#it includes the entire base game and the first 2 expansions and has no restrictions on playtime

[thegreatyin]

@rainrein you should. the insane blonde man is really high quality (despite what the fandom would make you think)

[tarhalindur]

Rebellion’s Biggest Outstanding Question

(Big fat PMMM+Rebellion spoilers under the cut, natch:)

Homura, at the end of Rebellion, believes that she is rebelling against Madoka’s will.  But is she actually doing so?  Or is she acting in accordance with it?

Let me explain.

I’ll start with the point I’m sold on either way (and have commented on at least twice before, including my explanation of Madoka’s other big mistake): Rebellion is directly downstream of Madoka making a single mistake immediately after her ascension in episode 12, a moment when she could not afford to make any mistake at all.  Much like Madoka’s other big mistake in episode 10, this one is not obvious on the surface and only becomes clear when looking at the events through a symbolic lens.

Specifically, a Buddhist symbolic lens.

I’ll leave the full explanation there to this post, which lays out the Buddhist influence on base PMMM’s themes and imagery and on Madokami’s ascension better than I could.  (Although its author is missing a few points.  First, the shot of Madoka expanding to galaxy size is DIRECTLY out of ego death symbolism.  Which makes sense, because there’s enough accounts to suggest that regardless of whether or not it has any deeper meaning beyond brain chemistry the people who’ve had it are describing a single class of subjective experience, and “one’s consciousness expanding to the size of the galaxy” seems to be a common feature of it - I’ve read at least one account of that kind of experience from, of all people, a random Protestant minister who claims to have had such an experience on a vision trip to the Amazon and only later realized that there was precedent for that kind of experience in Buddhist traditions, and he mentions that exact expansion as part of what he went through.  Second, the flower on Madoka’s bow is a rose, not a willow... which makes sense, because “Guanyin/Kannon and the Virgin Mary are two aspects of the same goddess” has been a theory in certain parts for at least a century, and the rose has a traditional association with the latter goddess - there’s a reason they call it the rosary, after all.  (I’ve seen speculation out of a few polytheist/less orthodox Christian circles I keep tabs on that Pistis Sophia is yet another aspect of the same goddess, too...)  Third, note all the mandala symbolism floating around - most obviously Walpurgisnacht’s appearance and Kyubey’s exposition in episode 11.)

And that influence is important here, because part of the process of the escape from samsara is the breaking of all karmic ties to the world.

Except... Madoka does not do this.  She leaves one karmic tie behind.

This one, to be precise:

Now, in theory it’s possible that the tainted miracle of Homura remembering Madoka has another root.  But I have my doubts, and the biggest piece of evidence there is the OST: the track that plays when Homura meets Junko in the finale and offers to give up the ribbons is named Taenia Memoriae, aka “the ribbon of memories”.  HMM,

(That Junko scene is in this regards the single most enigmatic scene of the main series finale to me.  My instinct is that it’s drawing off of Christian mythos again, either canonical or Gnostic, but I can’t quite place what piece; I kind of want to compare it specifically to the Denial of Peter.)

Now, there’s two other pieces here that are worth noting.

1) While Homulilly is described as the Nutcracker Witch in Rebellion, Homulilly’s name and Witch card are first revealed in the PSP game, and there she goes by a rather different epithet: Witch of the Mortal World, nature is karma.  Which is rather on the nose (the Mortal World [shigan] being another term for samsara), but then that’s probably by design - main series PMMM is not subtle at all when it wants to make a point.  And it is this epithet, not the Nutcracker Witch, that the Doppel versions of Homulilly in MagiReco draw off of, which suggests the staff considered it important.  (There’s a second distinction in the latter, because Moemura’s version of the Doppel implies that Homulilly’s nature was originally slightly different again - Witch of the Mortal World, nature is closed circuits - but I think for our purposes here this is a difference without true distinction, much like the Witch of the Near Shore pun for swimsuit!Moemura’s version of Homulilly.)  And there’s echoes of this even in Rebellion: the Clara Dolls are of course referred to as the Children of the Mortal World, plus of course the obvious “Homulilly’s Rebellion barrier as the Mortal World” take.  (Which, hmm.  Hello second-order symbolism - Homura failing to “break out of the egg” as failure to escape the cycle of samsara.)

2) The red ribbons of course suggest a very specific form of karmic tie - the Red String of Fate.  And you can be very, very sure that the staff intended that, too.  To drag a certain piece of key animation back out from storage:

While it’s hard to tell at this size, it sure looks to my eyes like the two ends are specifically tied around the girls’ pinkies.  You know, exactly where the proverbial Red String is said to be tied.

Or, to put it another way: AI YO.

Everything in Rebellion is downstream of this.

But all this is prologue.  Now that we have established the mistake, we can address the actual outstanding question: Did Madoka intend to make that mistake?  People have noted the applicability of Junko’s comments about intentionally making a big mistake when backed into a corner to Homura’s actions in Rebellion; do they also apply to the action Madoka took that led to that?

