keep consumers buying new phones year after year (imagine trying to sell a camera that’s 3 percent better), but phone manufacturers often use the same or similar camera stacks, so the improvements (like the recent switch to backside illumination) are shared amongst them. So no one is getting ahead on sensors alone.

Perhaps they could improve the lens? Not really. Lenses have arrived at a level of sophistication and perfection that is hard to improve on, especially at small scale. To say space is limited inside a smartphone’s camera stack is a major understatement — there’s hardly a square micron to spare. You might be able to improve them slightly as far as how much light passes through and how little distortion there is, but these are old problems that have been mostly optimized.

The only way to gather more light would be to increase the size of the lens, either by having it A: project outwards from the body; B: displace critical components within the body; or C: increase the thickness of the phone. Which of those options does Apple seem likely to find acceptable?

In retrospect it was inevitable that Apple (and Samsung, and Huawei, and others) would have to choose D: none of the above. If you can’t get more light, you just have to do more with the light you’ve got.

Isn’t all photography computational?

The broadest definition of computational photography includes just about any digital imaging at all. Unlike film, even the most basic digital camera requires computation to turn the light hitting the sensor into a usable image. And camera makers differ widely in the way they do this, producing different JPEG processing methods, RAW formats, and color science.

For a long time there wasn’t much of interest on top of this basic layer, partly from a lack of processing power. Sure, there have been filters, and quick in-camera tweaks to improve contrast and color. But ultimately these just amount to automated dial-twiddling.

The first real computational photography features were arguably object identification and tracking for the purposes of autofocus. Face and eye tracking made it easier to capture people in complex lighting or poses, and object tracking made sports and action photography easier as the system adjusted its AF point to a target moving across the frame.

These were early examples of deriving metadata from the image and using it proactively, to improve that image or feeding forward to the next.

In DSLRs, autofocus accuracy and flexibility are marquee features, so this early use case made sense; but outside a few gimmicks, these “serious” cameras generally deployed computation in a fairly vanilla way. Faster image sensors meant faster sensor offloading and burst speeds, some extra cycles dedicated to color and detail preservation, and so on. DSLRs weren’t being used for live video or augmented reality. And until fairly recently, the same was true of smartphone cameras, which were more like point and shoots than the all-purpose media tools we know them as today.

The limits of traditional imaging

Despite experimentation here and there and the occasional outlier, smartphone cameras are pretty much the same. They have to fit within a few millimeters of depth, which limits their optics to a few configurations. The size of the sensor is likewise limited — a DSLR might use an APS-C sensor 23 by 15 millimeters across, making an area of 345 mm2; the sensor in the iPhone XS, probably the largest and most advanced on the market right now, is 7 by 5.8mm or so, for a total of 40.6 mm2.

Roughly speaking it’s collecting an order of magnitude less light than a “normal” camera, but is expected to reconstruct a scene with roughly the same fidelity, colors, and such — around the same number of megapixels, too. On its face this is sort of an impossible problem.

Improvements in the traditional sense help out — optical and electronic stabilization, for instance, make it possible to expose for longer without blurring, collecting more light. But these devices are still being asked to spin straw into gold.

Luckily, as I mentioned, everyone is pretty much in the same boat. Because of the fundamental limitations in play, there’s no way Apple or Samsung can reinvent the camera or come up with some crazy lens structure that puts them leagues ahead of the competition. They’ve all been given the same basic foundation.

All competition therefore comprises what these companies build on top of that foundation.

Image as stream

The key insight in computational photography is that an image coming from a digital camera’s sensor isn’t a snapshot, the way it is generally thought of. In traditional cameras the shutter opens and closes, exposing the light-sensitive medium for a fraction of a second. That’s not what digital cameras do, or at least not what they can do.

A camera’s sensor is constantly bombarded with light; rain is constantly falling on the field of buckets, to return to our metaphor, but when you’re not taking a picture, these buckets are bottomless and no one is checking their contents. But the rain is falling nevertheless.

To capture an image the camera system picks point at which to start counting the raindrops, measuring the light that hits the sensor. Then it picks a point to stop. For the purposes of traditional photography, this enables nearly arbitrarily short shutter speeds, which isn’t much use to tiny sensors.

Why not just always be recording? Theoretically you could, but it would drain the battery and produce a lot of heat. Fortunately, in the last few years image processing chips have gotten efficient enough that they can, when the camera app is open, keep a certain duration of that stream — limited resolution captures of the last 60 frames, for instance. Sure, it costs a little battery, but it’s worth it.

Access to the stream allows the camera to do all kinds of things. It adds context.

Context can mean a lot of things. It can be photographic elements like the lighting and distance to subject. But it can also be motion, objects, intention.

A simple example of context is what is commonly referred to as HDR, or high dynamic range imagery. This technique uses multiple images taken in a row with different exposures to more accurately capture areas of the image that might have been underexposed or overexposed in a single exposure. The context in this case is understanding which areas those are and how to intelligently combine the images together.

This can be accomplished with exposure bracketing, a very old photographic technique, but it can be accomplished instantly and without warning if the image stream is being manipulated to produce multiple exposure ranges all the time. That’s exactly what Google and Apple now do.

Something more complex is of course the “portrait mode” and artificial background blur or bokeh that is becoming more and more common. Context here is not simply the distance of a face, but an understanding of what parts of the image constitute a particular physical object, and the exact contours of that object. This can be derived from motion in the stream, from stereo separation in multiple cameras, and from machine learning models that have been trained to identify and delineate human shapes.

These techniques are only possible, first, because the requisite imagery has been captured from the stream in the first place (an advance in image sensor and RAM speed), and second, because companies developed highly efficient algorithms to perform these calculations, trained on enormous datasets and immense amounts of computation time.

What’s important about these techniques, however, is not simply that they can be done, but that one company may do them better than the other. And this quality is entirely a function of the software engineering work and artistic oversight that goes into them.

