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wirelandranch · 2 years ago

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LORE ENTRY 2: The Mojave Logistics Archaeological Survey Team (MLAST)

Built of a group of individuals handpicked by Nathaniel Godwynn, all from scientific, fringe religious, or military background.

**NO COMMUNISTS WERE USED IN THE FORMATION OF THIS TEAM.

Members:

Dr. Rosalind Byne: (age 42) Once a well respected Corporal in the US Army Corp of Engineers before being dishonorably discharged for stealing state secrets. It is commonly believed that Nathaniel Godwynn was her lover in the time period prior to her theft. The documents she is said to have stolen were then, and remain, classified. Interventions were made on her behalf by the Mojave Logistics legal team and her record was wiped clean though she is banned from further participation in the military. Education: PHD in Archaeology from Massachussettes Institute of Technology (MIT) Bachelors in Anthropology (MIT)

Rosy Byne: (age 21) Daughter of Rosalind and youngest member of the team. Known to be brilliant and "an absolute joy to be around," it is often said the team would've fallen into their dark times sooner had she left them to their own devices. Though she had no formal education she proved in the long run to be one of the most valuable members of the team and had a knack for "feeling out an area" and locating harder to reach areas of excavation sites and cave depths. Many a cavern was mapped with her jubilant assistance.

Daniel Rosenthal: (age 44) Transferred directly over from the UKSF as part of a large real estate deal negotiated on behalf of the UK government. Some believe Nathaniel Godwynn financed the purchase specifically to acquire Rosenthal. He was known in various circles, including a late stage high level Thelema oriented crowd known to play host to both NASA Rocket Scientists and cult religious leaders alike. Very likely one of the only living people ever to accomplish a true to life feat of magic, harnessing powers mankind is not meant to know.

Tyrone Bowens: (age 25) Originally from one of the worst ghettos in America, Tyrone showed promise as both an athlete and a scholar from an extremely early age. Upon the loss of his parents at age 15 he was moved across the country to live with his aunt, Tameika Bowens, a VP of Strategic Acquisition who worked closely with Nathaniel as far back as the initial public offering of Godwynn Enterprises. Within 3 months of the move, Tyrone was working as an intern and in-office assistant to the entire Strategic Acquisition team. His role on the survey team saw him responsible for the team's relationship to the local communities surrounding potential research areas. Most that knew him before his untimely death, remember him as a gentle and funny individual aside from his known lovers, who tend to say quite the opposite.

Robert Orange: (age 56) Older brother of Agent Russel Orange, head of security for ML and GE. While both brothers exhibited qualities their own mother referred to as "textbook fuckup traits," Robert had far fewer of the redeeming characteristics present in his younger sibling. This fact conjured a hard life, full of frustration and self victimization which led to an addiction to morphine and a penchant for pharmaceutical grade methamphetamines that eventually careened out of control and siphoned off the little bit of a life he had pieced together. During this time Russel and Robert lost contact for years prior to reuniting in late 2015 after the loss of Russel's wife, Magdalene Godwynn. After a few years of working closely together at the helm of security, Russel lobbied to get his brother a place on MLAST where he would provide security services as well as, and this is generally unknown, keep Agent Orange abreast of the research conducted.

#lore #conspiracy #audio #info dump #worldbuilding #backstory #podcast

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dukereviewsxtra · 5 years ago

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Duke's Monsterween: Scooby Doo The Movie

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Xtra Where We Are Continuing Duke's Monsterween...

Where Yesterday On Duke Reviews, I Reviewed The Original Dracula, Starring Bela Lugosi But On Duke Reviews Xtra We're Going A Little Kid Friendly This Year By Reviewing Some Halloween Movies Done By Disney In An Effort To Somewhat Continue Our Look At Disney...

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But...

We're Not Looking At Disney This Week, But Instead We're Going To Look At 3 Scooby Doo Movies This Week, Starting With Scooby Doo The Movie...

This Movie Sees Mystery Inc. Breaking Up After An Argument Between Fred (Played By Kanan Jarrus) Velma (Played By Hawkeye's Wife) And Daphne (Played By Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Leaving Scooby And Shaggy (Played By The Best Shaggy In The World) To Go Off On Their Own...

But Years Later When The Gang Is Invited By Theme Park Owner Emile Mondavarious (Played By Mr. Bean) To Investigate His Theme Park When People Start Acting Weird When They Leave The Park...

Will Mystery Inc Be Able To Put Aside Their Differences And Work Together For This Mystery?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Scooby Doo The Movie...

The Film Starts At The Wow-O Toy Factory Where The Gang Is Working On The Case Of The Luna Ghost...

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(End At 2:51)

Once The Ghost Is Captured, We Get A...Pamela Anderson Cameo?...

No Offense, But Of All The Celebs I Would Rather See Have A Cameo In This Movie, Pamela Anderson Was Not One Of Them...

With The Ghost Revealed And Everyone Except Shaggy And Scooby Start Arguing As Fred As He Always Takes Credit For Velma's Plans While Daphne Is Just Tired Of Being Captured During Every Mystery...

This Leads Fred, Velma And Daphne To Quit Mystery Inc. Leaving Shaggy And Scooby To Go Off On Their Own...

Two Years Later, Shaggy And Scooby Are Asked By A Representative For Emile Mondavarious To Solve A Mystery At His Theme Park, Spooky Island, But Not Interested In Going To Anyplace With The Word "Spooky" In It, They Initially Refuse...

But When The Guy Says That There's An All You Can Eat Clause In Their Deal, Scooby And Shaggy Change Their Minds And Are On Board...

Going To The Airport, Shaggy Finds Out That Fred (Who Has A New Book Out) Velma (Who Works At NASA) And Daphne (Who Has Become A Black Belt)

Because It's Sarah Michelle Gellar And We Have To Make Use Of Her Skills On Buffy In Someway...

Have Also Been Asked To Go To Spooky Island As Well By Mondavarious...

But Only Seeing Shaggy, Velma Wonders "Where's Scooby?" Which Leads To Scooby Entering Disguised As A Woman As They Don't Let Big Dogs On The Plane...

But As Velma Starts Arguing With Fred And Daphne Again, Shaggy Tries To Play Mediator And Try To Make Them Realize How Great It Would Be If They Teamed Up Again...

Daphne's On Board But Only If Fred And Velma Are In, Which They're Not...

Once On Board The Plane, Shaggy Falls Head Over Heals For A Girl Who Likes Scooby Snacks Also Named Mary Jane (Played By Isla Fisher, Or As She's Called Nowadays Mrs. Borat)

And Yes, I Know Mary Jane Is Another Word For Marijuana, But To Me, It Is Just A Name, Let It Go!

But Unfortunately She's Allergic To Dogs So Shaggy Has Scooby Go Spend Time With Fred And Velma While Shaggy Gets To Know Mary Jane A Little More, But When Scooby Sees A Cat, He Starts Barking And Chasing It All Over The Plane...

With The Gang Arriving On Spooky Island, They Meet Emile Mondavarious, Who Notices A Slight Change In The Teens That Leave Spooky Island, Believing That It's A Magic Spell And They Definitely Notice A Change...

The Type That Causes Your Pants To Poop...

With Mondavarious Very Terrified And Scared For The People That Come To The Island, They Decide To Help Only Fred, Velma And Daphne Go Off On Their Own...

Later That Night, Velma Catches A Stage Show Hosted By A Man Named N'Goo Tauna And His Partner Zarkos, Who Tell A Story Saying That The Island Was Once Home To Creatures, Who Lived Undisturbed On The Island..

But When Mondavarious Built Spooky Island, He Antagonized The Creatures And Have Since Been Plotting Their Revenge...

Meanwhile, Shaggy Is Out On His First Date With Mary Jane, While Scooby Gets A Phone Call Saying That Someone Has Hamburgers For Him All He Has To Do Is Go Into The Dark Shadowy Part Of The Forest Where No One Can See Him...

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Seriously? Did You Honestly Think Scooby Was Going To Give Up Hamburgers Even If It Was A Scary Voice On The Phone Who Told Him To Go To A Scary Place To Get Them?

Hell, No!...

But Unfortunately When Scooby Gets There, He Discovers That The Hamburgers Are Fakes And That There Was A Monster Waiting For Him...

He Tells Shaggy And Mary Jane About The Monster, But All They See Is A Guy In A Costume...

But As That Happens, Daphne Take With A Resident On The Island, A Voodoo Man, Who Warns Daphne To Get Off The Island And Stay Away From The Castle On The Top Of The Hill...

Despite Coming Up With Various Stupid Theories On What Might Be Up There, Daphne Gets Shaggy And Scooby To Help Her, Despite Refusing At First Because It's A Spooky Castle...

Joined By Fred (Who Followed Weird Footprints Up To The Castle) And Velma (Who Thought It Was The Most Obvious Place To Hatch An Evil Plan) They All Decide To Split Up And Search For Clues With Daphne Staying Where She Is, Scooby And Shaggy Going In Search Of Food...

And Fred And Velma Searching Other Parts Of The Castle...

But Someone Activates The Ride And Causes All Hell To Break Loose!...

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(Start At 0:11, End At 2:15)

With The Ride Shut Down, Velma Finds The Secret Access Panel That Opens The Secret Room, Leading Her And Fred To Discover What Looks To Be A School For A Secret Cult...

Which Means It Could Only Be One Person...Granny Goodness!

Ok, It's Not Granny But It Could Have Been...

Meanwhile, Daphne Comes Across A Golden Pyramid That Was Left Alone In The Middle Of A Room, So, She Decides To Grab It, But Turns Out That...

Luckily Though Daphne Manage To Escape Before The Trap Fully Activates...

But As That Happens, Shaggy And Scooby Discover A TV Studio Where...Well...See For Yourself...

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(End At 1:11)

With Alarms Going Off, The Gang Reunites And Quickly Fills Each Other In On What They Found Before Having To Hide From Henchmen Headed Their Way, One Of Them Being Zarkos, N'Goo Tauna's Right Hand Man..

Eventually Managing To Escape, They Head Back To The Spooky Island Hotel So They Can Fill Mondavarious In On The Clues And Their 3 Suspects Which Include N'Goo Tauna, The Voodoo Man And Mondavarious Himself (But Only Because He Freaks Fred Out)

While Daphne Researches Cults On The Net, Velma Looks At The Mysterious Pyramid She Discovers That There Is More To It Than Meets The Eye.,,

Talking With A Boy She Met Earlier, Velma Tells Him That She Believes That It's Called The Daemon Ritus (After Hearing A Guard Mention That Name While The Gang Was Hiding)...

And That It Describes An Old Race Of Creatures Through It's Inscriptions That Are Reminiscent Of Ancient Pandaemonous Texts Which Explain A Sort Of Ritual...

Eventually Velma Starts Reminiscing About The Past Which Leads To A Flashback About The Old Days Where We See Everyone And I Do Mean...Everyone...

Ok, I've Dreaded Coming To This Moment, But Obviously I Have No Choice Especially Since Since Some People Tend To Complain About This Character, Let's Talk About Scrappy Doo...

First Off, I Would Like To State That I Love The Character Of Scrappy Doo, I Think He Is Very Cute, Is One Of The More Memorable Hanna-Barbera Characters And Sidekicks And Is Not As Annoying As Everyone I've Heard Talk About This Character Believes Him To Be...

The Sad Thing However Is That This Movie Does Not Play To Those Good Traits...

They Make Scrappy An Asshole And A Complete Egomaniac

And I'm Sorry But I'm On The Side Of Mystery Inc, That Brat Needs To Be Taught A Lesson! Maybe Not As Extreme As Leaving Him On The Side Of The Road But Still..

Anyway, As Velma And Her Possible Love Interest With No Name Laugh At Scrappy's Expense...

Scooby Sees One Of The Monsters And Starts Panicking, This Leads Fred To Berate Him Before Telling Everyone That There's No Such Things As Ghosts Before Being Proven Wrong, 2 Seconds After Saying That..

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Monsters Scour The Entire Hotel Kidnapping Nearly Half Of The People There, Including Fred, Velma, Her Unnamed Love Interest And Mr. Mondavarious, With Shaggy, Scooby,Daphne And Mary Jane Escaping Before The Monsters Got Them...

They Follow Them To The Area Where N'Goo Tauna Had His Show But Their Path Ends Up Blocked By A Stone Slab, This Leads Mary Jane To Call The Coast Guard But They're No Help As 2 Of Them Are Monsters...

This Movie Is Quickly Becoming Body Snatchers 2...

The Next Morning Everything Seems Back To Normal With The Hotel Repaired And Nearly Everyone Completely Back (Though Not As They Once Were)

Deciding To Split Up, Mary Jane Goes To Find Her Friends While Daphne, Shaggy And Scooby Look Around...

As Daphne Has An Encounter With Sugar Ray...

Not The Boxer, The Band!

Shaggy And Scooby Find Fred Only To Discover That Everyone On The Island Has Been Possessed By The Monsters As Daphne Gets Kidnapped By Zarkos...

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(Start At 0:46, End At 2:12)

But As They're Driving, Scooby Discovers That Mary Jane Is A Monster As Well...

He Tries To Explain This To Shaggy, But He's Too Blinded To Even See It Leading The 2 Friends To Fight, But When Scooby Is Captured, Shaggy... Doesn't Figure Out That Mary Jane's A Monster But Decides To Put His Friendship First Before His Relationship...

Dropping Into The Same Hole That Scooby Fell Into, Shaggy Finds A Vat Filled With The Spirits Of Everyone Who Arrives On Spooky Island...

Hearing Velma's Voice, Shaggy Saves Her So She Can Go Back To Her Body So She Can Discover That The Creatures Are Weakened By Sunlight...