I am not sure.  Both cases are consistent, and I’d put about even odds either way.  But it’s the affirmative case I want to lay out here, to show that it does in fact exist:

- Let’s start with the one point someone else might bring up that I don’t really weight: Madoka’s final conversation with Homura in the flower bed.  This one, I think, can mostly be discarded.  We have word from both Kyubey and Sayaka that Madoka does not have her memories here; I can’t see both of them lying here.  (Also remember that Kyubey seems to have restriction that is sometimes said to apply to demons, at least under certain circumstances: he cannot directly tell a lie.  This is of course a very different thing from having to tell the truth, as episode 9 alone is enough to attest, but in this specific case it’s a boost to his credibility.)  If there’s an actual argument here, it’s a second-order one; it is possible, especially given her divine abilities, that Madokami was running a Xanatos Gambit and counting on her amnesiac projection to unwittingly relay her true feelings.  (In which case I would have to grab a certain infamous line from another well-known anime: “Just as planned”.)

- That one shot of Madokami’s gloved, scarred arm reaching down through the window to touch Homura.  Operative word scarred.  (And honestly, looking at one of the subs for that scene again Madoka’s comments there look potentially consistent with her actually supporting of or at least accepting Homura becoming a demon...)

- Mata Ashita, specifically the lyrics thereof.  With the perspective of the full series, Madoka’s character song is fairly clearly from the perspective of Madokami, and it’s suggestive that she is not entirely happy with the results of her wish and ascension.

- The fact that Rebellion happened at all.  There’s a complaint that I’ve seen regarding the mechanics of the Incubators’ plot in Rebellion: logically, by the wording of Madoka’s final wish the Incubators’ plan to use the Isolation Field to block the Law of Cycles should not work, since part of Madoka’s wish was to rewrite any rule or law that would prevent her from destroying Witches with her own hands, including the one the Incubators set up with their Isolation Field - doubly so if you take Madokami’s statement can see every world that ever existed or could ever exist and apply it to the Sealed Reality the experiment generates.  Except... there is one way that argument fails, regardless of anything else: namely, if Madoka saw what the Incubators were doing and intentionally allowed their experiment to proceed.  And at this point there is precedent for her doing something very similar; AIUI in her Magical Girl Story in MagiReco Madokami does something very similar wrt the MagiReco timeline, deliberately declining to destroy it despite its continued existence conflicting with the Law of Cycles.

(- Magia.  This point of argument I’m not convinced of either, but let’s lay it out.  (Honestly, even if I’m right I’m not sure how much of this was consciously intended, but creations can have a life of their own - especially creations where fucking natural disasters delay them so that they’re released on the most appropriate day possible!)  There’s two pieces to this, one I’m more sure of than the other:

1) The visuals.  Here’s the spot where I feel most solid about interpreting Magia: the ED visuals are clearly a reference to Madokami’s ascension.  (The show loves hiding that sort of foreshadowing in plain sight, why would you be surprised?)  Note the second half particularly, both Madoka’s hair lengthening and the starfield she’s running past.  (I think the order of the four other girls in the first half is probably how long they held out without Witching out.)  That leaves two issues, one more obvious to Western audiences and one less so.  First, that enigmatic and ominous shot of Madoka in fetal position (appropriate - her request in 10 and then her wish in 12 can be rephrased as “don’t let me grow up”) in the eye of Mephisto.  Second, there’s a point I’ve seen raised in analyses of Connect: in Japanese cinematography, motion from right to left indicates a correct course (unlike its Western equivalent, where the opposite applies)... and for the entirety of Magia Madoka is moving left-to-right.

2) The lyrics.  This is the part I’m less sold on, but once again let’s lay out the affirmative.  My line here derives from a hunch: Connect is famously from Homura’s perspective despite appearing to be from Madoka’s, perhaps the inverse is also true?  I’m still not sure there, but especially if you’re considering the TV version it can work... provided the lyrics are specifically from Madokami’s perspective again.  Grabbing the wiki version of the translation: “The light of love lit within your eyes will transcend time” sure fits better if we’re talking about Homura rather than about Madoka, likewise “with this power that can break even darkness” sure sounds like a better fit for Madokami to me.  And in that case the most interesting stanza is the second: “Swallow down your hesitation.  What is it that you wish for?  With the direction of this greedy admiration, will there be a short-lived tomorrow?”  The former two lines  are quite consistent with Homura’s decision in Rebellion (and I note the visual of Homura biting down on her Soul Gem to break it!), and “tomorrow” is consistently a reference to the possibility of Homura and Madoka meeting again in other PMMM songs (Mata Ashita again, Colorful, Connect full version) - which is realized courtesy of a greedy admiration, no less.  So.  Magia’s full version might count, too - there’s lines there that are harder to square from a Madokami perspective (”if I can move forward without hesitation then it’s fine if my heart gets broken” especially), but “Someday, for the sake of someone else, you too will wish for great power; on the night love captures your heart, unknown words will be born” fits Homura’s fall better than Madoka’s wish, I think.)