DxOMark did a comparison of some early artificial bokeh systems; the results, however, were somewhat unsatisfying. It was less a question of which looked better, and more of whether they failed or succeeded in applying the effect. Computational photography is in such early days that it is enough for the feature to simply work to impress people. Like a dog walking on its hind legs, we are amazed that it occurs at all.

But Apple has pulled ahead with what some would say is an almost absurdly over-engineered solution to the bokeh problem. It didn’t just learn how to replicate the effect — it used the computing power it has at its disposal to create virtual physical models of the optical phenomenon that produces it. It’s like the difference between animating a bouncing ball and simulating realistic gravity and elastic material physics.

Why go to such lengths? Because Apple knows what is becoming clear to others: that it is absurd to worry about the limits of computational capability at all. There are limits to how well an optical phenomenon can be replicated if you are taking shortcuts like Gaussian blurring. There are no limits to how well it can be replicated if you simulate it at the level of the photon.

Similarly the idea of combining five, ten, or a hundred images together into a single HDR image seems absurd but the truth is that in photography, more information is almost always better. If the cost of these computational acrobatics is negligible and the results measurable, why shouldn’t our devices be performing these calculations? In a few years they too will seem ordinary.

If the result is a better product, the computational power and engineering ability has been deployed with success; just as Leica or Canon might spend millions to eke fractional performance improvements out of a stable optical system like a $2,000 zoom lens, Apple and others are spending money where they can create value: not in glass, but in silicon.

Double vision

One trend that may appear to conflict with the computational photography narrative I’ve described is the advent of systems comprising multiple cameras.

This technique doesn’t add more light to the sensor — that would be prohibitively complex and expensive optically, and probably wouldn’t work anyway. But if you can free up a little space lengthwise (rather than depthwise, which we found impractical) you can put a whole separate camera right by the first that captures photos extremely similar to those taken by the first.

A mockup of what a line of color iPhones could look like.

Now, if all you want to do is re-enact Wayne’s World at an imperceptible scale (camera one, camera two… camera one, camera two…) that’s all you need. But no one actually wants to take two images simultaneously, a fraction of an inch apart.

These two cameras operate either independently (as wide-angle and zoom) or one is used to augment the other, forming a single system with multiple inputs.

The thing is that taking the data from one camera and using it to enhance the data from another is — you guessed it — extremely computationally intensive. It’s like the HDR problem of multiple exposures, except far more complex as the images aren’t taken with the same lens and sensor. It can be optimized, but that doesn’t make it easy.

So although adding a second camera is indeed a way to improve the imaging system by physical means, the possibility only exists because of the state of computational photography. And it is the quality of that computational imagery that results in a better photograph — or doesn’t. The Light camera with its 16 sensors and lenses is an example of an ambitious effort that simply didn’t produce better images, though it was using established computational photography techniques to harvest and winnow an even larger collection of images.

Light and code

The future of photography is computational, not optical. This is a massive shift in paradigm and one that every company that makes or uses cameras is currently grappling with. There will be repercussions in traditional cameras like SLRs (rapidly giving way to mirrorless systems), in phones, in embedded devices, and everywhere that light is captured and turned into images.

Sometimes this means that the cameras we hear about will be much the same as last year’s, as far as megapixel counts, ISO ranges, f-numbers, and so on. That’s okay. With some exceptions these have gotten as good as we can reasonably expect them to be: glass isn’t getting any clearer, and our vision isn’t getting any more acute. The way light moves through our devices and eyeballs isn’t likely to change much.

What those devices do with that light, however, is changing at an incredible rate. This will produce features that sound ridiculous, or pseudoscience babble on stage, or drained batteries. That’s okay, too. Just as we have experimented with other parts of the camera for the last century and brought them to varying levels of perfection, we have moved onto a new, non-physical “part” which nonetheless has a very important effect on the quality and even possibility of the images we take.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/the-future-of-photography-is-code-2/

[nazimatthew-blog]

FELLOW PARTY MEMBERS:

The 24th of February is always, and rightly so, a day of vivid memories for us. On this date and from this very hall began the Movement's amazing march to victory, which bore it to the helm of the Reich, to leadership of the nation and its destiny. This day is a great day for me too. Surely, it is seldom that a political leader can stand before the same band of followers that hailed his first great public appearance twenty-one years before, and repeat the same program. Seldom can a man proclaim the same doctrines and put them into practice for twenty-one years without at any time having had to relinquish a single part of his original program. In 1920, when we met for the first time in this hall, many of you must have asked yourselves: "Dear me, a new party, another new party! Why do we want a new party? Don't we have parties enough?"

If the new movement had been or had intended to be nothing but a continuation of the old parties or an addition to existing parties, such an objection would indeed have been justified. There were certainly more than enough parties in those days. But, after all, our movement was something quite different from all the existing and incipient parties of the time. It was a movement that declared for the first time and from the very outset that it had no intention of representing the definite, clearly outlined interests of individual classes. It did not stand for town or farm. It did not represent Catholic or Protestant interests; nor did it represent individual sections of the country. This was a movement which was definitely centered upon the concept of the German people. It was not a class party, sworn to uphold the right or the left, attempting to divide the nation, but one which from its very beginning had no thought for anything but the German people as a whole.

Thus began a heroic struggle, opposed at its inception by nearly all. Nevertheless, the essential objects of the movement embraced the decisive element. Its clear and unambiguous aim did not allow the movement to become the tool of definite and limited individual interests, but raised it above all special obligations to the particular obligation of serving the German nation in its entirety, of safeguarding its interests regardless of momentary dissensions or confused thoughts. Thus, today, after 21 years, I again stand before you.

In those days, we were in the middle of a great collapse; Versailles oppressed us all heavily. With heavy hearts individuals throughout the entire German Reich began to try to find a way out of this profound misery. There were many different views as to the reasons for the collapse. Political mistakes of the most serious kind had undoubtedly been made, not during the war years but many years before. It had been apparent that a storm was brewing. Certain warmongers throughout the world-the very ones who are doing the same thing today-were mobilizing the whole of Europe against Germany.