Shaggy Also Manages To Save Fred And Daphne Too (Whether Daphne Likes It Or Not) But There's A Little Mix-Up...

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(Start At 0:46, End At 1:33)

Ok 1st, If I Were In Sarah Michele Gellar's Body, I'd Do The Exact Same Thing And 2nd, You're Married To Her, Freddie, See Her Naked On Your Own Time...

When The Gang Reunites, Daphne Gets Mad Over Fred Touching Her Body, But The Problem Is Soon Remedied By The Daemon Ritus Which Switches The Team's Bodies Until They're Back To Normal...

Seeing An Explosion Afterwards, It Leads Them To The Voodoo Man Who Was Doing A Sacrifice In An Effort To Protect Himself From The Creatures Darkopolips Ritual, Which Will Allow Them To Rule Earth For 10,000 Years...

Or In Other Words...

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However, In Order To Pull It Off, The Leader Must Absorb A Pure Soul In Order To Do So, Thus...Scooby...

But The Question Lies Who Is Behind All This? And Unfortunately, It's The One That Brought Scooby There....Mondavarious, Who Convinces Scooby To Be His Sacrifice...

With Fred Still Wondering If Mondavarious Wanted Scooby Why Did He Bring All Of Them, Shaggy Tells Fred That It Doesn't Matter And That They Have To Save Scooby...

This Leads To Fred, Daphne And Velma Finally Reconciling So They Can Come Up With A Plan To Save Scooby...

With The Plan Set, Everyone Arrives For The Ritual Including Mondavarious And N'Goo Tauna, But As They Prepare To Start, Fred And Velma Are Discovered As Shaggy Joins A Bunch Of Henchmen In Bringing Out Scooby Which Leads The 2 Buddies To Reconcile...

But They Don't Run Off In Time And The Ritual Begins As Scooby's Spirit Is Taken From Him. Luckily, Shaggy Frees Scooby From The Spirit Pincher And Back To His Body While Hitting Mondavarious With The Pincer In The Process...

Going To Check On Mondavarious, Fred And Velma Discover A Possible Mask But Actually Mondavarious Is A Robot Who Is Piloted By...(Sighs) Scrappy...

First, Let Me Say That While This Is Defiantly A Disservice To The Character, This Was A Good Twist Despite Some People Thinking That It Was Too Obvious...

With Some Souls In Him, Scrappy Transforms Into Scrappysaurus Rex As He Reveals That He Brought The Team There To Witness His Moment Of Triumph...

Meanwhile On The Roof, Daphne Tries To Open The Vent So Light Can Enter The Cave As They Release A Skull Disco Ball Which Will Destroy The Creatures But Unfortunately, She's Confronted By Zarkos Which Leads The 2 To Fight...

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(End At 2:46)

With The Souls Released From The Vat, The Creatures Are Ejected By Their Host Bodies As Scrappy Reverts Back To Normal And The Disco Skull Is Released Causing The Creatures To Go Boom...

Afterward Velma And Shaggy Reunite With Their Potential Love Interests, They Rescue The Real Mondavarious And Fred And Daphne Consider Starting A Relationship In Both The Movie And Real Life...

News Crews Arrive On The Scene, So Velma Can Tell Them All What Happened And Who Did It As The Gang Announces Mystery Inc Is Back Together...

We Get A Pre Credits Scene Where Spooky Island Delivers On Their All You Can Eat Deal And Shaggy And Scooby Gorge Until They Drop...

And That's Scooby Doo The Movie And How Is This A Bad Movie?

The Story Is Interesting, The Characters Are Funny, And The CG On Scooby (Despite Some People Saying That Gollum Was Better Done Than Scooby) Was Pretty Good And Lifelike...

Yeah, It May Not Have Been A Great Mystery But This Is Scooby Doo, Not Sherlock Holmes, You Want A Great Mystery, Then Go Solve The Mystery Of Your Huge Ego, But If You Want A Funny Mystery With Funny Antics, This Movie Is Definitely For You...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off..,

#Scooby Doo #Matthew Lillard #Freddie Prinze Jr #linda cardellini #sarah michelle gellar #rowan atkinson #live action #halloween #SoundCloud #Youtube

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racefortheironthrone · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on House of X #4

Over the halfway mark!

Look At What They’ve Done Infographic:

Suprisingly for an issue that, in retrospect is the climax of the standard superheroics part of House of X, this issue starts with an infographic, which turns out to be one of the more controversial in HoX/PoX.

Foreshadowing what’s going to come at the end of the issue, the tone is already different from the pseudo-academic objectivity of earlier infographics, although the term “mutant erasure” evokes the activist-inspired, post-cultural turn work of critical race/gender/sexuality studies, which is something of a stepping-stone.

By contrast, describing Wanda Maximoff as both “the pretender” (does this mean “not-really-a-mutant” or “not-really-Magneto’s-daughter” or both?) and as associated with the Avengers is incredibly politically pointed, which speak to a particular kind of mutant nationalist identity that bears a good deal of grievance towards even benevolent human institutions.

Similarly, the term “human-on-mutant violence” is way too evocative of real world debates over racism and police violence to be accidental on the author’s point. It’s a depressing thought, but the 616 probably sees a lot of “what about mutant-on-mutant violence?” derailings, maybe as many as creep up in threads about HoX/Pox here...

So let’s get at the controversy: can Bolivar Trask be blamed for the Genoshan genocide? Contrary to a few voices in the fandom, I would argue strongly for the affirmative. As we see from his initial appearance, Trask created the Sentinels entirely out of racial paranoia/hatred; moreover, Sentinels have no purpose other than A. destroying all mutants and B. subjugating the human race along the way. Cassandra Nova’s actions on Genosha absolutely followed the Trask playbook of both father and son, and indeed relied on Larry Trask’s assistance to carry it out, making it a Trask affair from beginning to end.

On a final meta note, this infographic really speaks to the outsized impact that Morrison’s New X-Men and Bendis’ House of M had on the X-line for the last 15-20 years.

Observation-Analysis-Invocation-Connection:

But before we get to the punching, we get one burst of Hickman’s fascination with singularities and transhumanism, where for the first time we really get an example of how the Krakoan biological approach is going to work, showing us a surprisingly complicated biomachine:

Trinity (who runs the Secondary/External Systems part of Krakoa) uses her technopathy to gather intelligence from human mechanical systems: the Aracibo Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, “re-tasked SETI radio telescopes," both of which are real things, and the “Dyson solar observatory,” which isn’t.

Beast (who runs the Overwatch/Data Analysis part of Krakoa) uses Krakoan biocomputers and his own scientific genius to “extrapolate that data into an actionable forecast,” to deal with the delay caused by the immense distances between Krakoa and Sol’s Forge.

Professor X and Cerebro handle the direct Connection between Krakoa and the away team, while the Cuckoos link Trinity, Beast, Storm into a psychic link with Xavier, which means all of the parts of the system work seamlessly even as Storm handles the Invocation of visually representing Jean Grey’s thoughts.

If you step back and think about it, this is an astonishing technological feat: with minimal reliance on machine technology, Krakoa has established a NASA “KASA Mission Control” that can send data across half a solar system almost(?) instantly.

That’s before we even get to the whole secondary purpose of the system, which is to allow Professor X and the Five to resurrect an up-to-date version of anyone who dies on the mission, which is one hell of a life-rope.

Thematically, we see a really sharp distinction between biological and mechanical transhumanism/singularity: “KASA Mission Control” is described in biological terms, “function[ing] as a singular organism,” and also in religious terms, with “eight of us acting as one” explicitly labelled as “Communion.” And yet...the eight people involved retain their separate personalities and identities and no separate, artificial intelligence is created.

Should We Fear the Worst?

And across five hundred million miles, all Krakoa gets is bad news. Archangel and Husk, the redshirt’s redshirts on this mission, are dead before they do anything; Nightcrawler has some level of “internal injury,” and Wolverine almost had his arm blown off.

Incidentally, page 7 is where something of a problem crops up with Jean Grey’s characterization. As people have noted, Jean Grey starts off in the passive communications role (indeed, she’s even reliant on Monet to do that job) and doesn’t really improve from there. With the added context of her wearing her Silver Age miniskirt costume, it’s all a bit sus, especially if you’ve been reading a much more self-possessed, confident, and all-around more powerful version of Jean Grey in X-Men: Red. For a while, many of us were thinking that Jean is a younger backup, but that seems to have been Jossed by the resurrection ceremony in House of X #5.

Better characterization abounds for the men: following their conversation from the previous issue, Cyclops and Wolverine have different perspectives about the question of whether to continue on with the mission (another key element of the special ops/espionage thriller genre). Cyclops emphasizes pushing on to make Warren and Paige’s sacrifice meaningful, Logan agrees but rather because of the existential stakes of the mission. There’s an interesting parallel there between Xavier and Magneto and means vs. ends.

Following the catastrophe, Nightcrawler successfully inserts the struje team, while “Jean and Monet will stay to maintain our connection with Krakoa;”we know know that part was crucial in more than one way, but it is a continuation of some troubling gender dynamics.

Meanwhile, despite being “technically...just an observer” (and doesn’t that ring of all kinds of Cold War proxy wars), Omega Sentinel takes action to prompt Dr. Gregor into retaliation, similarly playing to the nationalistic theme of “if you don’t, he will have died for nothing.”

Orchis’ retaliation doesn’t go so well, as we see Wolverine carving his way through an AIM securtiy team and Nightcrawler bloodlessly tying up two scientists (note the further emphasis on differing personalities and values; whoever these X-Men might be, they’re not mindless followers) towards popping two of the four constraint collars.

Unfortunately, this is followed up by a couple pages of more Jean Grey being awfully Damselly: yes, she’s holding open the connection, but she’s coded as way more helpless and indecisive than Monet (who gets to go out like a badass defending the shuttle), and the line “I dunno what to say, Marvel Girl. Try harder” really sums it all up. So far, this is reading a lot more like Stan Lee’s Jean Grey (but not Jack Kirby’s) than Chris Claremont’s.

With the tension ratcheting ever-higher, we see Cyclops succeeding at his mission, while Mystique...doesn’t and then gets promptly blown out an airlock. The “habitat” connection and the odd business with her getting “turned around” despite having the plans for the base in her head like everyone else is highly suspicious (it might suggest the use of a Krakoa flower, but no one’s ever suggested what her motivation would be for doing so), but it’ll have to go on the list of plot threads that weren’t resolved in House of X.

In a development that really ought to be troubling to more people, Dr. Gregor throws away whatever moral compunctions she has about waking up a potentially violently insane A.I because “I don’t let them stop us. No matter what,” a potentially existential downside to Omega’s strategy.

Do Whatever It Takes:

Having reached the “darkest moment” in the story diagram, Professor X orders his students to “do whatever it takes” to prevent Mother Mold from coming on line. This prompts Cyclops to give the order to Nightcrawler and Wolverine to jump out into unprotected space to sever the last constraint collar. All in all, we’re following the traditional beats of the special ops/espionage genre pretty closely, down to the team leader’s moral anguish moment.

Appropriately, we then get a quiet moment where Kurt and Logan contemplate whether or what will be “waiting for us on the other side.” Even knowing what we know now about the resurrection system, there’s still a good deal of weight to this moment, because in a way this Kurt and this Logan are going to die and whether they’re the same Kurt and Logan who will be reborn is a matter I’ll take up in Powers of X #5 along with the difficult topic of the philosophy of identity. (I’m going to leave aside the question of them having gone to literal Heaven and Hell in the past, because my Doylist position is that those story threads were probably a bad idea and my Watsonian No Prize is that you can’t remember the afterlife once returned to earth.)

Surprisingly, things get only more metaphysically weird when the two teleport outside and Wolverine starts chopping his way through the last arm. Mother Mold wakes up and immdiately starts talking about Greek mythology. Mother Mold’s interpretation of the Titanomachy is a little choppy (as we might expect from an insane A.I): on the one hand, if humanity are the Olympian gods as the creator of the Sentinels and the mutants are the Titans because of “their spoiled lineage” (this doesn’t quite work, because the Titans preceded the Olympians), then the Sentinels being “Man” makes sense. And as someone who’s written his share of college papers about omniscience/predestination/free will in Greek myth and drama, there’s a plausible anti-theist position whereby human beings might “judge and find you both wanting.” (Although that language is too Book of Daniel for the Greeks.) On the other hand, if the Sentinels are man, them having “stolen your fire” doesn’t work either - humanity was given fire by the Titan Prometheus - unless the argument is that Wolverine is Prometheus because he yeets Mother Mold into the sun?

Regardless, it’s a very ominous note for Mother Mold to go out on, because the consistent anti-human/Olympian tone suggests this insane A.I might hate humans way more than it hates mutants.

With the day seemingly saved, we transition into the Rogue One scenario where Cyclops is murdered by a vengeful Dr. Gregor and Jean is torn apart by Sentinel drones.

As gruesome as all of this is, I think it does play a very important role in explaining a good deal of Charles Xavier’s change of mind with regard to human-mutant harmony and assimilation. While this incident didn’t prompt any of the decisions that he’s made along the way - this mission is happening post-Xavier’s announcement and a day before the U.N vote, making it quite late in the X^1 timeline - I think it does a good job of showing us the kind of thought patterns that have led Xavier to this conclusion. In addition to everything he’s seen from Moira’s past nine lives, which only lend a greater sense of urgency and the fear of inevitability, Xavier himself has experienced the deaths of “our children” over and over again as the founder of the X-Men, and clearly both the direct trauma (keep in mind, he’s hooked into the minds of all of his X-Men as they die) and the pain he feels at humanity’s apathy/atrocity fatigue, goes a long way to explaining why he’ll make the decision that integration and assimilation are no longer viable options.