- If Madoka’s mistake in 12 is intentional then it more closely mirrors her (unintentional) mistake in 10: she’s implicitly asking Homura to once again do something she can’t and stop her from/alleviate the effects of her making a mistake.

- At a Doylist level, if they go for a proper happy end (either in Walpurgis no Kaiten or in a hypothetical sequel to the same) I’m not sure there’s any way they can get there without using this interpretation.  (In general, the two outcomes that make the most sense to me are “Akuhomu becomes the core of Walpurgisnacht, cue ending scene with Moemura making her wish” (the Logic Error ending, consistent with the Eternal Return of the Self; cue MagiReco as the way out) or an ending based on the answer to this question being yes - the easy version being a movie of everyone except Homura fighting to let Madoka rejoin the Law of Cycles only for her to surprise everyone with some sort of ending based on “actually, I was counting on her to do this from the start”.)

[rainofaugustsith]

Rain Plays SWTOR: Why Do We All Hate Makeb?

Viri has been going through the GSI dailies on Makeb to bump my GSI reputation up to Legendary, and it's given me time to really think about the planet, and the Rise of the Hutt Cartel story as a whole. I tend to take my characters through Makeb just to spend more time with them, and to enjoy the scenery. Having said that, most players seem to detest Makeb and skip it.  It's weird. Makeb has:  1. Some of the most beautiful scenery ever seen in the game. 

2. Some really stunning design for the houses and gardens. Seriously. Look at this. 

3. Really, really nice decos available from the reputation vendor.  4. Other really nice decos' designs are based on Makeb.  5. A departure, mostly, from the Imps vs. Pubs!! storyline that some of us had grown so bored with.  6. Some interesting creatures such as the exoboars and underwalkers. We all love the exoboars in Vaylin's palace, don't we?

And yet, it's still loathed.  The question becomes: why do we hate Makeb? There are a lot of very valid reasons.  1. We don't get to bond with the NPCs we meet, nor do they play any critical part in story before or after.   With the exception of Doctor Oggurobb, Darth Marr and Chancellor Saresh, the NPCs with whom we interact in the entirety of the Makeb expansion are neither seen nor heard from again. We're kept at arms' length from them. This is different from both the class stories and Shadow of Revan, where the characters we meet become regular presences in our toons' stories.  2. The romances...aren't.  When RotHC was first released, Makeb was called "the gay planet" and a lot was made of the fact that the expac contained the game's first same-gender romances. Considering LGBT+ players got absolutely nothing in the class stories, this was a Very Big Deal. However, the romances fall very flat. For one thing, they're restricted by class. If you're Imperial, there's no wlw for you. If you're Republic, there's no mlm.  The moment that a male OC can have with Lord Cytharat feels like it can work - it's essentially an "I was so scared for you, and I care, and don't ever do that again" sort of moment. The wlw romance, on the other hand, really doesn't feel like one, at least to me. Lemda Avesta never seems particularly into the player's character. As a wlw, I usually avoid this romance because it feels so awkward and forced.  3. It's really grim.  Almost the entire time you're on Makeb, you know the planet is about to be destroyed. Anything beautiful you're seeing is about to disappear. People have lost their homes. It's pretty grim.  There's no happy ending on Makeb. Like, none. The planet dies. Even though it's physically saved, nobody can live there anymore for any length of time. Lots of people die, including some that work with the PC. There's no way to save them in some cases. Even though each side does have a win - the Makeb citizens escape in the Ark; and the Empire gets its isotope -5 - it's very empty because so much tragedy surrounds it all.  While Star Wars isn't sunshine and rainbows, there's usually something positive to perk up a reader/player even in the darkest storylines. At the end of Revenge of the Sith, there's the promise of baby Leia and Luke, both being raised in safety. At the end of Empire Strikes Back, Luke's got a nice new hand, he's safe on a Rebel Alliance ship and he's reunited with Leia and the droids. At the end of SWTOR's class stories, the player has triumphed somehow in their own field, and they usually have controlled their own destiny in some way. Makeb doesn't have that, and I think it makes a difference for replays.  4. It may hit too close to home.  Makeb is dying because people exploited its natural resources for profit. Hmmm. We've heard that before in our own world, haven't we? The mining causes groundquakes. In our world, fracking is said to cause earthquakes. Not only that, but seeing the houses crushed by groundquakes can hit a little close to home to anyone who lives in an area with lots of earthquakes, or has witnessed the destruction they can cause.  While I don't think any sort of environmental message was intended with Makeb, I do think there are things about it that can, even subconsciously, make us feel uncomfortable. 5. The maps and mobs. 