Although favorable opportunities of opposing these warmongers-and, moreover, of opposing them in good time-had presented themselves, the German government of that time proved a political failure. At the beginning of the Great War, too, the political leadership in both internal and external affairs was as clumsy as possible and, from the psychological point of view, utterly wrong.

However, in one particular sphere no reproach could be leveled against them: They had not wanted the war. On the contrary, had they wanted the war they would certainly have prepared for it differently, and they would have chosen a more favorable time for it. No, their greatest crime-if a mistake can be called thus-was that, although they knew that war was inevitable, they failed to act at the decisive hour and, consequently, at a more propitious time. Military mistakes were made too-many military mistakes. Yet despite all this, one fact remains: the German soldier, unconquered, defied his enemies for over four years.

A unique epic was enacted during these four years. Regardless of the greatness of our present victories or of our victories in the future, the German nation will always look back with deep emotion and inexpressible feelings to the great days of the World War when, alone and forsaken by the whole world, it fought a heroic struggle against an overwhelming superiority in numbers and an overpowering mass of armaments, yet never yielded one inch until the collapse occurred for which not the man at the front but disintegration at home was responsible.

This brings us to the really fundamental and decisive reason, to the actual cause of the collapse which took place at that time. The German nation had for several decades been exposed to gradual internal disintegration. It was divided into two worlds. We are only too conscious of them today, we old National Socialists, for we fought and struggled against them. We stood between these two worlds, and it was out of them that our movement gradually came into being.

You have not forgotten the political conditions of those days, my old party members-the conditions of our political life. You still remember the placards of the two great conflicting ideas-the bourgeoisie on the one side and the proletariat on the other; on the one side nationalism, on the other socialism. Between these two there yawned a gulf which, it was asserted, could never be bridged. The nationalist idea of the bourgeoisie was exclusively bourgeois, and the socialist ideal was exclusively Marxian. The bourgeois ideal was limited to a class; the Marxian ideal was unlimited internationally. But, fundamentally both movements were already sterile. When I first stood before you here, no sensible person believed that there would ever be any clear decision on this point. This, after all, was the decisive issue. This struggle was inevitable if our nation were not to disintegrate completely. One side would have to emerge from it as the decisive victor.

But even this was out of the question at the time, for the movements were already beginning to dissolve and to split up. They had lost their youthful élan. On the one side, the bourgeoisie was gradually dividing itself into countless parties, societies, groups, associations, bodies representing municipal and rural interests, house and land-owners, etc. On the other side were the Marxian movements, which were likewise disintegrating more and more rapidly. Majority Socialists, Independent Socialists, Communists, Radical Communists, the Communist Labor Party, Syndicalists, and so forth: Who can still remember the struggle of all these groups against one another?

Every placard was a declaration of war, not only against their opponents but often against their own world as well. The two camps that faced us then must finally have led to the complete dissolution of the German community, and naturally, therefore, to the waste and misuse of the German people's entire strength.

Regardless of the decisions to be made, whether they related to internal matters or foreign policy, whether they were economic or purely internal questions, none of them could be successfully solved unless the whole nation stood solidly united for the purpose.

Versailles confronted us at that time. When I made my first appearance in this hall, my whole political conscience imposed upon me the duty of protesting against this subjection, the most ignominious of all times, and of calling upon the nation to take up arms against it. From the point of view of foreign policy, the dictate deprived the German nation of all its rights and rendered it defenseless. The foreign situation, moreover, also demanded a clear decision. The shameful dictate was intended to enslave the German nation forever. No limits had been set to this slavery. From the very outset they said: "We won't state a definite sum for you to pay, because we ourselves do not know what you are able to pay. From time to time we will fix fresh sums; but you must pledge yourselves immediately to pay everything we determine." And that is what the German governments of those days did.

The fulfillment of these obligations would have reduced Germany to complete ruin forever. And when a Frenchman said that the aim was really to annihilate 20 million Germans, that was by no means mere imagination. It was entirely possible to calculate the time when the German nation would actually number 20 or 3o million less. This enslavement-disastrous even from the purely economic point of view-was now opposed by the Germans, divided into two great camps. Their points of view were completely different; but both placed their hopes in international ideals. The more intellectually inclined camp said: "We believe in a world-conscience, in world justice. We believe in the League of Nations at Geneva." The others were more proletarian and said: "We believe in international solidarity," and things of that sort. But they all believed in something outside their own people-were ever ready to take refuge in the hope that others would come and help them.

The conception of the new Movement, whose fundamentals can be expressed in a single sentence: "The Lord helps those who help themselves," opposed this. That is not only a very pious phrase, but a very just one. For one cannot assume that God exists to help people who are too cowardly and too lazy to help themselves and think that God exists only to make up for the weakness of mankind. He does not exist for that purpose. He has always, at all times, blessed only those who were prepared to fight their own battles. We have seen what can be expected from the help of others. An American President appeared and solemnly declared that if we laid down our arms we should receive this, that and the other thing. We laid down our arms, and the oath was broken and forgotten. When the gentlemen were reminded of it they became very unpleasant. It did not matter how much democratic Germany begged and prayed, she was granted not the slightest relief, not to mention equal justice. Democratic Germany was certainly treated justly: she was treated just as she deserved.

It was in this very town that I began my struggle, my political struggle against Versailles. You know this, you old members of my party. How often did I speak against Versailles! I probably studied this treaty more than any other man. To this day, I have not forgotten it. The Treaty could not be abolished by humility, by submission. It could only be abolished by reliance upon ourselves, by the strength of the German nation.

The days of bitter struggle necessarily led to a selection of leaders. When today I appear before the nation and look at the ranks that surround me, I look at a band of men, real men who stand for something. On the other hand when I regard the cabinets of my opponents, I can only say: "Quite incapable of being put in charge even of one of my smallest groups." Hard times resulted in a selection of first class men who naturally caused us a little anxiety now and then. Everybody who is worth his salt is sometimes difficult to handle. In normal times it is not always easy to get divergent elements to work together instead of against one another. But as soon as danger threatens, they form the most resolute body of men. Just as selection is a natural consequence of war and brings real leaders to the fore among soldiers, so in the world of politics selection is the outcome of struggle. It was a result of this slow development, this eternal struggle against opposition, that we gradually acquired leaders with whose aid we can today achieve anything.