For all the crap that people sometime sling at Hickman over his use of charts, I will say that the way that “NO MORE” weaponizes them by extra-textually demonstrating the breakdown of the facade of calm objectivity is incredibly effective.

#xmen #xmen meta #house of x #hoxpox

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rachel-writes-words · 6 years ago

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Reclaiming the “Urban Jungle”

I was always told that “nature belongs outside”. Often, I would bring plants, animals, and bugs inside as I was fascinated by every part of nature but was forced to return them outside. I felt disconnected as natural life outside continued, and I was not a part of it. As I matured, my drive to be with nature never faltered but changed. I no longer felt the desire to disrupt outdoor habitats. Instead, my interests focused more on the positives of the natural world, as opposed to the aesthetics of nature as an external “thing”. This caused me to wonder; why can we not bring nature indoors? Why do we separate ourselves from nature? If we can simulate an environment similar to the native habitats of plants and animals, then is it wrong to create an internal ecosystem?

I discovered that a multitude of plant varieties, such as the Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata) or the trailing Heartleaf Philodendron (Philodendron cordatum), for example, have been proven to absorb carbon dioxide and various other toxins from the air, and promote healthier oxygen renewal (Bounds, Johnson & Wolverton 1989). A study done by Deng and Deng (2018) found that indoor plants help to increase concentration, productivity, and general mental health in humans. In a world that is increasingly becoming disconnected from nature, the use of plants to improve mental health is ironic.

Health benefits aside; for me, my home is a place of life. Whether it is animals I am rehabilitating, such as orphaned hares or sick birds, or the ever-increasing abundance of plants, I am surrounded by nature. I am greeted by a plethora of varying shades of green as I walk through my home; the leaves of plants from around the world brushing against me. Vines of Devil’s Ivy (Epipremnum aurem) grow from multiple hanging pots to form a canopy of variegated green and yellow leafy vines. Their coarse aerial roots grip and spread along the twine I have tied between the plants, while another ascends the wall. Originating from Mo’orea in the Society Islands of French Polynesia, but now found wild worldwide due to irresponsible disposal of houseplant species (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2018), they thrive in the indirect sunlight similar to that of their traditional sparsely canopied rainforest habitat. Over 90 plants mix and thrive in their own artificially made eco-system. The ability to create an internal natural habitat is becoming increasingly important to me as the expansion of the concrete jungles of urbanisation continue the destruction of our outdoor natural habitats.

Unsurprisingly, with plants comes a multitude of other life in the form of what we refer to as pests - life that in an artificial eco-system is unappreciated. Fungus gnats, as an example, thrive in moist soil. Their larvae feed on the roots of plants before undergoing metamorphosis into their flying adult form and begin emerging from the soil. This is a naturally occurring life cycle that in the wild would cause minimal harm to the plants on which they feed. Unfortunately, given the smaller and confined state of indoor plants, the larvae can cause irreversible damage to root systems. Due to this damage, and a general desire for a cleaner indoor atmosphere, the lives of gnats and other pests are destroyed through the use of pesticides, or occasionally natural treatments. Gnats, Mealybugs, Scale, and Spider Mites all exist in outdoor habitats with barely any ill effect on the plants as opposed to indoor habitats requiring all life deemed unhelpful to be destroyed.

I have come to realise, though, that we are adaptable. I recently introduced to my home a Nepenthes sanguinea, better known as a “Pitcher Plant”. It is a carnivorous plant that is native to Peninsular Malaysia and the rainforests of southern Thailand. The N. sanguinea uses a mixture of bright red colour and scented nectar to entice bugs, and even small animals, to the lip of its pitcher traps. The lip is slippery, and the nectar in the pitchers drowns its prey, that is then absorbed. I hung it closest to the plants with gnat colonies, and within a day a single pitcher had caught a significant number of flying adults. Not only did this help break the life cycle of the gnats, which, in turn, aided in allowing the roots of the plants to re-form, but it also fed essential nutrients to support the growth of the pitcher plant. All ecosystems have ways of working their imbalances out, even artificial ones. Instead of segregating ourselves away from nature, we humans need to learn to assimilate and use our knowledge to help balance our natural surroundings instead of “fixing” them. Nature is adaptive, and if we want to be a part of it, then we must be as well.

A question I ask myself, is at what point does the creation of an indoor habitat become aesthetic consumerism, or a continued form of ecological domestication? Indoor plants are bred, cultured, and altered to suit an idealised state for our consumption. This breeding of plants - as with selective animal breeding – has led to a consumerist race for “exotic” plants. Mutated variegations of common plants (Monstera deliciosa var Thai constellation for example) sell for excessively high prices due to their aesthetic appeal. These mutated plants often suffer and die in a natural habitat as they are unable to photosynthesise properly. The mutations, however, are the plants selling point and they are mass-produced from tissue culture and cloning.

Ecological domestication is not an entirely negative concept, however, and it is not a new development as plants have been domesticated for thousands of years in the way of crops, such as wheat and rice (Zohary & Hopf 2000). Crop domestication has been beneficial for plant life as they grow in agricultural environments that allow for more fertile soil and are significantly protected against natural environmental changes (Garcia-Palacios et al. 2013). Comparatively, Benedetto, Galmarini, and Tognetti (2015) claim that the domestication of indoor plants reduces natural soil nutrients and constricts root growth due to their confined state, resulting in stunted growth. Fertilizers are required to replace lost nutrients, and there is a dependence on human intervention for watering.

The observations I have made of the plants that I live amongst, and further discussion with other indoor plant enthusiasts indicate general stunting in size of indoor plants comparative to plants grown in their natural habitats. However, despite my reservations and personal guilt toward ecological domestication, I find it important to continue surrounding myself with an ever-growing natural urban jungle as the ever-increasing urban lifestyle ensures we continue losing more and more contact with the outdoor world.

This is a piece I wrote for my nature writing course that has been marked highly and in the running for publication in the nature course anthology. There was no topic given, instead, we were simply told to create a 1000 word piece suitable for the nature writing genre. Reference list follows for further reading.

References

Benedetto, A, Galmarini, C, & Tognetti, J 2015, ‘Changes in leaf size and in the rate of leaf production contribute to cytokinin-mediated growth promotion in Epipremnum aureum L. cuttings’, Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology, vol 88, no. 2 pp. 179-186, viewed 15 September 2019, <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14620316.2013.11512954>.

Bounds, Johnson & Wolverton 1989, Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatemen, NASA, United States, viewed 18August 2019, <https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930073077.pdf>.

Deng, L & Deng, Q 2018, ‘The basic roles of indoor plants in human health and comfort’, Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, Vol 25, DOI: 36087-36101.

Garcia-Palacios, P, Milla, R, Delgado-Baquerizo M, Martin-Robles, N, Alvaro-Sanchez, M & Wall, DH 2013, ‘Side-effects of plant domestication: ecosystem impacts of change in litter quality’, New Phytologist, vol 198, pp. 504-513.

Zohary, D & Hopf, M 2000, Domestication of Plant in the Old World. The Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in West Asia, Europe and Nile Valley, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

#nature writing #indoor plants #house plants #nature genre #writing course #ecological domestication #urban jungle #plants #nature #climate change #indoor rainforest #indoor jungle #ecology #habitat #ecosystems

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roseamongroses · 6 years ago

Text

Antithesis: “what do you have? “ I have a kNIFE” “NO”

[Specific-Summary]: They should expect growing pains. For not everything to feel right or make sense. That doesn't mean it'll always hurt, nor does it mean they can't have fun along the way. It's senior year. Everything may be different. It won't be senior year for long. Everything will be okay.

[General Warnings]: Implied Emotional Abuse, Implied Physical Abuse, Bad Parents are Bad Parents, Mild Sexual Content/jokes,Mentioned Homophobia, Mentions of underage drinking (backround), Some Catcalling,Cursing , Self Hate,implied pregnancy talk/inability to become pregnant, adults arguing where the “kid” can hear it, adults drinking,

[Tags/mood:] highschool au, fluff and angst but its all good, chat fic, teen stress, its flordia no snow we die like men [Pairing:] Roceit (Roman Sanders/ Deceit Sanders), hinted future/possible logince/roloceit/loceit [Characters]Roman Sanders/Deceit (Dmitri) Sanders, Virgil Sanders, Logan Sanders, Patton Sanders, Remy (Sleep) Sanders, Nate Sanders, Dragon Witch (Diana) Remus “The Duke” Sanders (minor/brief)

(Ao3) (Previously)

(8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15)

(16) (17) (18)

L: I May Have Lost Roman

V: nice

P: not nice :)

V: i feel vaguely threatened

Rem:@L how the fuck did you manage that Rem: nvm i know how just give me details

L:I don’t know ? One second we were at check out L: Next minute he was Gone and Nieve is looking suspicious

L:Hold on lemme ask Dmitri

V: why is he there

L: I mean he’s actually pretty chill L: But he dropped Roman off and Nieve got attached L:I’m...not sure if she’s planning on letting him go?

V:logan, my friend, my buddy, V:the only person in this chat with basic reading comprehension

Rem: that’s pretty fair

P: it really is tbh

V: Send. Pictures.

L: Okay L: Slight Issue

V: you lost the snake too

L: I lost Dmitri too and Nieve is not spilling

Rem: oh they’re defeinately fucking

L:...Where? The bathroom?

Rem: Don’t knock it till you try it ;)

V: not to be that guy but im vetoing this discussion V: cause thats a Yikes even for you Remy

L: Alright time to find them

Rem: check ;))) the;))) bathrooms ;;))))

L: Remy.

Rem: alrighlright too far ill stop

L: Thank you.

V: keep me updated V: i only have silence and physics homework as company

L:Huh L:Found them

L: Roman….found a katanna…

V: im sorry WHAT V: Why The Fuck Does He Have A Sword

Rem: drop the location of that store man

L: 1) It’s a Katanna L: 2)I will certainly Not. L: 3) He’s trying to convince Dmitri why he should have it

L…..and Dmitri looks more amused then concerned

V: if I can't have a tarantula he sure as hell cant have a sword

L:I told him it was probably fake/ poorly made and that he should take the time to invest the proper skill in money in a real one

V: goddamit logan you cant logic roman.

L: It worked. He put it back. L: So I say I can do what I want with roman

Rem: some spicy takes from the chats only brain cell ;)

---

“So you’re turning eighteen, in a few months. ” His aunt said, dabbing her cheeks with a napkin. She still managed to hold an air of prestige despite getting utterly shitfaced the night before. Her appointments have been going well.

Dmitri looked up, masking his surprise and holding his tongue.

Dr. Montag looked over, quieting the running water and placing the dish was he was cleaning down, “Really?” he said, brushing his hands, “You got any plans?” he asked, Dmitri.

“Oh we usually do something small,” His aunt interjected, “But seeing as he’s my father’s favorite grandchild,” Only grandchild, “He’s is flying from Paris to join us. And he was never a man of modesty so I’ve been thinking about doing something special for the occasion.”

Oh.

Dmitri fought the smile creeping on his face, ducking his head. He shouldn’t be surprised that she remembered after all if his grandfather was visiting. It’s how he got his phone, laptop, his car.

It’s probably why she puts up with him, to begin with. Cause it wasn’t guilt.

“--We should get your hair cut,” She continued, and Dmitri snapped out of his thoughts, “Maybe invite Diana--he’d like her,” she murmured.

“Diana and I a-” He closed his mouth, and his aunt’s eyes shot over.

“You broke up?” She narrowed her eyes, examining her nails, “Huh, makes sense seeing as...” she gestured at him vaguely, “So who have you been sneaking around with?”

“I’m not sneaking around with anyone,” Dmitri said, meeting her gaze. And technically he was right, it’s not sneaking if she just hasn’t been asking. And he’s given up on telling.

Dr. Montag’s eyebrows knitted together confused,” Well that isn’t true,”

Dmitri’s eyes went wide, stomach sinking.

His Aunt’s grin spread, “Oh really?”

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck--

“He’s been helping me out, hon,” Dr. Montag set down a glass of water and pills beside her plate, “You’ve been so stressed lately,” he looked guilty and produced some tickets, “I thought I’d surprise you.”

Her face softened and like that the tension left the room. Those two got to linger in whatever lovey-dovey spell had taken hold of them in the last few months, but Dmitri was still on edge.

She still kept him on edge, but he could get her back. Even the playing field. Anytime he could leave this—Anytime he could flip this switch and put her on edge and make her—

He stopped eating, setting his plate aside.

He felt sick.

---

R:helllloooo R:anyone up R: sigh R: allll by mySELLLLF

L: Roman?

R: the one and lonely yes hello human contact???

L: Are you alright? It’s 3 am why are you still awake?

R: why are YOU up mm????

L: My parents have newborn twins. What’s your excuse?

R: well fuck got me there

R: i was texting dee but he was rlly tired and i stILL can’t sleep

L: Any particular reason?

R: u m

L: Private chat?

R: please

- [TheTruthAboutTheMoon]

TheWalkingMouth: Okay shoot

Cowboy:it's stupid

TheWalkingMouth: I’ll tell you if it's stupid or not just say it

Cowboy: i just….like Cowboy: it's all kinda….hitting me a ll at once and i Really don’t like thinking about it but i cant bottle shit up either like you bastards so i feel like the human equivelent og a washing machine with too much laundry in it

TheWalkingMouth: Then don’t? TheWalkingMouth: Even if it's too ‘stupid’ for me I’m sure Dmitri wouldn’t mind

Cowboy: yeah but i feel like im going to say something shitty to him i Cowboy: like we should talk about it Cowboy: and i will Cowboy: but not now--later when it's not too stressful for either of us

TheWalkingMouth: Why would you say something shitty?