For me, the maps of Makeb are not nearly as frustrating as some of the ones on Taris, Balmorra and Hoth. For one thing, the land is divided into individual little mesas so you're not covering large swaths of ground the way you do on a planet like Alderaan or Tatooine.  Having said that, they can still be daunting. And unlike other planets, there's often no real way to go off the beaten path. If you do, you just might plunge to your death over the edge of the mesa.  Making this more problematic: the mobs. There are a lot of enemy NPCs, and they are everywhere, and you often have no choice but to plow right through them. This makes navigating very tedious. If you're a lower level, it can also make getting from Point Aurek to Point Besh very difficult.  Also, if you have a fear of heights, you may really, really hate this planet. It's nothing but sheer drops and light bridges across chasms in this nook of the galaxy.  6. The gameplay can be very repetitive.  A number of the quests just have the player doing the same or similar actions over and over again. It gets boring.  7. The heroics are hell.  Makeb heroics are incredibly long, complicated and overly tedious. They can literally take as long as some of the very short flashpoints, with ridiculously high difficulty in some cases. I don't think most of us bother with them.  8. It feels very detached from the rest of the story.  Nothing we do on Makeb matters. Or so it seems. What our characters accomplish in the class story, or Oricon, or Shadow of Revan seems to make an impact. RotHC, on the other hand, is something we can literally skip over without it having any repercussions. The only time it seems to come up with any significance is in Onslaught, where it's mentioned that the Empire still has some ships fueled with isotope-5. But even that is said in passing...and if your character never did Makeb, the ships are still fueled. If you're a Republic character, Oggurobb has very little to say to you about Makeb - except to tell you that you've aged badly since then (thanks, dude).  9. Some of the classes don't seem to fit.  Oddly, you would think the underworld characters - the smuggler and bounty hunter - would be peas in a pod here. They're not. You really can't find much of a reason for the smuggler to suddenly be interested in saving a planet's humanity. The bounty hunter isn't given any clear targets to assassinate. It's one of the times where certain classes seem to be really out of place.  10. And there isn't much said about our individual classes.  Each class does get an individualized intro cut scene, as well as some NPCs referring to them as Master Jedi or Dark Lord or whatever, but there's really not much difference doing this as a Jedi or a Trooper, a Sith or an Agent. 

11. The Force isn't a part of things.  It's weird. When things in SWTOR are entirely focused around the Force, it does exclude the non-Force using classes to some extent. When it's completely absent, though, it feels wrong, too. On Makeb, our little space wizards find that there's nothing specific to the Force for them to care about. The alignment of the planet isn't mentioned. No ruins. No weird artifacts someone's left in their mansion. Nothing. It feels slightly disconnected taking a Force user through these areas.  To me, Makeb feels like it had more potential than it received. I've read more than once that there were several other planets intended for expacs that were scrapped; perhaps with them, and a wider arc, Makeb would have played differently. All the same - come here for the scenery. You probably won't want to stay for the gameplay. 

[frankly-art]

Frankly-Art’s Top 10 Video Games of 2018

Also available to read on my deviantArt!

With every New Year comes another year’s worth of video games to look forward to, and 2019 promise to be a good one in that regard: the release of Kingdom Hearts III is only days away, Piranha Plant and Joker are certain to be innovative and entertaining additions to the Smash Ultimate roster, Animal Crossing is coming to the Switch… and those mark only a small fraction of the many things 2019 has in store for us in terms of gaming. Amid all of this hype, I got to thinking about the varied gameplay experiences I had over the past year; so, I figured this would be as good an opportunity as any for me to reflect on them with a bit of a critical eye and definitively rank each of the video games I managed to get to during 2018!

Keep in mind while reading that, even though this is a list featuring games I played in 2018, many of these games were ones released in years past that I never got around to until last year—so, if you were expecting a list of the top 10 games that were released in 2018, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere (but not until after you read my oh-so-important list first! I crave validation!); expect a healthy mix of new and old titles in the list below. Additionally, this list will rank downloadable content (DLC) separately from standalone titles, as I don’t find it fair to compare a DLC add-on to a fully-fledged game. I’ll be weighing the score of each DLC depending on how well it improves and expands upon the narrative and gameplay of its original game.

Without further ado (and with no better means of transitioning from this introduction to the list itself than to use a somewhat tired expression in the realm of video games), let’s-a go! (Please forgive me.)

-SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT-

Favorite Characters: Revali, Urbosa, Kass Favorite Tracks: Monk Maz Koshia (all phases)

It might come as somewhat of a shock that a game with “Breath of the Wild” in its title would rank lowest on my list, but hear me out: no matter how much fun it was to be able to return to Hyrule in this DLC expansion, in my opinion, Champions’ Ballad just felt like more of the same of what we got in the main game.