When, on the other hand, I look at the rest of the world, I am obliged to say: "They were simply asleep while this miracle was taking place. Even today they refuse to grasp it. They do not realize what we are, nor do they realize what they themselves are. They go on like a figure of "Justice"-with blindfolded eyes. They reject what does not suit them. They do not realize that two revolutions in Europe have created something new and tremendous. We are fully conscious of the fact that a second revolution, where the assumption of power occurred earlier than it did in our country, proceeded parallel with ours. The Fascist Revolution, too, yielded the same results. Complete identity exists between our two revolutions, not only as regards aims, but also as regards methods. Over and above this there is our friendship, which is more than cooperation with a purpose in view. Nor do our opponents realize yet, that once I regard a man as my friend, I shall stand by him and that in doing this, I have no eye for profit. I am not a democrat and consequently no mental contortionist. Nor am I a war profiteer, but a man who hopes that, at least after his death, common justice will concede that the struggle of his whole life served a single great ideal.

I wish to display no faltering in this matter. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the bond uniting the two revolutions, and especially the bond uniting their two leaders, is indissoluble, and that one will always support the other. Moreover, it is a common enemy whom we shall defeat.

There was a time when Italy, Fascist Italy, which is engaged in the same struggle as we are, which is shut in in the same way as we are, which is as over-populated as we are and, up until now, has been given no better chance of living than we, kept powerful enemies engaged on our behalf. Numerous British ships were engaged in the Mediterranean; numerous British airplanes were engaged in the African colonies. This was a very good thing for us, for, as I told you the other day, our warfare at sea is just, beginning. The reason for this is that we first wanted to train new crews for the new submarines which will now make their appearance on the scene. Let no one doubt that they are about to appear.

Just two hours ago I received a communiqué from the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy stating that the reports of the last two days from our ships and submarines on the high seas reveal that another 215,000 tons have been sunk; that of this total 190,000 tons were sunk by submarines alone, and that this figure includes a single convoy of 125,000 tons which was destroyed yesterday.

From March and April on, those gentlemen will have to be prepared for something very different. They will see whether we have been asleep during the winter, or whether we have made good use of our time. During the long months when we had so few submarines to fight our battles, Italy kept large forces engaged. It does not matter to us whether our Stukas attack British ships in the North Sea or in the Mediterranean; the result is always the same. One thing is certain: Wherever Britain touches the continent she will immediately have to reckon with us, and wherever British ships appear, our submarines will attack them until the hour of decision comes. Thus, except for Germany, only Italy has had a revolution which, in the long run, will lead, must lead and has led to the construction of a new national community.

We had to exercise patience for many a long year, and I can only say: My opponents may believe that they can terrify me with the threat of time, but I have learned to wait, and I have never been idle while waiting. We had to wait ten years after 1923 until we at last came into power. But you old members of the Party know that we accomplished much in those ten years. What did we not achieve; what did we not construct? The movement which came to power in 1933 was different from that of 1923. We had made good use of our time. It is for this reason that such threats do not frighten us. We were never in the habit of setting ourselves a limit and saying: This must be done on March 1, or June 15, or September 7.

It is only the journalists of our opponents who said that this was so. They always knew everything. They said: "If the National Socialists do not come to power by October 1928, they are lost." We were not lost. Again they said: "If the National Socialists do not come into power after the September elections in 1930, National Socialism will be a thing of the past." It was not a thing of the past, although we did not come into power. Then in 1932 they said: "National Socialism is dead. The Fuehrer has refused to enter the cabinet. He does not want any responsibility. He is too cowardly to accept it. We have always said so. We knew it. He shirks responsibility."

These sharp-witted journalists who are now in England-they are no longer among us-knew all about it. Now they said: "August 13 is the turning point; National Socialism is done for." August 13 came-and National Socialism was not done for. A few months later they had to fix a new date. Finally came January 30, 1933. Then they said: "Well, now they have made their mistake! They have gained power, and in six weeks they will be finished-three months at the most. Three months, and that will be the end of them." The six weeks and the three months passed, and still we were not finished.

And so they kept on fixing new dates for our downfall, and now, in wartime, they are doing exactly the same thing. And why not? They are the same people, the same prophets, the same political diviners who prophesied the future so wonderfully when they were here. Now they are employed as assistants in the British Ministry of Information and the British Foreign Office. They always know exactly that on such and such a date the Germans will be finished. We have experienced that more than once. You all know what they said. I need only refer to the celebrated utterance of a great British statesman whom you in Munich know by sight-Mr. Chamberlain. A few days before April 9, of last year, he said: "Thank God, he has missed the bus." I can remind you of another-the British Commander-in-Chief-who said: "A few months ago I was afraid, now I am afraid no longer. They have missed their opportunity. Besides, they only have young generals. That is their mistake and their misfortune; it is the same with all their leaders. They have lost their opportunity. It is all over." A few weeks later this general had departed. Probably he too was too young.

Today they are doing exactly the same thing. They always fix final dates. In the autumn they said: "If they don't land now, all is well. In the spring of 1941 Britain will transfer the offensive to the Continent." I am still waiting for the British offensive. They have transferred the offensive elsewhere, and now, unfortunately, we must run after them wherever they happen to be. But we shall find them wherever they run. And we shall strike them where they are most vulnerable.

Thus, 21 years of a dauntless struggle for our Movement have passed. After 13 years we at last came to power. Then came years of preparation of our foreign policy, of gigantic work at home. You know that it is all an exact repetition of what happened in the party. We asked nothing of the world but equal rights, just as we asked for the same rights at home. At home we demanded the right to meet freely, the right which the others possessed. We demanded the right of free speech, the same right as a parliamentary party as the others held. We were refused and persecuted with terrorism. Nevertheless, we built up our organization and won the day.