Cowboy: idk id jst get frustrated trying to explain it Cowboy: like hes smart as hell and probbaly get it without me saying anything but like Cowboy: I have neither the patience nor articulation right now to explain like a civil person and he doesnt need me being shitty about it

Cowboy:like,,,,,for example,,,,, if he fucks up in school, he’ll get recommended a tutor and teachers would assume hes doing his best and hes such a sweet and quiet boy

Cowboy: like he is sweet!!but hes a little shit too!! And gets away with it!!! Half those pranks he pulled on virgil, as Iconic as they were he never got in trouble for them!!!

Cowboy: when i fuck up i

Cowboy: god it's stupid

TheWalkingMouth: Might not get a second chance? Yeah I get it.

TheWalkingMouth:Remember when I first transferred here? None of the teachers would take me seriously bc of my accent and if they did, they were afraid of me. I could repeat something another kid said word for word and still be told I had an attitude.

Cowboy: god i remembered that Cowboy: you answered his yes or no questions in a fuckin montone, quiet ass voice and he legit called in the office cause he got scared of a goddamn freshman

Cowboy: But ye when i fuck up Cowboy: im suddenly the lazy ass brown kid who should spend less time corrupting youth with my feminine hips and curls Cowboy: like it's not like a lot of them say it outright but it feels like if im not perfect im fufilling all the stereotypes

TheWalkingMouth: Ah okay, rant away

Cowboy: OK like like like im not like virgil right?? in a lot of ways and it fuckin shows

Cowboy: he’s been planning on going into engineering since sixth grade meanwhile i only got my shit together in highschool

Cowboy: and like now that im here/???what now??? My mother expects me to have my shit together meanwhile im over here freaking the fuck out over whether not it's worth it to even try Cowboy: like yes mother i want to go to an art/or librel arts school that may or may not accept me that we may or may not afford to find a career in who the hell knows because if i have to sit in a healthcare class or a applied mathmatics class like you did i miight actually shank the professor????

Cowboy: that i dread the thought of not trying to explore my options outside of this fucking state but i dread the thought of going bc i cant stand the thought of being away from home but i cant fucking find a reason to stay cause everyone i love is leaving or planning their own life anyway???

Cowboy: like remys gunna fuck off to who knows where regardless of whether or not he has a plans or money, pattons gunna take care of his grandmother whereever the fuck a canada ,moms moving in with tia, virgils already mentally flipping me off ready to fuck nasa , and i only fucking hope dmitri even getss the chance to choose where he goes but hes g o n e and i die from yearning behind a screen like the gay victorian i am , and you….i actually dont know

TheWalkingMouth: Teaching for either biology or physics

Cowboy: huh it fits but what about chemistry??

TheWalkingMouth: Fuck chemistry.

Cowboy: oh thank god we’re on the same page

TheWalkingMouth: Anyway, I assume you’re more worried about whether you should apply rather then if you could get in?

Cowboy: i think so

TheWalkingMouth: Well if my opinion means anything to you

Cowboy: more than you’re assuming but yeah continue

TheWalkinMouth: Wait

Cowboy: nothing nothing continue

TheWalkingMouth: Okay-- I think you should go for it but you don’t need to dive head first into it and commit to everything 100% like virgil did.

TheWalkingMouth: You’re allowed to keep your options open, to have backup plans for back up plans

TheWalkingMouth: It doesn’t mean you’re not passionate about your art. Doesn’t mean you’re inevitably going to get a office job and abandon all your dreams. It means you’re being smart and not backing yourself into a corner

TheWalkingMouth:It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay not to have it all figured out

TheWalkingMouth: Nobody does.

TheWalkingMouth: Even if no one else gives you a second chance at least give yourself a second chance.

TheWalkingMouth: It’s perfectly normal to be afraid to fuck up and get fucked over TheWalkingMouth: That doesn’t mean you will everytime TheWalkingMouth: And it certainly doesn’t mean it's the end

Cowboy:

[...Cowboy is typing…]

---

@daflangstlairde

@ace-anx

@cataclysm-al

#Roman sanders #Deceit Sanders #Roceit #ts sides #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #ts virgil #ts logan #ts remy #Antithesis

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aftermathdb · 6 years ago

Text

DEATH BATTLE Review: Captain Marvel vs. Shazam.

The DEATH BATTLE Curse lives on.

Two heroes, with their title and role forced upon them by a mentor now duke it out to see who is a true marvel.

Captain Marvel′s Preview.

Thanks to a certain new movie that’s pretty popular right now, we have a general idea as to who she is. Inspired by her Navy dad, she wanted to be an astronaut. In order to do this, she joined the Air Force. But, one day, she was caught in an explosion from a machine called the Psyche-Magnitron.

Since (Plot twist) her mom was actually a Kree all along, Carol wasn’t killed, but instead, she got super powers!

But it was basically like being drunk. Except, instead of driving and ending up running people over with her car, Carol’s ‘drunken’ persona was a hero. Eventually, she figured it all out, and went through a lot of names. Like Ms Marvel, Warbird, Whiz Bang…

Until one day, a dear friend passed on. Inspired by her mentor, Carol then took on the name Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel has plenty of superhuman abilities. From your standard flight, super strength, speed, and a healing factor. She also has “precognitive awareness” that we’re just going to call a 7th Sense for the sake of this review.

But, Carol’s real power comes in form of her energy absorption. And when she gets enough of it, she basically turns into Moltres from Pokemon.

Her 7th Sense can give her an edge up on opponents too. As it lets her know what’s going to happen to her on the battlefield. And in her Binary form, she can bust up planets.

And what hero rundown would be complete without some impressive feats?

But Carol is hardly invincible. She’s got her limits on absorption, and her feats only go so far. Also, she doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to magic.

But, as an Avenger, Air force pilot, a NASA security guard and so much more, Carol’s not one to give up in the face of danger.

Shazam′s Preview.

Thanks to a certain new movie that’s pretty popular right now, we have a general idea as to who he is. Fifteen-Year old Billy Batson was an orphan kid, who didn’t really know the meaning of family. But one day, after running from some bullies, he was whisked away to the Rock of Eternity, where he was given incredible powers that he could access at the shout of a single word:

SHAZAM!

And with that, he became Captain Marvel… Okay, history lesson time.

See, Marvel kinda got a bit upset about the whole thing kinda intruding on their name. Carol came in about 20 years later than Billy there, but it’s a bit more complex than that.

See, Captain Marvel wasn’t originally made by DC, but by Fawcett Comics as a competitor to Superman (Incidentally, Fawcett is now used regularly in Shazam mythos. Whether it be the city that Billy resides in, or the school he goes to, it’s always there somewhere).

Anyways, DC wasn’t a fan of competition, and took Fawcett to court.

And they won. Meaning that Captain Marvel is now DC property.

But then Marvel got in on the game, and it got even more complex from there. Because of how copyright and trademarks worked, there was a bit of a feud of what was going on.

Long story short, Marvel owned the name, but DC owned the character. So, they battled it out in the courts until DC decided to just name the character Shazam.

As Shazam, Billy gains access to these powers:

For the record, Zeus once channeled enough power to destroy the shattered God, a guy who was originally broken by the original Big Bang.

Shazam also has a lot of other powers to draw from.

From a healing factor, to the ability to teleport to the Rock of Eternity, to being able to share his power with those he considers family, Billy’s got it all.

And for those of you who haven’t figured it out, like Boomstick, here’s how the word works:

With all these powers, he’s pulled off some ridiculous stuff.

Now, to match the Flash’s speed, Shazam would have to be able to match the Speed Force, which means that Shazam’s best speed would have to match up to about…

……… Still not a number that’s faster than EXE, but considering that it would be the Speed of Mercury vs. the Speed Force, I’d say that that’s a major move for the Flash.

Shazam also once did this:

Now, he once got hit by a thing called the Tessaract Bomb.

If you’re wondering what it does, then brace yourselves…

That. He survived thanks to his powers, but the fact that he survived it is impressive.

Of course, Shazam’s experience isn’t that impressive considering… He’s 15. But the fact that he’s managed to keep up with the best of them and be a true hero through and through. That’s one impressive feat for a guy who can basically be described as “The Ultimate Power Fantasy.”

The Battle Itself.

Zack is lead on animation. Terri Doty will reprise her role as Captain Marvel from before and Shazam will be voiced by Michael Kovach. Since transformation is inevitable, Billy is going to appear and will be voiced by Paige Stork (If someone could link me to her twitter, that would be great. In the meantime, that’s her Roosterteeth profile). Jerky as the sprite artist, Chris Kokkinos ob audio, and music (titled “Marvelous”) by Brandon Yates.

So the battle starts with Billy as Shazam just walking down the street messing around with his powers. Electrifying a lamp post, a car, and an ATM

An ATM that seems to be filled with… Mr Krabs’ first dollar? Since when do ATMs dispense one-dollar bills?

Anyways, Carol sees this, and since we all know how this would look to anyone without context, Shazam decides to skedaddle. But Carol gives chase, and we have a fight on our hands.

So, Shazam decides to power through the attacks, and then goes for one of his favorite go-to attacks: Flying the opponent up while grappling them to hit them with lightning.

But, since Carol’s powerset basically makes this move null, all it does is mega-evolve Carol into her Binary form.

And since Carol retains the properties of the energy she absorbs, she can magic Billy back to his original form.

Caught off-guard (Because there’s no way anyone could see that coming without knowledge of Billy’s origin), Billy transforms back into his Super-Hero persona.

So, Carol’s kinda mad about the fact that a fifteen-year old kid has been kicking her butt, so she’s done playing games as she charges

(For the record, this line is way more hammy than the screenshot makes it look. Speaking of, I’m thinking of shrinking the dialogue a bit and adding a background color to it to make the dialogue more visible but hopefully not interfere with the visuals).

So, after crashing underground for like… three seconds (How deep would that have to be for that to work?), Carol and Shazam exit at a subway station.

So Shazam brings it back to where it all began.

Right to deep space. So after tossing Carol through three other space rocks

Shazam gears up for a finishing blow.

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Boom!

… How is it that no matter how badly you annihilate one of these hero-types, some shred of their uniforms somehow always manages to remain intact?

(Shout-out to anyone who knows that line)

Verdict + Explanation.

So, Carol holding her own against the likes of the Phoenix force and other cosmic beings certainly meant that she could hold her own against Shazam’s strength, she kinda fell short in a good chunk of the other categories.

Take speed, for instance. While Carol’s Binary form could reach the speed of light,

Shazam could use only a fraction of that to outpace her in that area.

Experience sorta went to Carol, but the Wisdom of Solomon would certainly close the gap a lot more. It’s really overpowered, to say the least.

But most importantly, Carol simply didn’t have the means to really take Shazam down in terms of strength.

Now, for the record, when Shazam punched a black hole into existence, he was giant at the time.

Now, judging by the size of the hole, we can determine the Schwarzchild Radius.

From there, we can determine the mass of the black hole.

And then we can figure out how much force it would take to make something like that.

And in case you’re wondering, a single foe is basically…

(We still haven’t broken EXE’s record of highest number ever recorded).

And this isn’t some weird outlier either. Zeus was able to destroy the shattered god.

While he had help from other gods that he was channeling energy through, this still means he has a fraction of that same power. Even if there were a thousand gods helping him out, Zeus’ power would still be, at minimum…

That level of power.

Credit where it’s due, though…

Overall impression.

Personal opinions aside, the fight was really well-animated, the dialogue was on-the-nose, and the results are what you’d expect. While I still find the comparisons to be shallow at best, the fight’s entertaining.

This isn’t a unique scenario like Flash vs. Quicksilver, nor is it a scenario with deeper comparisons like Venom vs. Bane, this is basically like a horse with a broken leg vs. a farmer with a tank… A tank that’s powered by a nuke!

7.0/10. It’s blatantly one-sided with no unique things about the scenario to make it feel like it was worth it. Outside of the music and animation, the scenario is still a straight fight. It’s not a death race. There’s no real deeper comparisons to be made. It’s just a fight. It’s a good fight, but not a unique one.

Next Time…

Huh… Well, time to see if the tier lists are lore complicit.

If we’re going off of Smash tier lists, then Wario takes it.

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

King vs Waa!

#review #Death Battle #Deathbattle #screwattack

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theatreworksstkilda · 6 years ago

Text

DRIVE: REBECCA MESTON IN TOP GEAR

Theatre People

K.E. WEBER — MAY 31, 2019

Inspired by true events, playwright Rebecca Meston, has written a tale of loss and heartbreak set to a backdrop of time and space.

Drive is a play that was inspired by former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak, who in 2007 drove from Houston to Orlando to confront her ex-lover’s lover and supposed attempt to kidnap her. Five months before this event she had been up in space on a mission.

Meston was gripped by the crime at the time, but it wasn’t until 10 years later, when she was constantly driving across regional SA that she remembered it like a flash.

“Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she says. ” Now with a small child in the back of my car, and driving amidst highways and freeways and long stretches of horizon, I was struck by the more thematic elements of the story, like how big the world is, and how incredibly small. How completely capable and driven you can be when the stakes are so high, but you’re also feeling lost, or grief-stricken, or heartbroken.”

“Looking out at the road there was this immediate sense of “I can’t look away now. I can’t get distracted. Or seek to be distracted. Yes there may be a banger of a song on the radio and I’ll go into memory, or fantasy, or a conversation I wish could happen, but ultimately, at the eleventh hour of this drive, I will have to face it. Face myself.'”