Despite the nigh perfection that was Breath of the Wild, I have to agree with critics who said that the lack of aesthetic variation between segments of dungeon crawling and puzzle solving was a monotonous bore when compared to the varied themes and aesthetics of the dungeons in Zelda games past, and Champions’ Ballad did nothing to vary the atmosphere in its new shrines and dungeon from those of the main game. This disappointment was compounded with the fact that Champions’ Ballad added no new weapons to your arsenal (aside from a risky-to-use fork that functioned virtually like every other sword in the game) to allow for new types of puzzle solving or exploration. The unicorn motorcycle was certainly a cool reward for completing the DLC (the fact that I got to write the words “unicorn” and “motorcycle” next to each other is reward enough), but I had very little use for it since I’d already combed through the entirety of Hyrule during my first playthrough of the game. I simply believe it would have been nice for Champions’ Ballad to have given players something a little fresher to explore, even if it were just an aesthetic change of scenery.

I had also hoped that Champions’ Ballad might have expanded on the lore sprinkled throughout Hyrule and, even though we learned more about the four champions, I was a little let down that they didn’t really expand on anything else (Why can’t I climb to the top of Mount Agaat? Why does the entirety of the Akkala region fill me with a confusing sense of serene dread?? What the hell happened at the Typhlo Ruins???) I appreciate that, by not explaining everything, Nintendo give players the chance to interpret these things for themselves, but, when compared to the lore provided in previous Zelda games, I feel as though Champions’ Ballad fell short in fleshing out the history of this ruined Hyrule.

Favorite Characters: Prompto, Ignis Favorite Tracks: A Retainer’s Resolve, Apocalypsis Magnatus

Given how much of a beautiful mess Final Fantasy XV was upon its initial release, it’s certainly a consolation to the main game to see how well Square Enix supplemented its (rather disjointed) story and expanded upon its (frankly, lacking) gameplay through its various DLC expansion chapters featuring Noctis’ loyal Chocobros. And while I may not love Ignis quite as much as other chocobros like Prompto or Noctis, Episode Ignis was definitely an engaging and welcome addition to the enigma that is the Final Fantasy XV.

Particular highlights of Episode Ignis include its soundtrack, which features a heroic leitmotif for Ignis that really underscores the dire circumstances he and his teammates find themselves in during this segment of the story, and its addition of gameplay modes (Motorboat Simulator 2018 being one of them) are a welcome change of pace to the somewhat rudimentary battle and exploration systems found in the main game. However, a point of contention I have with Episode Ignis is with its narrative: while I appreciate that this DLC chapter finally explains how Ignis becomes blind, its multiple endings completely undermine the storyline of the main game itself. Does Ignis’ sacrifice save Noctis from having to make a sacrifice of his own in order to save the world? Does Ignis regain his sight after Noctis defeats Ardyn? Do Noctis and Luna finally realize that they’d be better off with other people (as it’s obvious that Noctis is already too preoccupied with his three boyfriends to make room for anyone else)? I need answers, Square!

Favorite Characters: Elizabeth, Atlas/Frank Fontaine Favorite Tracks: Patsy Cline – She’s Got You, Johnny Mathis – Wonderful! Wonderful!

I claimed to be a fan of the BioShock series for so long, even though I’d only ever played the first game in the series until the summer of 2017 when I finally bought a PS4 and, with it, the BioShock Collection. Now, I can call myself a fan of the series without reservation, having explored and discovered all that Rapture and Columbia have to offer. To me, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episodes 1 & 2 are a love letter to the entire series itself, featuring elements from the three main-series games and tying together each of their narratives (save for maybe BioShock 2, which is absolutely criminal, considering 2 is my favorite game in the series) in a way that, while forced in some aspects, felt like Ken Levine actually cared about clearing up some of the more confusing questions that remained at the end of BioShock: Infinite.

Burial at Sea really came into itself during Episode 2, where gameplay was switched up to feature more fleshed-out stealth mechanics that made sneaking around Rapture and Columbia both exhilarating and terrifying. It was also refreshing to be able to finally take control of Elizabeth, one of the most iconic characters of the series after the Big Daddies of BioShocks 1 and 2, and learn more of her own personal motivations and desires as she maneuvers through hostile environments. As I already mentioned briefly, I know some took issue with the way Burial at Sea wove the first two BioShock games together with the third, but, considering the mess that was made when BioShock Infinite introduced multiverse science into its mythos (and the narrative mess that Infinite was in general—I took great issue with the way they framed the oppressed populations of Columbia as “just as bad” as the ruling populations simply because they used violence to, you know, try and liberate themselves from their oppression), I feel that Burial at Sea did the best job it could considering that the setting of Infinite differed so greatly from that of the first two games.

Also, fun fact: I studied this game as a part of my Master’s Project and played it through a total of three times: once in English and twice in French! Isn’t academia weird?

Favorite Characters: Rando, Buddy, Vega Van Dam Favorite Tracks: 666 Kill Chop Deluxe, He’s My Dad, Brokentooth March

Anyone who reads TV Tropes is likely familiar with the trope “Gameplay and Story Segregation” and its less-frequent counterpart, “Gameplay and Story Integration”. In the case of LISA: The Joyful, this DLC game (which could practically be its own standalone title if it weren’t for the fact Steam labels it as “DLC” and won’t let you play it without first purchasing LISA: The Painful) absolutely excels in the latter and completely subverts the gameplay mechanics and narrative structure of the base game, and this can all be attributed to the way both games focus on your use of the cure-all drug that makes you feel nothing: Joy.