In the same way, I appeared before the world and said: "I ask for no more than the others have. I am prepared to disarm to the limit." I constantly made new proposals, but we were ridiculed and our demands were refused, exactly as they had been at home. I wanted to negotiate for everything. There can be no better way of achieving anything for a people than by negotiating. It costs less, and, above all, no blood is shed. Who would be so mad as to take by force anything that he could get by reason?

But there are things which must be left to Germany, because she must live. Others have no right to cut us off. It was monstrous for a nation that already possessed 15 million square miles to take another million square miles from another nation. It is intolerable for us to be the puppets of other nations and to have them prescribe for us, for example, what economic policy we are to pursue. We are carrying out the economic policy which is most advantageous to the German people. I am not persuading the others. If they want to sit on their money bags, let them do so. But when they say: "You do the same," I shall take care not to buy dead gold with the productive power of German workmen.

I purchase the necessities of life with the productive power of German workmen. The results of our economic policy speak for us, not for the gold standard people. For we, the poor have abolished unemployment because we no longer pay homage to this madness, because we regard our entire economic existence as a production problem and no longer as a capitalistic problem. We placed the whole organized strength of the nation, the discipline of the entire nation, behind our economic policy. We explained to the nation that it was madness to wage internal economic wars between the various classes, in which they all perish together.

Of course, a fundamental social principle was necessary to achieve this. It is today no longer possible to build up a state on a capitalistic basis. The peoples eventually begin to stir. The awakening of the peoples cannot be prevented by wars. On the contrary, war will only hasten it. Such states will be ruined by financial catastrophes which will destroy the foundations of their own former financial policy.

The gold standard will not emerge victorious from this war. Rather, the national economic systems will conquer. And these will carry on among themselves the trade that is necessary for them. Whether this does or does not suit a few gold-standard bankers in the world is quite immaterial. And if some of these gold bankers declare: "We cannot tolerate your trading with this or that country," it is none of their business. In future the peoples will decline to accept rules as to their trade policy laid down by a few bankers. They will follow the policy which is best adapted to their needs.

In this respect we can look to the future with confidence. Germany is an immense factor in world economy, not only as a producer but also as a consumer. We certainly have a great market for our goods. But we are not only seeking markets; we are also the greatest buyers. The Western world wants, on the one hand, to live upon its empires and, on the other hand, to export from its empires as well. That is impossible because in the long run the nations cannot carry on one-sided trade. They not only have to buy, but also have to sell. They can sell nothing to these empires. The peoples will therefore trade with us in the future, regardless of whether this happens to suit certain bankers or not. Therefore we will not establish our economic policy to suit the conceptions or desires of bankers in New York or London.

Germany's economic policy is conducted exclusively in accordance with the interests of the German people. In this respect I am a fanatical socialist, one who has ever in mind the interests of all his people. I am not the slave of a few international banking syndicates. I am under no obligation to any capitalist group. I sprang from the German people. My Movement, our Movement, is a German people's Movement, and it is only to this German people that we are obligated.

Our economic policy, I repeat, is determined solely by the interests of the German people. From this principle we shall never depart. If the rest of the world says: "War," I can only say: "Very well. I do not want war, but no one, however peaceable, can live in peace if his neighbor intends to force a quarrel."

I am not one of those who sees such a war coming and starts whining about it. I have said and done all that I could; I have made proposal after proposal to Britain; likewise to France. These proposals were always ridiculed-rejected with scorn. However, when I saw that the other side intended to fight, I naturally did that which as a National Socialist of the early days, I did once before: I forged a powerful weapon of defense. And, just as of old, I proclaimed that we should be not merely strong enough to stand the blows of others but strong enough to deal blows in return. I built up the German armed forces as a military instrument of state policy, so that if war were inevitable, these forces could deliver crushing blows.

Only a few days ago, an American general declared before an investigating committee in the House of Representatives that in 1936 Churchill had personally assured him, "Germany is becoming too strong for us. She must be destroyed, and I will do everything in my power to bring about her destruction."

A little later than 1936, I publicly issued a warning against this man and his activities for the first time. When I noticed that a certain British clique, incited by the Jews-who are of course, the fellows who kindle the flames everywhere-was intentionally provoking war, I immediately made all preparations on my part to arm the nation. And you, my old Party comrades, know that when I speak it is not a mere matter of words, for I act accordingly. We worked like Titans. The armaments we have manufactured in the past few years are really the proudest achievement that the world has ever seen. If the rest of the world tells us: "We are doing likewise now," I can only reply: "By all means do so, for I have already done it. But above all, don't tell me any of your tales. I am an expert, a specialist in rearmament. I know exactly what can be made from steel and what can be made of aluminum. I know what achievements can be expected of men and what cannot be expected. Your tales do not impress me in the least. I enlisted the strength of the whole German nation in good time to assist in our arming and, if necessary, I shall enlist that of half Europe. I am prepared for all impending conflicts and consequently face them calmly." Let the others face them with equal calm.

I place my confidence in the best army in the world, in the best army which the German nation has ever possessed. It is numerically strong, it has the finest weapons and is better led than ever before. We have a body of young leaders who have not merely proved their worth in the present war but, I can well say, have covered themselves with glory. Wherever we look today, we see a bodyguard of chosen men to whom the German soldiers have been entrusted. They in their turn are the leaders of soldiers who are the best trained in the world, who are armed with the finest weapons on earth. Behind these soldiers and their leaders stands the German nation, the whole German people. In the midst of this people, forming its very core, is the National Socialist Movement which began its existence in this room 21 years ago,-this Movement the like of which does not exist in the democratic countries, this Movement whose only pendant is fascism. Nation and army, party and state are today one indivisible whole. No power in the world can loosen what is so firmly welded together. Only fools can imagine that the year 1918 can be repeated.