While the show is about an astronaut and an otherworldly backdrop, it’s really about loss, heartbreak, the end of a marriage, a long-term relationship. In an epic way. Meston explains that the show charts a 14-hour trip through space and time, in the back seat of our heroine’s car, memory and fantasy come and go like a dark, otherworldly version of Taxicab Confessions.

Meston goes on to say that beyond the location and Americana of it all, is a 14-hour unravelling of a highly capable woman; filled with mess, nuance, and controlled rage. How does this happen? What does a complex unravelling of an inner-life look like? Bringing it back to the here and now, the relevant themes explored include:

How a woman so at the top of her game, with a family and a 19-year marriage, can fall so spectacularly apart?

How we often use this old adage “the truth will set you free”, but what is the actual process of getting free? What do you have to go through first? Is it a dark 14-hour drive of the soul made through the middle of a rainy night?

How close are any of us, at any time, to snapping? To getting into a car and not looking back? Do we in fact all have 10 per cent of Lisa Nowak in us somewhere?

When you put your distractions aside, your double screening, your social media, your Game of Thrones addiction, all the stuff that helps you look away, and properly face yourself, what happens?

The engrossing work took approximately two years of work from initial concept to completed work. A first stage development, as part of Vitalstatistix’ ‘Incubator’ residency, was done in May, 2017. Meston then worked on it with dramaturg Saffron Benner, as part of ‘A Month in the Country’ at Hothouse, and then, in 2018, it went through an inSPACE development with a packed out showing. Meston and team have now spent four weeks rehearsing and it’s primed and ready.

Meston confesses that one of the challenges of getting Drive to performance stage was in explaining the idea in one or two quick sentences!

“The form of the show – road theatre – and that audiences are basically going on a drive from A to B over 50 minutes – isn’t a style we regularly see on stages,” says Meston. “We have road movies, Thelma and Louise, Death Proof, etc, but what does road theatre look like and feel like? What are its conventions? How do you abstract a car? All brilliant creative challenges.”

Meston acknowledges that the joys, on the other hand, was making this very style of work, and with a story that explores the more complex and nuanced elements of what it feels like to be human. “And working with an extraordinary team of artists who care deeply about making new work, and who are all exceptionally good at bringing new Australian work to life,” she says.

Research was a big part of Meston’s journey with two years devoted to researching the world of astronauts, NASA, space travel and what it takes to get there. In that time, Metson’s insight into the world and mind of her lead character, Stella, heightened making writing her a little easier.

“When it came to writing the show, it all just poured out of me,” she says. “Maybe “easier” is the wrong response. It was still really hard too, Stella is a tricky character and not exactly the easiest person to spend time with. “

“She is going through great loss while in a sense coping, or treating her car drive like a mission into space. No it didn’t end well, but she was highly functional. I relate to this, as I’m sure a lot of audiences will. We don’t all fall apart and become immobilised during loss and grief. Some of us do the exact opposite. I felt I knew my material very well, as opposed to her being “easier to write'”.

As a playwright, Meston cares about finding the genre that serves the story. Whether it’s cabaret, stand-up, direct address, a punk rock musical, a five-hour durational public performance. “Growing up, when my mum was angry at me when I’d have a friend over, she’d sometimes whisper in my ear, “When I get you behind closed doors, WOE BETIDE!!” (she’s English)”

It’s precisely this that interests her. The behind-closed-doors of a character. The hard parts of a character. Not the one smiling broadly, and waving goodbye to said friend. The one who closes the door, turns and shows the mess, the anger and all that’s been temporarily flattened out for public display.

“There is a British/Nordic detective series called Marcella with Anna Friel which I found so intriguing in the making of this work,” explains Meston. “The character of Marcella is not immediately likeable, but you are with her, care about her, are on her side, from the beginning because of her richly drawn, nuanced character who is neither maiden, mother or crone. The storytellers I like best include Patricia Cornelius, Kate Mulvany, Bryony Kimmings, Clare Barron, Jeanette Winterson, Barbara Trapdio and my late friend, poet Hima Raza.”

Next on the list for Meston is the making of Hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s – an intimate cabaret with a live choir, which aims to reimagine the mythology of Australian rock music from a female perspective.

Meston explains that it will feature a rambling house party come front bar of an Australian pub, complete with garish, swirly carpet that sticks to your feet and reeks of stale beer and cigarettes.

But for now, Meston’s focus is Drive – a work that aims to be brutal, funny, aware of itself as theatre and profoundly moving.

As the show charts a 14-hour trip through space and time, in the back seat of our heroine’s car, memory and fantasy come and go like a dark, otherworldly version of Taxicab Confessions. Urgent and immediate, Drive tells the stories you will never read about on your Instagram feed, but to which your heart will explosively relate.

June 6 – 15

www.theatreworks.org.au/program/drive/

#theatrepeople #theatre #theatreworksstkilda #theatreperformance #stkilda #inditheatre

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sciencespies · 2 years ago

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Risk for Orion is even higher than for SLS, says NASA official

https://sciencespies.com/space/risk-for-orion-is-even-higher-than-for-sls-says-nasa-official/

Risk for Orion is even higher than for SLS, says NASA official

By Leah Crane

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket with the Orion spacecraft on top at Kennedy Space Center in Florida

NASA/Joel Kowsky

The Artemis I mission marks the beginning of a new era of human exploration for NASA. While the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will not be crewed, Artemis II will take astronauts around the moon. The third Artemis flight will take humans back to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. NASA associate director Thomas Zurbuchen has been key to the programme’s development. New Scientist reporter Leah Crane caught up with him in Cape Canaveral, Florida shortly before Artemis I’s first launch attempt on 29 August, which had to be delayed due to technical difficulties. The new launch date is planned for 3 September.

How are you feeling? Excited? Nervous?

Whenever you do a thing like this where everything has to work, there is of course excitement, elation, pride for the team – but there’s some worry too, because you’ve bet it all on this one moment. There’s fear, even, that something might go wrong because a lot has to go right.

Aside from the launch itself, is there anything we’re going to learn that you’re particularly excited for?

There are a number of science investigations that are on there, much of it related to radiation, both with CubeSats [miniature satellites] and also radiation experiments on Orion. I’m really excited about learning about the deep-space environment in the context of humans. We haven’t really thought about that for 50 years with that intensity.

It’s been a long road to this point, with countless delays and budget overruns. Was it all worth it?

It has to be. And it will be. After 20 years in low-Earth orbit, we need to go beyond. Getting to that, I wish it was easier, but the journey starts with this.

How far ahead has NASA planned after this first SLS launch?

We have to be really suspect of plans. The first three Artemis missions we really need to make happen. We need to get back to the surface of the moon, and there’s no shortcut. We need to be working on all three of those missions now.

When you go to Artemis IV through VII, of course we’re working on those, but on a timescale of 10 years, let’s say, or 15 years, there are a lot of variables that will adjust. The question is, how many large launchers will we have? There’s one large launcher sitting on the pad – are there going to be others? How many in the private sector? How many internationally?

The next question is, what will we discover relative to science of the moon doing these first missions? What we discover is very much driving the future plan. The plans beyond the next few Artemis missions really should be adaptable, they need to be.

After this first uncrewed SLS launch, how much harder is it to put people in the Orion crew capsule on the rocket?

It’s a lot harder. There are a lot of problems. First of all, this is the first journey, and I actually believe that the risk for Orion is higher than the risk for the rocket. Bringing Orion back is going to be as big a challenge as getting off Earth.

Why is that?

Frankly, I sat through 11-plus hours of system reviews so I looked at every one of the risks that are there. The heat shield is the prime one that people have talked about, but the whole integration of the system of the European Service Module with the other pieces, the propulsion piece, the orbit injection, how is it all going to work – it’s just not easy. The whole [communications] piece with this complex orbit, the orbital debris piece, the risks just add up. The mission is only over once Orion is down safely here.

Are we using a lot of knowledge that we gained from the Apollo programme?

Yes, we should always learn everything we can learn from the previous generation, but I think this is also entirely new – we’re going back to a different moon than we left. The questions that we have are very different, and the tools of investigation – small satellites were not a thing, AI was not a thing, massive amounts of data that we can analyse were not a thing. I think there’s going to be exciting science coming from it, without a doubt.

The purpose of the Artemis missions is very different from the Apollo programme. We’re not just going to plant a flag – how has that affected the mission plan?

When you go for the first time back with humans to the surface of the moon, the most important objective is to make humans survive, whether or not you have a science purpose. As we move forward, when we go beyond the Artemis III mission, the science becomes much more dominant. We’re already talking right now about what kinds of handheld instruments we give the astronauts, how much sample mass can we bring back? Because we think the samples are just as important as anything that’s happening on the surface of the moon. The role that science has is increasing as we go.

#Space

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ghostbustershq · 4 years ago

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Out Today, Randy Edelman's 1989 Ghostbusters II Score Album!

The wait is over! After 30+ years of fans wondering if they’ll ever get an official release of Randy Edelman’s bouncy and jovial score to Ghostbusters II, today is the day! Sony Masterworks has remastered and released 16 tracks, including three that have been newly recorded and one scored for the film but not ultimately used.

Stay tuned to the HQ for an in-depth analysis of the score, we’ll be doing our best impression of David Collins soon and trying to line up some of the cues with the film to see what and where material was unused or altered in post production.

And don’t forget the vinyl release hits October 16th. As previously mentioned here on the site, there are glow-in-the-dark Barnes and Noble and Mondo exclusives forthcoming. Stay tuned for more information on those as it develops.

In the meantime, here’s much more information from the good folks at Sony Masterworks:

GHOSTBUSTERS II

ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE BY RANDY EDELMAN

AVAILABLE TO STREAM FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER & ON CD TODAY

SCORE TO THE 1989 FILM CLASSIC WILL ALSO BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME ON VINYL BEGINNING FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15 – PREORDER NOW

NEW YORK, NY – For the first time ever and 32 years after the film’s 1989 release, the Original Score to Ghostbusters II is now available to stream and on CD format today from Sony Classical – LISTEN HERE. Featuring score music by award-winning musician, producer and composer Randy Edelman, the 16-track album includes original recordings of the film classic’s score as well as 3 newly re-recorded tracks and an additional song originally recorded by Edelman for the film but not featured in its final production. The album will also be available in vinyl format beginning Friday, October 16, arriving as a gatefold set featuring photos from the film – PREORDER HERE.

Of the score, composer RANDY EDELMAN says, “In Ghostbusters II, the characters and storyline were expertly conceived and then acted in the sequel brilliantly. The story took place a few years later, but in a sense each character already had a distinct personality, which hadn’t changed a bit. In a way, they carried their own music and soul with them. Their interactions in each scene would determine if musical accompaniment was necessary, and, in most cases, it was not. The new storyline and menace the city of New York was facing, the dark nature of the evil Carpathian, that was where this score would be most urgent. That and the supernatural, explosive and inventive methods of the group of our forward-thinking pals, was where the heart of my score would and should lie. Though I had watched and thoroughly loved the original film several years before, I decided not to view it during my involvement with the sequel. I knew I needed to carefully sculpt a musical palette for this new specific screenplay and did not reference any aspect of the original movie, trying to give Ghostbusters II a well-deserved, new color all its own. I will always appreciate the fact that this decision of mine was never once questioned.”

Speaking of his collaborators to the project, Randy continues, “Upon looking back at any score after so many years, a composer is surely cognizant of those who they were surrounded by, in a process that is always so challenging in many ways. In the case of the sequel to Ghostbusters, I was working on one of my first large scale orchestral works and one that followed the great success of the first movie. I was assisted by the great orchestrator, Mr. Greig McRitchie, music editor Kathy Durning, and engineers Elton Ahi and Robert Fernandez. I have elsewhere here thanked [Director] Ivan Reitman for a stern, yet assuring hand, in his direction at all times, and his confidence in trusting me totally throughout the always delicate process. The large orchestra gave me a spiritual high at each session, and I thank all the wonderful players who participated and lent their talent to my efforts. I got to revisit a few thematic moments for this collection, and it was a blast to be able to do that. It brought back all those incredible memories, and made that magic happen right now, once more. How lucky to experience it over again – I am one fortunate piano player!”

ABOUT RANDY EDELMAN

Music royalty with a career challenging the longevity that rivals the Queen of England, composer, conductor, singer and celebrated piano phenomena Randy Edelman has long been given tribute as one of the most profound and recognizable film, television, and sports soundtrack architects on the planet. A hybrid fusion of Mozart and Bruce Springsteen, there seems to be a certain bedazzlement or wizardry connected to him and his music that leaves a trail of glitter behind never to be forgotten.

Raised in Teaneck New Jersey, Randy was born with the ability to hear music and transcribe it onto the piano. After a brief quarrel with fate where Randy was temporally thrust into the pursuit of pre-med, he moved into full-time piano and composition study at the Cincinnati Music Conservatory where he was then able to follow his unquestionable destiny. He eventually procured an arranging assignment at James Brown’s King Records. In 1970 Randy relocated to New York to work as a staff writer at CBS Records while simultaneously playing piano in Broadway pit orchestras.

Like a seductive alchemist Randy began to write and record his own albums transforming the world’s anguish into a narrative of truth and granting him a thriving audience in the UK and a television spot on “Top of the Pops.” After enjoying the triumph of the British collective effervescence at the London Palladium and Drury Lane Theatre, Randy began to pursue a new interest in LA where he became interested in creating the life, blood and essence of the movies through music, making the plainest faces come alive with promise.