Indeed, where LISA: The Painful makes you question your use of the drug Joy, LISA: The Joyful (Joyful) is nigh impossible to complete without taking it in nearly every battle after you’re left to your own devices when the muscle of your party abandons you. As anyone who’s played the LISA trilogy will know, Joy is a dangerous substance, mutating its addicts and twisting the minds of anyone who uses it, and that Joy is an integral piece of the trilogy’s social and philosophical commentary on the freedom and restriction of choice, the commitment and devotion one carries for a person or cause, and the inherent, inevitable grey area of any and all actions one may take. Despite these themes, LISA: The Joyful is far from a demoralizing experience: if anything, the way the game simulates the feeling of being backed into a corner and the refusal to give up despite the odds only affirms whatever moral code by which you may already live, or is at least an opportunity to feel relief that you yourself aren’t forced to make such drastic decisions for your own survivability and freedom.

That’s it for the DLC games I played in 2018; now, the real fun begins! Brace yourself for my list of the top standalone titles I played last year!

Favorite Characters: Katie

This game was recommended to me by a friend, and, as much as I wanted to enjoy it, this game wound up being my lowlight of 2018, with its simplistic, seemingly rudimentary gameplay and conspicuous lack of any compelling narrative. Put bluntly, this game was like a forgettable rendition of Animal Crossing, only without any cute animal neighbors to run errands for. The game’s environment threatened absolutely no danger to your player character, yet still didn’t offer any engaging or challenging puzzles to solve to make up for this lack of danger (most “puzzles” involved figuring out how to get to a particular point on the map… and that was it). Despite this being an open-world game that offered endless opportunities for customization, I found myself hurrying to complete the game’s main (5-hour) campaign so I could feel justified to move on to other gaming experiences. The most unfortunate part of this to me is that I know there’s still more to the game’s world for me to explore, but I’m in no way compelled to do so.

In all fairness, though, I think that I’m a little older than the target demographic this game was aiming for. This game was never meant to be challenging or stressful, it was made to be a relaxing escape for anyone looking to pass the time exploring and discovering a beautifully modeled and brightly colored world. This game also wins serious points for inclusivity, especially considering the age group this game was most likely made for; my fondest memory of this game is of a quest where a woman requests that you find her the ingredients to make a potion that stimulates beard growth because she wants to grow a beard of her own, and not once during this campaign is she ridiculed or belittled for wanting one. Since Yonder seems to be a game for kids, I believe quests such as this are an excellent step to socializing them into a world that’s less judgmental and more receptive to other people. So, despite  my earlier critiques of this game, Yonder would be a great game to consider if you’re looking for a low-key and off-beat (and all-human) alternative to Animal Crossing.

Favorite Veteran Fighters: Peach, Zelda, Zero Suit Samus Favorite Newcomers: Daisy, Ridley, Richter Favorite Stages: Fountain of Dreams, Fourside, Hyrule Temple Favorite Tracks: All-Star Rest Area (Melee), Destroyed Skyworld, Athletic (Yoshi’s Island)

We all knew another installment in the Smash series was coming ever since the Switch was first announced back in March of 2017. In fact, you might even say that the quality of each console’s iteration of Smash reflects the quality of the console itself, with Melee demonstrating the power and potential of the GameCube, Brawl being a gimmicky romp on an equally gimmicky console, and Wii U/3DS (what a title, right?) completely failing to capture player interest for longer than a few rounds of Smash (the Wii U era feels like a fever dream to me at this point). It’s a letdown, then, that with the Switch being such a commercial and technical success, Smash Ultimate seems somewhat of a disappointment when weighed against the hype that surrounded it up until its release back in early December.

It’s true that Smash Ultimate really delivers in regard to the character roster (everyone is here!) and stage selection (almost everything is here!), but the cuts that were made to series staples like trophies, event matches, and the like, detract from Smash Ultimate becoming the be-all end-all title in the series that it could have been. Trophy mode was where I learned much about video game history and was introduced to obscure series I would have never discovered otherwise, and their replacement with spirits feels a bit cheap, especially since spirits don’t come with any kind of information to contextualize them. Event Matches were hybridized with Melee’s Adventure mode and Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, creating the “World of Light”; while the World of Light has grown on me the more that I play it, it’s somewhat discouraging to me that, by combining so many modes of Smash games past into one, there will be nothing left for me to do with the game once I reach its end.

Still, Smash Ultimate offers plenty to look forward to. I’m more-than-hyped about the additions of Piranha Plant and Joker from Persona 5 to the character roster, and I can’t wait to see who might be announced next (unless it’s another Fire Emblem character… please God [Sakurai] don’t let it be another Fire Emblem character).