We encountered the same ideas among our plutocrats at home. They, too, always hoped for internal disruption, dissolution, civil war of German against German. Exactly the same ideas are encountered today. They say: "There will be a revolution in Germany in six weeks." They do not know who is going to make the revolution. There are no revolutionaries among us. Thomas Mann and others like him went to England. Some have already left England for America, because England is too close to their revolution's future field of operations. They are establishing their headquarters far from their future field of battle. Nevertheless, they assert that the revolution will come. Who will make it? I do not know. How it will be made, I do not know either. All I know is that in Germany there can be, at the most, only a few fools who might think of revolution, and that they are all behind iron bars.

Then they said: "Winter, General Winter is coming, and he will force Germany to her knees." But, unfortunately, the German people are "winter-proof." German history has passed through I do not know how many tens of thousands of winters. We will get through this one, too.

Then they say: "Starvation will come." We are prepared against this, too. We know the humanitarian sentiments of our British opponents and so have made our preparations. I believe that starvation will reach them before it reaches us.

Then they said: "Time is on our side." But time is only on the side of those who work. No one has been harder at world than we. Of that I can assure them. In fact, all these vague hopes which they are building up are absolutely childish and ridiculous.

In general, I should like to add one thing: The German people can look back upon many thousands of years of development. Its history goes back 2000 years. For 1000 years there has been a German Reich, a Reich which actually contained only Germans. During this time our people survived the most astounding blows of fate. It will also survive everything that the present or the future may bring. Indeed, it will do so even better, because it is my belief that there has always been a German people and, for more than 1000 years, a German Reich, but there has never before been German unity nor the compact organization of our people that we possess today, and there has not always been the leadership which the German people possesses today.

And so, in all due modesty, I have just one more thing to say to my opponents: I have taken up the challenge of many democratic adversaries and up to now I have always emerged the victor from the conflict. I do not believe that this struggle is being carried on under different conditions. That is to say, the relation of the forces involved is exactly the same as before. In any case I am grateful to Providence that this struggle, having become inevitable, broke out in my lifetime and at a time when I still feel young and vigorous. Just now I am feeling particularly vigorous. Spring is coming, the spring which we all welcome. The season is approaching in which one can measure forces. I know that, although they realize the terrible hardships of the struggle, millions of German soldiers are at this moment thinking exactly the same thing.

We now have a year of incredible successes behind us-also of severe sacrifices, not as a whole, but certainly individually. We know, however, that these successes have not been gained without effort. Countless German men staked their lives at the front with the greatest bravery and are still doing so unflinchingly. What so many of our men are achieving in our regiments, in our tanks, in our airplanes, in our submarines, on our ships and everywhere else in our formations is without parallel. Better and braver soldiers have never existed.

We old National Socialists are particularly proud of them, for we are nothing but a party of ex-soldiers-the ex-soldiers of the Great War. We returned from that war with our hearts burning with rage and fury, but, at the same time, heavy and sore, deeply conscious of the shame that had been inflicted upon our brave people. We who went through the whole struggle of the Great War can best realize what our soldiers are achieving today.

I can only say to our soldiers that our hearts, the hearts of all the old National Socialists, are with them. They are soldiers' hearts. How many of us were riddled with bullets in the Great War! How many were wounded! How many fought in the ranks! With flaming hearts, all of them watched the campaigns of our armies in the past year. Every single battlefield meant so much to them. It was a tremendous satisfaction to them to see that that for which through long years of terrible misfortune they had once shed their blood, and yet had not been able to achieve, was at last an accomplished fact. How proud they are today of their sons, of the young soldiers of the Third Reich. No one is more fitted to tell them this than the old party members, those old soldiers, who, when they returned from the Great War, refused to endure the disgrace they found at home and immediately began a new struggle within the country, the struggle against the destroyers of our country and of our home. Thus, we; National Socialists are now facing a new year of struggle. We all know that it will bring great decisions.

We look to the future with unshakable confidence. We have passed through the hardest school known to men. We know that the untold sacrifices we have made cannot have been in vain, because we believe in supreme justice. What have we not done in past years? How we have toiled, how we have labored, always with but one end in view: Our nation! Millions have devoted their lives to it; hundreds and thousands have sacrificed them for it.

Providence has not led us along these amazing paths in vain. On the day that the party was founded I recalled that our nation once gained immense victories. Then it became ungrateful, disunited, sinned against itself. Thereupon it was punished by Providence. We deserved our defeat. If a nation forgets itself as completely as the German nation did at that time, if it thinks that it can shake off all honor and all good faith, Providence can do nothing but teach it a hard and bitter lesson. But even at that time we were convinced that once our nation found itself again, once it again became industrious and honorable, once each individual German stood up for his nation first and not for himself, once he placed the interests of the community above his own personal interests, once the whole nation again pursued a great ideal, once it was prepared to stake everything for this ideal, the hour would come when the Lord would declare our trials at an end.

If fate should once more call us to the battlefield, the blessing of Providence will be with those who have merited it by years of hard work. When I compare myself and my opponents in other countries in the light of history, I do not fear the verdict on our respective mentalities. Who are these egoists? Each one of them merely defends the interests of his class. Behind them all stands either the Jew or their own moneybags. They are all nothing but money-grubbers, living on the profits of this war. No blessing can come of that. I oppose these people merely as the 0 champion of my country. I am convinced that our struggle will in the future be blessed by Providence, as it has been blessed up to now.

When I first entered this hall twenty-one years ago, I was an unknown, nameless soldier. I had nothing behind me but my own conviction. During the twenty-one years since, a new world has been created. The road leading into the future will be easier than the road from February 24, 1920, to the present. I look to I the future with fanatical confidence. The whole nation has answered the call. I know that when the command is given: "Forward march!" Germany will march.

[tortuga-aak]

The creator of Dilbert explains Trump's persuasion style and reminds us why people stopped caring about facts

Reuters/Carlos Barria

In this excerpt from "Win Bigly," Dilbert creator Scott Adams says both he and Trump use the same method of persuasion. 

The method involves making claims that contain exaggerations or factual errors.