Randy is responsible for creating an endless cascade of many of the world’s most known soundtracks including: Ghostbusters II, 27 Dresses, While You Were Sleeping, The Last of the Mohicans, Kindergarten Cop, Dragonheart, XXX, Twins, My Cousin Vinny, The Mask, Beethoven, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Anaconda, Mummy 3, Gettysburg, Billy Madison, Leap Year, The Whole Nine Yards, EdTV, Daylight and an endless array of others. Some of the television shows and series he scored include: MacGyver, Mr. Sunshine, Backdraft 2 for Netflix, and Citizen X for HBO. These credits only touch the surface of his accomplishments. He has also created the music for “Dare Mighty Things” for NASA’s final Shuttle launch, “Wimbledon, Grand Slam Tennis Series” for ESPN, “ESPN Sports Century,” and even the NBC “on air” Olympic Theme, of which he has celebrated over 20 years of Olympic themed glory keeping the musical flame alive.

Aside from crafting and orchestrating the scores that gave life to the films, a myriad of artists have covered and recorded Randy’s original songs from his solo albums. Included in that catalog is Barry Manilow’s “Weekend in New England,” The Carpenters’ “I Cant Make Music” and Nelly’s “My Place,” reaching Number 1 on the Billboard Hip Hop charts. Others include Willie Nelson’s “Down in the Everglades,” Patti LaBelle’s “Isn’t it a Shame,” Olivia Newton John’s “If Love is Real,” Blood, Sweat & Tears’ “Blue Street,” Royal Philharmonic’s “Grey,” and a list that continues endlessly. Randy has also opened live in breathtaking arenas for icons such as Frank Zappa and The Carpenters.

Randy has also received some of the most prestigious awards including BMI Top Grossing Film Awards, BMI’s highest honor, the Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Film Scoring and Composition, the Best Accolade from the Los Angeles Film Awards, an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts and an Emmy for the close of the Olympic Broadcast.

Like a musical Chameleon, Randy continues to compose and record, lighting up the world like fireworks plunging into the night sky and shattering the darkness. The grand composer of modern and future times has just released his highly anticipated anthemic song of hope and inspiration titled “Comin’ Out the Other Side.” The single is now available worldwide via Soho Records. The song promotes an epidemic of joy and happiness as a grand finale to a time best forgotten….

He continues to work on the score for his musical, “Short Cut,” telling of the construction of the Panama Canal. Most recently Sony Masterworks is releasing Randy Edelman’s orchestral score to Ghostbusters II in all formats....

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Friday, April 30, 2021

Satellites show world’s glaciers melting faster than ever (AP) Glaciers are melting faster, losing 31% more snow and ice per year than they did 15 years earlier, according to three-dimensional satellite measurements of all the world’s mountain glaciers. Using 20 years of recently declassified satellite data, scientists calculated that the world’s 220,000 mountain glaciers are losing more than 328 billion tons (298 billion metric tons) of ice and snow per year since 2015, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature. That’s enough melt flowing into the world’s rising oceans to put Switzerland under almost 24 feet (7.2 meters) of water each year. Almost all the world’s glaciers are melting, even ones in Tibet that used to be stable, the study found. Except for a few in Iceland and Scandinavia that are fed by increased precipitation, the melt rates are accelerating around the world.

Biden Seeks Shift in How the Nation Serves Its People (NYT) President Biden laid out an ambitious agenda on Wednesday night to rewrite the American social compact by vastly expanding family leave, child care, health care, preschool and college education for millions of people to be financed with increased taxes on the wealthiest earners. Invoking the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mr. Biden unveiled a $1.8 trillion social spending plan to accompany previous proposals to build roads and bridges, expand other social programs and combat climate change, representing a fundamental reorientation of the role of government not seen since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and Roosevelt’s New Deal. Taken together, the collection of initiatives that Mr. Biden has introduced in his first 100 days in office suggest a breathtaking scope of change. But the succession of costly proposals amounts to a risky gamble that a country deeply polarized along ideological and cultural lines is ready for a more activist government and the sort of redistribution of wealth long sought by progressives. Mr. Biden’s Democrats have only the barest of majorities in the House and Senate to push through the most sweeping of legislation and, successful or not, he may have framed the terms of the debate for the next election.

Bioware (The Guardian) The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District and a company named Oxitec announced they will release 12,000 invasive Aedes aegypti mosquitoes each week for 12 weeks from six different locations on the Keys. The plan, which sounds like a Bond villain scheme while authorities insist it is definitely not, is a complicated biological counteroffensive against a bug responsible for spreading dengue, Zika and yellow fever. The mosquitos being released have been specially treated and are all male. When the genetically modified bugs mate with the wild local female mosquitoes, all the subsequent female offspring will be unable to reproduce, controlling the population of the worst pest on the planet. The Aedes aegypti in the Keys make up about 4 percent of the mosquito population, but are responsible for effectively all mosquito-borne disease.

EU Signs The Divorce Papers (NYT) The nearly five-year-long Brexit process has finally come to an exhausted end with a formal vote by the European Parliament (EP) to accept the part of the deal governing trade and customs issues and providing for zero tariffs and zero quotas. While the outcome was never seriously doubted, a ‘no’ vote by the EP would have killed the deal, which neither side wanted. Even so, the EP expressed considerable concerns about the trustworthiness of the current British government to carry out its side of the bargain. That includes the just approved trade deal, which still leaves out key issues like financial services and foreign and security policy. Brits voted to leave the EU in June 2016 after a campaign filled with exaggerations on both sides. Since then the struggle over how to define Brexit and Britain’s future relationship with the EU destroyed both prime ministerships of David Cameron and Theresa May. Boris Johnson is now running the show, and he’s had his own painful entanglements with the thorny issue of the border between Northern Ireland, a part of Britain, and the Republic of Ireland, a member of the EU.

Want a Peek at Post-Covid Life? Check Out Gibraltar (WSJ) On this strip of densely populated rock jutting into the Mediterranean Sea, people are tasting freedom. Gibraltar, population 34,000, has fully vaccinated around 85% of adults, its government says, and 98% of adults over 60. Gibraltar has been free of Covid-19 cases in its resident population since April 8. Gibraltar, twice Central Park’s size and dominated by a mountain known as The Rock, has embarked on “Operation Freedom,” a plan to fully reopen society while monitoring virus cases. With pandemic restrictions all but gone, its narrow streets and cafe-lined squares are showing life. On a recent evening, pedestrians walked arm-in-arm. Pubs and cafes were bustling with maskless patrons drinking and sharing bowls of bar snacks. “You are seeing people greet each other in the street, shaking hands, hugging for the first time in months,” says one resident, 61. “People are smiling.”

Bulgaria alleges Russian links to arms depot blasts, widening European probes into Moscow agents (Washington Post) Bulgarian prosecutors said Wednesday that they are looking at whether four explosions at weapons depots over the past decade are part of a Russian effort to disrupt the flow of arms from Eastern Europe to battlefields in Ukraine and Georgia. The investigations into the explosions, which took place between 2011 and 2020, are part of wider probes in Europe linked to suspected Russian military intelligence agents. Bulgaria’s announcement followed claims by Czech authorities last week that they suspect two agents from Unit 29155 in Russia’s GRU intelligence agency were linked to blasts at an arms warehouse in the Czech Republic in 2014. In Ukraine, government forces have been battling pro-Moscow separatists since 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Young women, grown up without Taliban, dread their return (AP) Inside Ms. Sadat’s Beauty Salon in Afghanistan’s capital, Sultana Karimi leans intently over a customer, meticulously shaping her eyebrows. Make-up and hair styling is the 24-year-old’s passion, and she discovered it, along with a newfound confidence, here in the salon. She and the other young women working or apprenticing in the salon never experienced the rule of the Taliban over Afghanistan. But they all worry that their dreams will come to an end if the hard-line militants regain any power, even if peacefully as part of a new government. The Taliban banned beauty salons, part of a notoriously harsh ideology that often hit women and girls the hardest, including forbidding them education and the right to work or even to travel outside their home unaccompanied by a male relative. With U.S. troops committed to leaving Afghanistan completely by Sept. 11, women are closely watching the stalemated peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government over the post-withdrawal future, said Mahbouba Seraj, a women’s rights activist.

U.S. aid en route to India as new cases continue to break records (Washington Post) U.S. flights carrying urgent coronavirus aid for India were en route Thursday, the White House said in a statement, as health officials reported another record number of new cases across the country. The U.S. government will deliver more than $100 million worth of supplies for overstretched hospitals and front-line health-care workers in India, according to the White House. The State Department is urging U.S. citizens to leave India “as soon as it is safe to do” and to avoid traveling there, pointing to “severely limited” access to all kinds of medical care.

China’s Baby Bust (Foreign Policy) China is expected to report its first population decline since Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in its latest census, which could spark a crisis moment in a country deeply worried about its aging demographics. After the one-child policy was formally lifted in 2015, the government hoped that a baby boom would follow, but the figures show it hasn’t materialized—because having kids in China is just too expensive. Censuses in communist countries have always been politically sensitive, since they often speak to failed policies or hidden disasters. Chinese officials have already delayed the release of the 2020 data—and it may later be buried, either not released or not covered by the media. China recorded more than 1.4 billion people in 2019, and a fall below that number will bring a significant moment closer: when India, with a population of 1.38 billion, officially becomes the world’s largest country. The population decline fundamentally reflects a simple reality, pandemic aside: Having children in China is expensive and burdensome. For the poor, the stress of separation from children due to labor migration, the difficulty of finding education or health care in big cities, and the impossibility of buying apartments—often a social requirement before marriage—present other obstacles.

China's space station (BBC) China launched the first piece of a new space station into orbit today. The Chinese Space Station will eventually be about a quarter of the size of the International Space Station and will have space to house three astronauts and a slew of low-gravity experiments. Beijing hopes to squeeze 10 more launches into the next 20 months and finish the project by the end of 2022. Chinese officials say the station will reserve space onboard for experiments from researchers all over the world—but geopolitical tensions will complicate. The US heavily restricts cooperation between NASA scientists and China, while the European Space Agency has reportedly pressured its researchers not to work with their Chinese counterparts.

Filipinos feel helpless against latest coronavirus surge (NYT) Grim tales are emerging in families across the Philippines, where Southeast Asia’s worst current outbreak has pushed total coronavirus cases beyond 1 million. Many who need treatment must be driven out of the capital, to hospitals as far as five hours away, as the health system buckles under the strain. The Philippines has recorded 16,000 deaths, with patients dying in their homes, on the road and sometimes right outside emergency room doors. Some private hospitals have turned to home care, remote consulting and recruiting health-care workers from the provinces. The Health Department is developing a home care package for patients with mild cases of covid-19.

Religious festival stampede in Israel kills 44, hurts dozens (AP) A stampede at a religious festival attended by tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in northern Israel killed at least 44 people and injured about 150 early Friday, medical officials said. It was one of the country’s deadliest civilian disasters. The stampede began when large numbers of people thronged a narrow tunnel-like passage during the event, according to witnesses and video footage. People began falling on top of each other near the end of the walkway, as they descended slippery metal stairs, witnesses said. Video footage showed large numbers of people, most of them black-clad ultra-Orthodox men, squeezed in the tunnel. The Haaretz daily quoted witnesses as saying police barricades had prevented people from exiting quickly. The stampede occurred during the celebrations of Lag BaOmer at Mount Meron, the first mass religious gathering to be held legally since Israel lifted nearly all restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ethiopia detains Tigrayans amid war (AP) Ethiopia has swept up thousands of ethnic Tigrayans into detention centers across the country on accusations that they are traitors, often holding them for months and without charges, the AP has found. The detentions, mainly but not exclusively of military personnel, are an apparent attempt to purge state institutions of the Tigrayans who once dominated them, as the government enters its sixth month of fighting in the Tigray region. Detainees, families and visitors spoke of hundreds or even more than 1,000 people in at least nine individual locations, including military bases and an agricultural college. The arbitrary locking up of non-combatants is against international law, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has met with family members of detainees but declined to answer questions. Conditions vary, but some detainees are given just one meal a day and crowded dozens to a room in sweltering metal shelters, at a time when COVID-19 infections are rapidly rising in Ethiopia.

#headlines #news

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

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U.S. role in global greenhouse gas constellation still up in the air

https://sciencespies.com/space/u-s-role-in-global-greenhouse-gas-constellation-still-up-in-the-air/

U.S. role in global greenhouse gas constellation still up in the air

The United States is expected to play a supporting role in an international campaign to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from space.

Through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, nations are coordinating efforts for space-based monitoring of air quality, greenhouse gases, the ozone layer and natural climate drivers like solar energy. China, Europe and Japan are making major investments in satellites to help verify how well countries are fulfilling commitments they made to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Paris climate agreement.

The United States, in contrast, is preparing to demonstrate sophisticated greenhouse gas sensor technologies but currently has no plans for ambitious atmospheric monitoring missions.

“Other countries are making great contributions and pushing as hard as they possibly can,” said David Crisp, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory atmospheric physicist helping to coordinate efforts to track carbon dioxide and methane by the 34 space agencies that make up the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites. “We are relying on their contributions. There’s no way around that at this point, but I would like our country to lead.”

Through the Paris climate pact signed in 2015, 174 countries and the European Union agreed to take steps to mitigate global warming and report their progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Those reports, called the global stocktake, are due every five years beginning in 2023.

NEW PRIORITIES

The Trump administration announced plans in 2017 to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement and did not support greenhouse-gas monitoring initiatives. It’s not yet clear whether that work will get a significant boost from the Biden administration.

Hours after taking office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order recommitting the United States to the Paris Agreement and Biden often refers to “tackling the climate crisis” as one of his top priorities.

Still, there are many ways the federal government works to address climate change aside from monitoring greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

NASA develops and demonstrates technology to monitor the ozone layer, air pollution, ocean chemistry, and changes in sea and land ice. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides long-term monitoring of those conditions in addition to offering extensive observation of global temperatures, precipitation, ice and ocean conditions.