Favorite Tracks: The Bridge, Touching the Stars, Up to the Nest

I could never have prepared myself for the beautiful-yet-heart-wrenching experience this game would put me through, but I’m oh-so-glad that it did. On the surface, RiME is a relaxing exploration and puzzle game that takes place in a beautifully rendered in-game world, with a brilliantly orchestrated soundtrack and a plethora of diverse landscapes to get lost in. And yet, every moment of your adventure is permeated by an inescapable sense of isolation and dread, making you ask questions like “Where is everyone?”, “Just who is that man in the red cloak?,” and, “Is he stalking me, or are I stalking him?”.

Indeed, RiME’s narrative unfolds wordlessly as you explore and leaves you to discover and interpret on your own exactly what tragedies transpired before the events of the game, tragedies of which are far more poignant and moving if you were to discover them yourself. I know I’ve put a spoiler warning in effect, but I highly recommend you play this game on your own (or at least watch a decent Let’s Play of it) if you’re curious to know what unfolds during the game’s narrative. RiME is a relatively short game, too, lasting only between 5-10 hours, so it would be an easy one to fit into your queue if you’re looking for a fun gameplay experience with a story that will haunt you for weeks and months on end after completing it.

Favorite Characters: Terry Hintz, Buzzo, Wally Favorite Tracks: Men’s Hair Club, The End is Nigh, Summer Love

Having already talked about this game’s DLC expansion of LISA: The Joyful, you’re already aware that I hold the LISA trilogy in high regard—it also means I can make this entry somewhat brief, since a lot of what I said about Joyful can also be applied to its parent title, LISA: The Painful. You see, it’s in LISA: The Painful where the conflict in Joyful begins, and where we learn more of how the world came to be so depraved after the White Flash, an extinction event that inexplicably killed all women on the planet (at least, as far as the characters in the game know). The game considers what the repercussions of such an event would be on our society (aside from dooming humanity to die off within a generation) and really explores the darkest depths of toxic masculinity to call into question the detrimental effects it has on our self-esteem, our relationships, and our will to survive. Gameplay-wise, it’s a fairly traditional JRPG, though as I mentioned with Joyful, LISA: The Painful integrates its story with its gameplay by permanently increasing (but mainly decreasing) your stats depending on whatever injuries you escape or sustain throughout your journey. All in all, LISA: The Painful is a truly harrowing experience from beginning to end, but a must-play for anyone with an interest in the more macabre aspects of human nature.

Favorite Characters: Aloy, Erend, Vanasha Favorite Tracks: Louder

You know a game’s going to be good when its title screen holds you in awe before even pressing start. Imagine a sunlit vignette over purple mountains and a glistening river, a haunting and triumphant melody underscoring it all, as the title slowly fades into view in white in the center of the screen: Horizon Zero Dawn. O.K., I’m in. This game just did so many things right as an open-world game during an era where the genre was oversaturated by mediocre games that rehashed the same tired tropes and mechanics in its gameplay and world building. Horizon Zero Dawn truly set itself apart from the crowd for a variety of reasons: its beautifully detailed setting (being a microcosmic interpretation of Western North America), its intricate combat system with a graciously forgiving learning curve, and its compelling and socially-conscious narrative all worked together to distinguish this game within the open-world genre.

What really sets this game apart most of all, though, is the game’s protagonist, Aloy: a rare female protagonist who is a breath of fresh air in a sea of male heroes, whose capabilities and intellect don’t come at the cost of her physical appearance and femininity. Aloy set an example for other game developers that female protagonists are more than viable (and are in fact, overdue) in the video games of today, and her status as a female character never felt gratuitous or shoehorned (e.g. Battlefield V’s inclusion of a female protagonist as an enlisted soldier in the British Army and serving in the line of duty during World War II). It’s difficult (read: impossible) to play Horizon Zero Dawn and not fall in love with Aloy for her wit, her strength, and her general stick-to-itiveness in the face of adversity (not to mention, she’s just really cute and knows how to work a belly shirt). With Aloy as the protagonist, you’ll never tire of adventuring through Horizon Zero Dawn’s 70-hours+ worth of gameplay as you explore the in-game world to learn just what happened to “The Old Ones” and their society all those millennia ago.