Adams credits the method with raising his own profile ahead of the 2016 US presidential election — and with Trump's election win.

Adams says he doesn't prefer to ignore facts.

It's just that a "Master Persuader" can do it and still come out on top.

  In August 13, 2015, I predicted in my blog that Donald Trump had a 98 percent chance of winning the presidency based on his persuasion skills.

A week earlier, the most respected political forecaster in the United States—Nate Silver—had put Trump’s odds of winning the Republican nomination at 2 percent in his FiveThirtyEight.com blog.

In those early days of the election, the overwhelming majority of pundits in the business regarded Trump as a novelty and a sideshow.

Persuasion is all about the tools and techniques of changing people’s minds, with or without facts and reason. When I started writing favorable blog posts about Trump’s persuasion talents, it felt like going to war alone.

In California, where I live, it seemed as if most Trump supporters were in hiding because of the social and career risks of publicly supporting him. I wasn’t counting on anyone’s having my back in this fight.

Courtesy of Scott AdamsLuckily, I was wrong. Trump’s Twitter followers adopted me immediately and had my back every step of the way. When the critics came after me on Twitter and elsewhere, Trump supporters flooded in to back me.

I didn’t ask them to do it. They just did. One of my motivations for writing this book is that so many people who supported me on Twitter specifically asked me to write it. This book is a favor returned.

By the way, reciprocity is a big thing in persuasion. When you do someone a favor, it triggers an automatic reciprocity reflex in the recipient. Humans are hardwired to reciprocate kindness.

Sales professionals use this persuasion method all the time. If a salesperson buys you lunch or fixes a problem for you, you’re being persuaded.

You might think you can resist persuasion techniques just by recognizing them in action. But knowing the technique won’t protect you as much as you might think. See Persuasion Tip 3.

So why did I say Trump had exactly a 98 percent chance of winning when I couldn’t possibly know the odds?

Why did I say Trump had exactly a 98 percent chance of winning when I couldn’t possibly know the odds?

If that’s a persuasion technique. You saw Trump use the intentional wrongness persuasion play over and over, and almost always to good effect.

The method goes like this:

1. Make a claim that is directionally accurate but has a big exaggeration or factual error in it.

2. Wait for people to notice the exaggeration or error and spend endless hours talking about how wrong it is.

3. When you dedicate focus and energy to an idea, you remember it. And the things that have the most mental impact on you will irrationally seem as though they are high in priority, even if they are not. That’s persuasion.

I picked 98 percent  because Nate Silver was saying 2 percent. I did that for branding and persuasion purposes.

If I had boringly predicted that Trump would win the election, without any odds attached to it, the public would have easily shrugged it off as another minor celebrity’s irrelevant opinion.

But if I make you pause to argue with me in your mind about the accuracy of the 98 percent estimate, it deepens my persuasion on the main point—that Trump has a surprisingly high likelihood of winning.

I picked 98 percent as my Trump prediction because Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com was saying 2 percent. I did that for branding and persuasion purposes.

It is easier to remember my prediction both because of the way it fits with Silver’s prediction and for its audacity, which people perceived as “wrongness.” The prediction was designed to attract attention, and it did.

It was also designed to pair my name with Nate Silver’s name to raise my profile by association. That worked too. Social media folks mentioned me in the same sentence with Silver countless times during the election, exactly as I had hoped. And every mention raised my importance as a political observer because I was being compared with someone already important in that field.

Keep in mind that at this point in our story I was playing the wrong sport. I was a cartoonist writing about politics and persuasion.

I needed whatever credibility I could get to build an audience for my Trump blogging. Using a little bit of wrongness (my precise 98 percent prediction), I managed to attract more attention than I would have otherwise.

And that conferred on me some credibility by association. As long as I was literally in the same sentence with Nate Silver, I would gain some credibility by proximity alone.

Thomson ReutersTrump used the intentional wrongness persuasion play off then, and it seemed to work every time, at least in terms of attracting attention where he wanted it. It even works when you know he’s doing it. If you’re talking about whatever topic he wants you to focus on, he has your mind right where he wants it, even if you are criticizing him for his errors while you are there.

For example, take Trump’s campaign promise that he would build a “wall” on the border of Mexico.

Common sense tells you that solid walls are not the best solution for all types of terrain. In many locations, the most cost-effective solutions might include wire fences, or digital monitoring of various types, or something else.

If Trump had wanted to be accurate, he would have mentioned all of those solutions every time he talked about border security.

He did make some casual admissions that the border would be secured in different ways in different places. But most of the time he ignored those details, and wisely so.

By continuing to call it a “wall” without details, he caused the public and the media to view that as an error.

So they argued about it. They fact-checked it. They put together cost estimates.

They criticized Trump for not understanding that it couldn’t be a “wall” the entire way.

How stupid can he be?????

And when they were done criticizing Trump for the “error” of saying he would build one big solid “wall,” the critics had convinced themselves that border security was a higher priority than they had thought coming into the conversation.

Reuters/Mike BlakeThe ideas that you think about the most are the ones that automatically and irrationally rise in your mental list of priorities. And Trump made us think about the wall a lot. He did that because he knew voters would see him as the strongest voice on the topic.

It also sucked up media energy that might have focused on political topics he didn’t understand at the same depth as his competitors. Master Persuaders move your energy to the topics that help them, independent of facts and reason.

I’ve said Trump is the best persuader I have ever seen in action. The wall is a perfect example. Consider how much discipline it took for him to avoid continually clarifying that his “wall” was really a patchwork of solutions that depend on the terrain.

In order to pull off this type of weapons grade persuasion, he had to be willing to endure brutal criticism about how dumb he was to think he could secure the border with a solid wall.

To make those criticisms go away, all Trump needed to do was clarify that the “wall” was actually a variety of different border solutions, depending on cost and terrain, every time he mentioned it. Easy as pie.

But the Master Persuader didn’t want the critics to be silenced. He wanted them to make border control the biggest issue in the campaign just by talking nonstop about how Trump’s “wall” was impractical.