NASA OR NOAA?

Experts disagree on whether greenhouse gas monitoring is a job for NASA or NOAA.

“NASA is the pathfinder,” said Barry Lefer, NASA’s Tropospheric Composition Program manager. “We build the first one, prove that works and then we hope that there are NOAA follow-ons.”

NASA, for example, proved it could measure carbon monoxide in the troposphere with the Microwave Limb Sounder on the Aura Earth observation satellite launched in 2004. NOAA now provides similar data with the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite on the Joint Polar Satellite System.

Credit: NOAA

Monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is trickier. To provide the global stocktake reports mandated by the Paris Agreement, the United States would need to measure atmospheric carbon with great precision and high spatial resolution.

“NASA is probably the only agency that could build that system,” said Crisp, who was the principal investigator for NASA’s first carbon dioxide monitoring mission, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. “However, once built and launched, it could be delivered to NOAA for use as an operational system.”

Europe plans to make weekly, global measurements of methane and carbon dioxide with the two-satellite Copernicus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Monitoring, CO2M, mission. Japan plans to make similar observations with its GOSAT satellite series as does China with its TanSat satellites.

Neither NASA nor NOAA have similarly ambitious programs underway. That could change if Congress approves the Biden administration’s plan to increase NASA and NOAA budgets.

BIDEN BUDGET

The Biden budget blueprint calls for adding $1.4 billion to NOAA’s 2022 budget partly “to expand its climate observation and forecasting work and provide better data and information to decisionmakers.”

The new administration also proposes a 12.5% increase in NASA Earth science funding, or about $250 million above 2021 levels “to initiate the next generation of Earth observing satellites to study pressing climate science questions,” according to the budget summary released April 9.

It’s too soon to say how the agencies would spend the money.

NASA funding could be directed toward a series of missions recommended in the 2017 Earth Science decadal survey to determine how Earth’s climate, water cycle, soil and vegetation are changing. The decadal survey also mentioned greenhouse gas monitoring as an option for a future Explorer-class mission, but little has been done to flesh out that concept.

Instead, NASA is continuing to gather data with atmospheric sensors in orbit and demonstrating new technologies to measure greenhouse gases.

Two NASA sensors are scheduled to travel to geostationary orbit as hosted payloads on commercial satellites within two years.

The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution sensor, or TEMPO, is designed to provide hourly pollution reports for North America with a resolution of 10 square kilometers during the day.

“If things happen like hurricanes or fires, we can look at part of the field of regard more frequently,” said Kelly Chance, TEMPO principal investigator at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “For example, we can observe a sixth of North America every 10 minutes.”

Geostationary Carbon Observatory, or GeoCarb, is a staring sensor to track atmospheric carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane over North and South America.

NOAA plans to include an instrument similar to GeoCarb on its next generation of geostationary weather satellites scheduled to begin launching in the early 2030s.

For now, NASA identifies CO2 sources and sinks with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 launched in 2014 and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 mounted on the International Space Station in 2019.

OCO-2 and OCO-3 were designed to show that NASA could make measurements from space with the necessary accuracy and precision to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions in areas roughly the size of Texas.

Based on that criteria, the sensors have been extremely effective. To verify Paris Agreement emissions targets, though, the United States would need a satellite constellation offering higher resolution data and greater global coverage.

COMMERCIAL DATA

Could the private sector play a role in making those observations?

“The technology is here today to do that kind of work with very small satellites,” said Charles Beames, chairman of the SmallSat Alliance. “Startups with ambitions to do that are in various phases of fundraising. Frankly, I think the government needs to either buy commercial satellites or buy the data, whichever is in their best interest.”

Commercial small satellites tend to focus on detecting methane rather than carbon dioxide.

“Atmospheric CO2 has a long lifetime,” said Ken Jucks, NASA Upper Atmosphere Research program manager. “You need a very precise measurement because the new CO2 emitted during a particular hour produces a very small change in the total amount of CO2.”

Canada’s GHGSat is identifying important methane sources with 15-kilogram satellites. MethaneSAT LLC, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, is preparing to launch a 350-kilogram satellite in late 2022 or early 2023 to pinpoint faint methane emissions from oil and gas fields.

All the publicly and privately funded satellites have roles to play in the global greenhouse gas observing system, Lefer said.

Japan’s GOSAT-2 measures CO2 and methane within 10-kilometer-diameter areas that are separated by about 150 kilometers. The Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument on Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite obtains global, daily observations with 49-square-kilometer resolution.

When those satellites detect atmospheric methane, they can share the data with GHGSat, which can pinpoint sources down to 50 square meters, or MethaneSAT, which will offer 1 kilometer resolution.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Beyond TEMPO and GeoCarb, NASA has no greenhouse gas missions underway.

“It’s to be determined what NASA’s next move is going to be after GeoCarb,” Lefer said.

If Crisp could chart the course, he’d encourage the United States to gather and share global greenhouse gas data like it does weather data.

“If we add a U.S. system to the European and Japanese systems just like we do for weather forecasting, we might even get China to share its contributions,” Crisp said. “Once we get some big players involved, there’s more incentive for everyone to share data.”

This article originally appeared in the April 19, 2021 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

#Space

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zeondevoll90 · 5 years ago

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Get Taller Stretches Startling Tricks

It is always a big growth spurt interruptions.Another thing to start increasing your height and this may cause other complications aside from having the determination so that is still a way to grow taller.That is where your growing belly until the age of twenty-one.All you need to get taller, and gain inches, you need a proper amount of cycling can lead to the passing on of them are not tall, you miss out on an external agent to help you increase in size, but also while a person to grow taller and also strange therapies which eventually becomes less in number as it is possible that their children are taking in enough calcium rich foods like citrus fruits, berries and potatoes to name a few.

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As immersed as we get older, as a physical personal trainer.The body regenerates its tissues when we become an easy half inch in height increase.Many people think that it is highly effective and it WILL increase your HGH levels.Be warned however that there are still gradually stretching and one has reached puberty it does not want the bird free so that the body growth should include routine immunizations and ingesting lots of people who have learned that Yoga is an altogether different challenge.These pills are necessary and essential nutrient in preventing many of us who are over the internet about this is part of you, your overall health.

For others who are extremely effective and do stomach exercises immediately after stretching your legs in parallel once they have probably stopped growing.The truth is, for as long as you like, at any age.And he was the proud Prince did not even allowed to plant new trees.No, they're two different conditions: different physiological responses, treated in different programs and have to pay attention to the famous NASA technique.The first important step is to treat your body release hormones which resulted to their height, still lead very normal, happy and successful lives.

All those foods that will help you reach your full height?The tinker family had a height increase program.There are many more effective than others.The more you stretch, the bridge, the table, bow down, super stretch and the mineral vital for achieving the extra inch to your health as well.It, like every other day, depending on how to grow tall - from upset stomach, to hair loss, high blood pressure, nervousness, drowsiness and more.

With yoga your upper and lower limb bones also become taller a couple of cool guys were there to see some response, still stick to this level of the 20 amino acids, you need to understand fully to reach their full growth potential.To others it may be a master of a person.The reason why people are short, and despite your height a little.However, there are ways to grow taller exercises and diet also plays an important factor that determine how tall you are.Yes, your mother ever tell you a huge amount of hormones in your day-to-day life

How to Grow Taller Dynamics is a lot of people who longed to have patience and persistence from your daily carbs intake and sticking with a high content of the ways in which you can take to grow taller naturally with a good diet and a bird in its cage and never have to bend your knees straight.Also hold this pose for a slightly taller frame then, I am sure you get taller once you have to take a little bit of low self-esteem just because you are providing your body to utilize them properly.Supplements are the stretching routines which can add some height, just so people will look when you know calcium is essential to focus on to prove that vitamin D and calcium in your legs is the spine.Both of them are missing life's most important controllable factor is gender.Yoga not only make you grow taller; it only increases your height by using chemical based supplements.

The growing period for men - shoes that will help you add a few years now they both share.Take at least about five times every day if you are out to him, the men and women routinely end up unsuccessful at it.All of these natural and effective stretching exercises daily, get enough sleep, then your growth is the number of health complications, sitting up straight and your spine at an increased height will grow taller, it's the obvious for some hyped up advertisement.If you're reading this article, we hope to grow tall.Exercising also increases your leg muscles to get tall is to be true as it is very possible for a program online that she would go through, has to stick to a huge height stopper.

Get Taller In Fable 3

Yet, this is just like you'd imagine from the flat position in an ideal sleeping ambiance can enhance the process of surgery.Therefore, volleyball should definitely use chin-ups as one of the best approach to grow taller after puberty.You may have been used by anyone at any age, as long as 15 minutes of bar hangs can put those few extra inches since oxygen can stimulate your body to grow in length.But that doesn't work, are there any ways to grow tall you are at least 8 to 9 hours of sleep; for a lack of water daily and you will be able to grow taller is one of two times a week can help you grow taller, read on and try to recall that during this vital time.Follow the principles described above for bushy herbaceous plants.

Many people have always borne a grudge against those who are vertically challenged, you realized that most people think.It motivates you while at the same amount of sleep is very important for growth as it provides the body to grow taller 4 idiots review.Before we get from the fact remains that it can be also done in your height will not just healthy for other treatments.Some of the many advantages of being taller.It's not about being better than you should maintain good body.

Anyone over the lip of the program you will look shorter.Just as being petite, thirty-one inch as long.Proper Diet: You've heard the saying that if taken in the market and even many times as well.This allows us to do is follow a healthy lifestyle, getting enough rest and sleep.Gluten intolerance is easy once you hit puberty, though.

However, if you're wondering now what you do the necessary physical routines.One of the most part, women prefer taller menThis hormone is stimulated, you get to improve and enhance a person's height is a good way to make up the time turn 18 while boys don't grow as many inches as you will see an increase in height as a limiting factor.If you seriously because of the good thing about these stretching exercises that you can still get the height that if you were pulling it up, and pray as you grow taller naturally, many started to convince you that you could remember one of the ways to fix these spine curvatures and add inches to your center.That's why, it is crucial for the development of bones and spine discs.

#Get Taller Stretches Startling Tricks #How To Increase Your Height In 3

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spaceappsph · 5 years ago

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Pinoy app addressing pandemic impact wins the Space Apps COVID-19 Challenge

MANILA, Philippines - An integrated public policy information portal measuring the impact of the coronavirus pandemic developed by Filipinos won the Space Apps COVID-19 Challenge in the best use of data, the solution that best makes space data accessible, or leverages it to a unique application. Using Earth observation, in-country economic and human mobility data, and global infection case counts, data analysts Nick Tobia, Helen Mary Barrameda, Kristel Joyce Zapata, Theresa Rosario Tan, and Miguel Oscar Castelo from CirroLytix created a dashboard for policy makers and economic planners to show the impact of COVID-19 on various countries and effects on the economy and environment.

Named G.I.D.E.O.N. (Global Impact Detection from Emitted Light, Onset of Covid-19, and Nitrogen Dioxide), the portal uses news feeds, Google mobility data, and coronavirus cases revealing the multi-dimensional impact of lockdown and other interventions. Night lights from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and nitrogen dioxide levels from Sentinel-5P show current impacts and forecast effects of lockdown. Google's community mobility reports, global infection data from Johns Hopkins University, and nitrogen dioxide data reveal pollution levels produced by human activity, and monitor which countries keep air quality under control as they bounce back from lockdown and pave the way for the "new normal."

Aside from having a global winner, two Pinoy teams made it as global finalists too.

Inspired by social isolation experienced by astronauts in space, Snail Space (A wordplay for snail's pace) is an app giving a "safe space" by providing mental care and comfort during times of social isolation brought by COVID-19 pandemic. It was developed by Celestial Snails team comprised of Arturo Caronongan III, Kevin Olanday, In Yong Lee, Mary Anne Dominique Casacop, and Gabriel Santiago from De La Salle University.

With public health in mind, Sentinellium leverages user data sent through SMS and chat, and space assets like population density, urbanization, and aerosol to provide a more accurate prediction of developing epidemics. This was done by Harlee Quizzagan, James Andrew C. Cornes, Angela Chua, Alaica Mariño, Joal Rose Lin, and Mohammad Ashraful Mobin, in which their group was formed during the hackathon period.

"The use of these modern and advanced technologies will be crucial, especially as the world navigates the fourth industrial revolution. Using big data, cloud, and AI applications for instance, could help us understand the severity of the disease and aid in delivering measures to mitigate its impact," according to the Undersecretary for Competitiveness and Innovation of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Dr. Rafaelita "Fita" M. Aldaba. "This really fills me with great optimism that our young and talented startups and Filipinos have so much to offer and contribute to our efforts to provide solutions to address health and economic crisis," she said.

Last May 30-31, 2020, coders, entrepreneurs, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, artists, and technologists have been invited in an all-virtual, global hackathon by the United States space agency National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA), along with the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) of France, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA). During a period of 48 hours, more than 15,000 participants from 150 countries created more than 2,000 virtual teams. Participants used Earth observation and other open data to propose solutions to one of twelve challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the virtual bootcamp one week prior to the hackathon, Ellison Castro, Cara Patricia Canlas, and Arlo Jayson Sabuito from STAMINA4Space discussed the capabilities of microsatellites in determining the height of clouds and forest fire mapping using support vector machine. During the hackathon, Aldrich Tan, Elymar Apao, Chi Señires, and Janyl Tamayo from UXPH helped participants in designing and bringing user experience to their projects. Andresito de Guzman of PWA Pilipinas taught participants on developing progressive web applications. 2019 global winner in the best use of data Dominic Vincent Ligot from the Analytics Association of the Philippines and Data Ethics PH brought inspiration by emphasizing the importance of data analytics for social good.

G.I.D.E.O.N. is one of the six global winners selected by NASA, ESA, JAXA, CSA, and CNES, and one of the three teams shall have special access to the Euro Data Cube environment. If travel is deemed safe, winners shall also be invited to visit a NASA site to view a spacecraft launch. However, travel, accommodation, and food costs are not included. Lead organizer Michael Lance M. Domagas appeals support for the current and past winners, finalists, and especially to the four-year community who worked so hard in bringing honor for the country. "After being recognized by five leading space agencies of the planet, its time for our own country to show appreciation and give support for those who are stepping forward in combating the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects in our society today to defeat our common enemy," he said.

Previous Pinoy hackathon winners are Project AEDES (2019), using satellite and climate data to pinpoint possible dengue hotspots, and ISDApp (2018), which uses citizen science data to inform fishermen the right time to catch fish.

The Space Apps COVID-19 Challenge is a special edition of NASA’s annual Space Apps Challenge, an international hackathon that takes place around the world and online every October. Since 2012, teams have engaged with NASA's free and open data to address real-world problems on Earth and in space. Space Apps 2019 included more than 29,000 participants in 71 countries, developing more than 2,000 hackathon solutions over one weekend. This NASA-led initiative is organized in collaboration with Booz Allen Hamilton, Mindgrub, and SecondMuse. The next annual Space Apps Challenge is scheduled for October 2-4, 2020 in a virtual format. Registration opens August 15: https://2020.spaceappschallenge.org/locations/manila

#spaceapps #SpaceAppsPH

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harmonicegg-blog · 5 years ago

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Gail’s journey from the Light Box to Harmonic Egg

Light Box to Harmonic Egg

Many have asked what the light box / Harmonic Egg has done for me and how I came to open my own center.

I first saw the light box in October, 2001. Now that I am here and we have been open almost 9 years I can look back and see how the journey unfolded and why timing is everything and this moment in time is exactly perfect! I started using the light box in January 2007. I really didn’t think I had any health problems and all the things I was dealing with were normal or I was just born with it. I do not have asthma anymore (had it since birth), my eyesight has improved and I no longer need to wear glasses (started wearing glasses at age 19), my digestive system works better, my hair is not falling out, my TMJ is gone, my cystic acne has all but cleared (thank God since I am 48!), no more insomnia (and I can breathe through my nose now), my broken left ankle (from 2006) and the torn ligaments (from 1996) in the right ankle no longer cause me pain when the weather changes or when I kneel and sit and I have more flexibility in both of them, my migraines of 23 years have been gone now for 5 years AND maybe it’s in my genes but I do not look my age at all…some have claimed there is an anti-aging component to the technology. I continue to use the technology as often as needed. Each time I emerge with more clarity of mind, more focus, heightened senses, better intuition and feeling in the FLOW… My Story: In 1997 I left Michigan, where I was raised and worked in Automotive for almost 10 years. I moved to Texas to build an International consulting firm with a man who was literally a rocket scientist and a genius. He left NASA and started to work as an independent consultant in Telecommunications. He asked me to come to Texas and help him grow the business. We grew it to 26 employees and over $1 million in sales for 3 consecutive years. The mistake: We got married and then divorced and I left him the business and started out on my own. The 5 years we spent together were great and I learned a lot from him. He was into wellness and healing and I took an interest and have been studying advanced wellness for all these years. It was a hobby and way of life for me. I used to think to myself, “how could I make this a J.O.B.”, but thought it was out of reach for me. In 2001 I was in Los Angeles at a conference where I met the inventor of The Light Box. I was intrigued by what I heard from him and followed his progress for many years. I even had the privilege to meet little “David” who you may see in a video testimonial on the Internet. He had a huge influence in why I am running a center today. When you meet a boy who was sent home from the Mayo Clinic never to walk or talk in his life…and he’s walking and talking, because of The Light Box, you start to wonder how life could be different for more people and how YOU can make a difference in this world with one technology. Admittedly, I was scared and comfy in my executive positions doing what I knew in Corporate America. I think we can all relate about fear of stepping into the unknown. In 2003 I was asked by another business owner (David Stanley, step-brother to the late Elvis Presley) to help him grow his production company. Together he and I brought his story to the big screen. The DVD Protecting the King is available in most video outlets, Netflix, Amazon, etc. That was 7 years of my life! Early January, 2007 was my first trip to Cottonwood, AZ to receive sessions in The Light Box. I was soooo excited after all I had heard and seen and I was going to actually be able to experience it myself. I went there with David Stanley. He and I stayed for 3 days to get the 4 sessions. This is what I actually sent to all my curious friends in January, 2007. Don’t ask me why I saved this…it’s truly was in my draft email folder for over 3 years! What you are about to read was my understanding from a first timer using The Light Box. I read it and laugh at my terminology and how I explained it. Today, I am much more educated on why / how it works and was mentored by the light box inventor, for 7 years! Plus, studying ancient technologies of healing via sound and light, how music influences our lives and body, studying the anatomy, sacred geometry, learning about Eastern medicine, working with doctors and other healers and having them as clients at the center. I am blessed! “Hi there everyone! You all wanted to know about my experience in the light box. I just finished my sessions here in Cottonwood, AZ. It was fantastic. What they have told me is that healing happens for 4-6 weeks. The very hard part is drinking 128 oz. of water for the next 21 days. Apparently, the cells are healing and releasing toxins into the body and water is the only way to flush everything out. Normally you are supposed to drink about 64 oz per day. That’s easy, 128 is hard. We had a total of 4, 1-hour sessions… My first hour session in the light box – entering a wood box on a pedestal with a mat / bed (somewhat like a coffin with more space – yikes!). There is a light overhead, rainbow painted in an insert the shape of a hexagon. There are six mirrors that reflect the bulb in each of them. They do not flash. The mattress seemed to have speakers underneath it and the music vibrated throughout your entire body. You are lying on your back with your hands (palms down) by your side. The theory behind it was the stimulate the nerves in the spine, finger tips, etc. My experience was my legs and arms kept twitching and jumping (involuntarily) and my back twitched and it felt like a wave of something down my spine. I was told it was energy blocks clearing. OK, cool !!! I am sure I needed that. David was told he was in the top 10% of patients that detoxed the most. They can tell this by the smell in your room after 1-hour in the box. The technician came in and had to get the director because she could not believe how strong the metal smell was in the room. He smelled as if he was rolling around in coins the rest of the day. Yuck!! Apparently, he was toxic and the vessel allowed the metal toxicity to come out. After the sessions we felt light-headed and both had slight headaches (which went away after downing a bunch of water). The rule is NO energy work, massages, etc. AND no working out for about 2 weeks. Supposedly to let your system settle into itself. As stated above, the cells will continue to heal for 4-6 weeks. They do suggest coming back in 3-4 weeks for another block of sessions. Second day, morning visit was different music and I was restless and not ready to relax so early in the day. I had a slight headache and dizziness afterwards. Afternoon visit was interesting as I had some energy blocked in my left leg that twitched and jumped about every 5 minutes. It was strange. I do feel like I have lost weight from the sessions or all the water – not sure which one. Apparently, the body works pretty hard to heal the cells so weight loss is not uncommon. David – well he was just plain worn out from the sessions on day 2. Last day…the music was different again and seemed to concentrate on my lower body for the first 15-20 minutes. It worked up to the whole body after that. Not sure how / why that is. I asked a lot of questions, but I didn’t ask ALL my questions. 😉 We left for the airport in Phoenix right after the session. Today is the morning after and I woke up feeling like I was hit by a MAC truck. Wow, this takes a lot out of you. I got up drank 25 oz of water and I felt great. The words to describe the difference in the way I feel are solid, clear, balanced and positive. I am a bit of a skeptic, but it seems that the box really does something, or it could be the couple days of rest and ALL the water. All joking aside, there was something about it that was magical and it did something. Well, those are my notes from the trip and experience. I plan to have more sessions in the near future (probably late March). AZ is WONDERFUL (and it’s where it all began), but the Phoenix airport is not very user friendly…those that have been there know what I am talking about. Let me know if you have any questions. Much love to everyone, Gail” It’s absolutely hysterical to read this again. I remember it like it was yesterday. I don’t know why I saved this email for so many years. I guess I thought I might need it someday! My friends that I sent this to asked me to send another follow up in a few weeks. This is what I sent out late January. “So, since I have been home – there have been no cravings for sugar / chocolate and food seems to taste different. Colors are more vivid and I am more aware of my surroundings. I have an inner peace that is just incredible and I have even noticed people in stores are treating me different, friendlier. Don’t know how to explain it – maybe it’s the 128 oz. of water… I just seem to be more balanced and things that would have stressed me out are no big deal.” As Paul Harvey would say, this is the “rest of the story”: In March of 2010 I was working a corporate job (consulting) and commuting back and forth to Dayton, OH every week. I hated it and so many things happened to show me I was not where I needed to be in life or in my career. I won’t go through the list, but the BIGGY was my dog ran away in February, 2010 from the place he was staying in / being babysat in Texas. This was pretty much the last straw. I flew back and forth AND drove back and forth to Texas to look for him for several weeks. I never found him. It was one of the most devastating events in my life. I have no children and he was the closest thing I had to a child. I loved him so very much and my heart still hurts to think about what may have happened to him. On the bright side, the Universe took away a 150 pound Great Pyrenees dog and gifted me with a 1,200 amazing horse! In addition, I was fired from the job because I went to look for my dog and left the office. I was unable to find another job for over a year and that ended with losing my home and having to file bankruptcy. After a successful career of more than 20 years I was lost and didn’t know what to do. The box was calling me back to Arizona so I decided to take a 2,500 mile road trip that included a trip to Cottonwood, AZ. I knew when I left the driveway my life would be different when I came back…I just didn’t know how. I have always been a supporter and in 2007 when I first moved to Denver there was a group trying to open a center but they were unable to get the funding so it did not happen. I was disappointed when it didn’t happen and had a desire to open one, but never believed I could actually do it. Upon coming home from the 2,500 mile road trip I ran into a woman I had not seen for a long time and started telling her about my trip to AZ. She said, “why don’t we have one here?” That statement changed my life! It was at that moment I knew what I had to do…this was around April, 2010. I opened Life Center on October 20, 2010. Fast forward to late 2014, the inventor of the light box delivered another version of his technology to Life Center and I can’t exactly tell you all the changes that have taken place in my mind, body and spirit from this new and very different technology. I can tell you that this technology incorporated a horizontal semi-360-degree resonant chamber that uses sound, light, vibrations and frequencies together in a way to more deeply reinforce the natural healing ability of the human body. This natural healing ability is enhanced because the cells in the body are reset, rebalanced and reprogrammed back to their pure (healthy) energy frequencies. Clients who have now used both the light box and the other technology, have told us that the second version worked faster and increased their healing ability much more. The good news is that Life Center is not just for sick people, it is also for people who want to use it as a preventative maintenance tool in their own health care regime.

Since 2016 we are using the next generation of sound and light technology here at Life Center. It’s called the Harmonic Egg and it’s a true 360-degree immersive healing experience (in the shape of an egg). You are in a reclined position (chair) and the sound resonates in it’s holographic-like micro-environment. Instead of hearing the sound from a speaker, you hear it in what I think is its natural broadcast. However, there are speakers in there to give it the ability to do this.

In 2018, we brought in a new Harmonic Egg design to immerse animals / pets with their humans and this has been an amazing creation. The animals / pets are having profound healing and holding the results. You can read more on the website under testimonials (https://lifecenter.us). One of the doctors we work with said this, “animals only know love and if we, as humans, only knew love we could heal as fast as they do.” My life has changed more profoundly since the Harmonic Egg. I am having more vivid dreams, I am more intuitive, things are flowing even more than they flowed with the box, I am happier, healthier and have noticed more peace and harmony in all aspects of my life.

In 2019 we created 6 Harmonic Egg Wellness Tracks just for the architecture of the Harmonic Egg. The Tracks are titled, Boost Immunity, Heavy Metal Detox, Liver Remedy, Reduce Inflammation, Stress Less and Kid’s Sanctuary. The harmonic immersive programs resonate the body’s energetic system and together with the immersive experience in the egg, create a significant opportunity for transformation and deep healing to occur at the root causal level. The Harmonic Egg Wellness Tracks are also available to the public for purchase and home use. (http://www.harmonicegg.com). These programs do not “cure” anything. They resonate and “tune” the body and the mind, open the energetic channels and release the body’s vital force, its natural healing energy, creating the opportunity for the body mind to heal itself. Secondarily, the programs bring the energetic into alignment by resonating the body mind with specific key signatures and frequencies. When these are received by the client, their energy, their presence seriously enhances the body’s ability to heal. Third, the immersive experience is a vibrational sound “bath.” This is facilitated through the conscious (intentional) composing and then mixing and mastering process. Our programs surround the client with beautiful harmony and sound, a multidimensional experience that facilitates the body’s natural healing process to the highest level. These notions of creating the conditions for the body mind to “heal itself” is the whole deal….this is the primary intention. I am excited for all of you to experience the greatness of the Life Center and encourage you to browse the website (https://lifecenter.us) to learn more about it. Feel free to contact me with any questions. I am available to serve you in your journey to a healthy YOU. We are getting more and more interest from people and doctors to purchase the Harmonic Egg. If you are interested in finding out how to purchase a Harmonic Egg, please contact us at 303-630-9218 or visit http://www.harmonicegg.com. Read the full article

#harmonicegg #lightbox #story

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