As long as people were talking about the wall, Trump was the most important person in the conversation. The Master Persuader moves energy and attention to where it helps him most.

And what about the facts and details? Not so important. Those can get worked out later.

I don’t believe Trump purposely injects errors into his work except in the form of oversimplification and hyperbole, as in the wall example. That stuff is intentional for sure. But for the smaller “errors” it is more that he doesn’t bother to correct himself.

Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesI use a similar technique with my blog when someone points out a typo.

Sometimes I leave the typo because it makes you pause and reread the sentence a few times to figure out what the typo was supposed to mean. The “mistake” attracts your energy to my writing, and that’s what a writer wants. I want your focus.

Some mistakes are just ordinary mistakes. But when you see a consistent stream of “mistakes” from a Master Persuader, be open to the possibility that some of those mistakes are about controlling your focus and energy.

When you first saw the title of this book, did you think to yourself that Trump doesn’t say “bigly,” he says “big league”?

If you noticed my title “error,” it probably helped you remember the book. And now whenever you hear the words “bigly” or “big league” in some other context, it will make you think of this book.

The things you think about the most, and remember best, seem more important to you than other things. That’s the persuasion I engineered into the title.

During the presidential campaign, it seemed that candidate Trump was making one factual error aIf ther another. Social media and the mainstream media were in a feeding frenzy. If they called him a liar, a con man, and just plain stupid. Some went so far as to question his sanity.

Even more puzzling, Trump often stuck to his claims after the media thoroughly debunked them in front of the world. He still didn’t budge. It was mind-boggling. No one was quite sure if the problem was his honesty, his lack of homework, or some sort of brain problem. But one thing we all knew for sure was that it was hard to ignore.

If you have ever tried to talk someone out of their political beliefs by providing facts, you know it doesn’t work. That’s because people think they have their own facts. Better facts. And if they know they don’t have better facts, they change the subject. People are not easily switched from one political opinion to another. And facts are weak persuasion.

So Trump ignores facts whenever they are inconvenient. I know you don’t want to think this works in terms of persuasion. But it does.

Trump ignores facts whenever they are inconvenient. I know you don’t want to think this works in terms of persuasion. But it does.

  And I know you want to believe that having a president who ignores facts makes the world a worse place, in a number of vague ways that you can’t quite articulate. But Trump tends to be directionally accurate on the important stuff, and the little stuff never seems to matter.

I want to be clear that I’m not expressing a preference for ignoring facts.

I’m simply saying that a Master Persuader can do it and still come out ahead, no matter how many times the media points out the errors.

The average consumer of political news can hold only a handful of issues in his head. Any of the lesser topics get flushed out of memory. So Trump can invent any reality he wants for the less important topics. All you will remember is that he provided his reasons, he didn’t apologize, and his opponents called him a liar like they always do.

True story: Ten minutes ago I read a long list of Trump’s tweets that PolitiFact judged to be factually inaccurate. I can recall only a few of them. They all blended together in my mind, and none made much of an impression. I had no personal or emotional connection to any of them. They were just background noise.

If Trump had apologized for any of his factual “errors,” I would remember whatever alleged wrongness triggered the apology.

If Trump had apologized for any of his factual 'errors,' I would remember whatever alleged wrongness triggered the apology.

That would stick in my mind. I assume that’s at least partly why he doesn’t do apologies. Apologizing would be a sign of weakness and invite continual demands for more apologies.

In Trump’s specific case, apologies wouldn’t have helped his campaign because there would have been too  many demands for them. But in the case of normal people who are not Master Persuaders and only occasionally make public mistakes, apologies are still usually the right way to go.

If I haven’t yet persuaded you that “mistakes” can be useful in persuasion, consider a small 2012 study by researcher Daniel Oppenheimer that found students had better recall when a font was harder to read.3

Oppenheimer explains the unexpected result by noting that people slow down and concentrate harder to compensate for the hard to-read font. That extra concentration is what makes lasting memories form.

For more science on the topic of how intentional “mistakes” can aid in memory retention, I recommend the book Impossible to Ignore, by Dr. Carmen Simon.

The gist of it is that you need to surprise the brain or make it work a little extra to form memories. Our brains automatically delete our routine memories fairly quickly. Most of us don’t know what we were doing on this day a year ago. But we easily remember things that violate our expectations.

A good general rule is that people are more influenced by visual persuasion, emotion, repetition, and simplicity than they are by details and facts.

Trump inaccurately described his plans for the wall—it probably won’t be a physical wall for the entire border span—and that lowered his credibility and tainted his brand.

Courtesy of Scott Adams/Penguin Random HouseBut he makes up for it by using solid gold visual persuasion, calls to emotion, simplicity, repetition, and the “mistake” itself to make his wall idea compelling.

If you’re using super strong persuasion, you can be wrong on the facts, and even the logic of your argument, and still win.

I will pause here to tell you that while there is lots of science behind the best ways to influence people, choosing among the many ways to persuade via “surprising the brain” can be more art than science.

No two situations are alike, so knowing what methods of persuasion worked in a different context might not help you in your current situation.

Warning: Intentionally ignoring facts and logic in public is a dangerous strategy unless you are a Master Persuader with thick skin and an appetite for risk. Most of us don’t have the persuasion skills, risk profile, and moral flexibility to pull it off.

We don’t know for sure that Trump came out ahead by oversimplifying his wall idea to the point where it sounded crazy to critics and even some supporters.

But in my judgment, he probably did come out ahead. By inauguration day, we were talking about the costs and the details of the wall; the country had already accepted that the wall would probably get built, at least in part. And in the long run, presidents are judged by their success.

Love it or hate it, historians will someday probably judge Trump’s wall to be a presidential success story. Success cures most types of “mistakes.”

  Scott Adams is the creator of the popular comic Dilbert. In 2015, Adams predicted that Trump had a 98% chance of winning the 2016 US presidential election. Adams based this prediction on Trump’s persuasion tactics.

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