Favorite Party Members: Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki, Makoto Niijima Favorite Confidants: Hifumi Togo, Sadayo Kawakami, Sae Niijima, Toranosuke Yoshida, Chihaya Mifune Favorite Targets/Boss Battles: Ichiryusai Madarame, Kunikazu Okumura, Leviathan, Yaldabaoth Favorite Tracks: Blooming Villain, Rivers in the Desert, A Woman, Aria of the Soul

I’ll bet no one saw this one coming! Just kidding—anyone who’s exchanged more than a few words with me since the fall of 2018 knows how much this game absolutely consumed my life over the span of, I don’t know, I think it was four months? Indeed, I wound up sinking a total of 123 hours into this game, and there’s still a loud part of me that wants to return to it to begin a New Game+ (you’ll even notice that it was too difficult for me to contain my favorite characters into one category, instead having to split them up in order to represent all of my favorites because of how much I love them all). I’m already a fan of JRPGs, so it didn’t take much for Persona 5 to win me over with its turn-based combat, but the addition of certain gameplay mechanics—like earning an extra turn for exploiting enemy weaknesses or improving your relationship with your friends outside of battle to unlock gameplay bonuses—prevent battles and exploration in Persona 5 from ever becoming stale. Indeed, Persona 5 was truly a masterpiece from start to finish and an experience that I never wanted to end.

Frankly, any drawbacks I could mention about this game feel almost nitpicky, like the way the status ailment “Envy” is represented during the final boss fight by the color indigo instead of green, or how Kawakami can only manage to make me one cup of very useful, SP-restoring coffee over the course of an entire evening. Still, Persona 5 isn’t without its faults: for one, Persona 5 loses significant points for its questionable representation of LGBT groups (the camp gay men who openly harass Ryuji on multiple occasions being the most glaring example), and this isn’t helped by the queerbaiting that’s prevalent in a lot of character dialogue and relationships. Additionally, the fact that you can’t romance any of your male confidants comes across as erasive at best and homophobic at worst, especially considering that 1) all but one of your female confidants are eligible girlfriends, 2) you can two-time all of them at once if you so desire (which isn’t just disrespectful, it’s also flippantly misogynistic), and, most importantly, 3) one of this game’s main themes includes rebelling against oppressive societal norms (a theme that will resonate deeply with any LGBT+ player). Female representation in Persona 5 is also somewhat of a mixed bag: while the game features a large cast of diverse female characters, its constant and blatant objectification of Ann is not only creepy, it’s incredibly obtuse considering the sexual harassment and abuse she suffers by one of her teachers during the game’s first story arc. Fortunately, each of these drawbacks is easy enough to ignore when discussing the game as a whole, but I hope Atlus improves upon them in future installments: considering how incredible an experience Persona 5 was, imagine how much more incredible Persona 6 could be if these issues were fixed!

So that’s it for my top 10 games of 2018. What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with any of my commentary? What were some favorite games you played during 2018? I’d love to hear your responses and start a discussion, so please, leave your comments in the notes!

[pktapps]

Mobile App Ideas That Are Trending During The COVID-19 Pandemic

As the proportion of the Coronavirus outbreak overall expanded, governments and organizations developed reactionary measures, including the new norms of social distancing. While this is happening, the shoppers stayed secured up in their homes. They are now searching for better approaches to get connected throgh their mobiles to make their shopping, finances, health care, and profit in working and engaging themselves in this troublesome time.

The COVID-19 pandemic has constrained these customers to move their lives to websites and mobile applications. In recent times, both mobile and website popularity has made this everyday change simpler.

A few studies have evaluated that the day by day time spent on mobile applications has stretched worldwide as the outbreak has extended in the first quarter of 2020. As indicated by App Annie (application for checking the web and mobile use) in China, time passing became 30% with five additional hours out of each day on regular since 2019. Italy, one more of the countries that are generally under attack by COVID-19 had the second most increase with 11%. As per Android reports, the average week by week time spent on Apps and games on their working frameworks overall developed by 20% this first quarter of the year.

However, it isn’t just that users look for more; it is the thing that they are doing at this time and what tools they are utilizing. Therefore we have two lists quite long, the names that are used with regular day to day existence, for example, health, amusement, games, and so forth. In the case of the finance and educational processes as well these apps work fine. So let’s take a look at the apps?

The most mainstream as per Google Play and App Store: Witness the Rise of Users

On Google Play, downloads have come up to 5% while iOS downloads expanded to 15%, speaking to 9 billion new downloads. On Google Play, non-game apps represented 55% of all downloads, while on iOS, the figure was somewhat higher than 65%.

The games, tools, and other entertainment sector downloads were the areas with the most noteworthy download rates on Google Play and, even though the games category was the most excellent ones, in this time, it is changing fast and reaching into substantial development in different ways which are frequently overlooked by clients. From the app developers Brisbane you can expect similar kinds of apps also. For that you will have to share your idea of the app with them.

The applications in the Health and Fitness and Education and Business classes have likewise experienced the development of 40%, 35%, and 30% individually. The more individuals join the home office, the more schools and gyms stay shut, the more it converts into an expansion in application downloads that permit buyers to keep up with their schedules while remaining at home.

When seen from the iOS working framework, games, photographs, entertainment, and videos are as yet the most significant downloaded applications. While watching the detail of the process in education, business, and physical state, similar to Google Play, in this framework, they have seen the developments of 40%, 35%, and 30%. On iOS, health, and fitness applications, such as multi-day Fitness, Calorie Counter, and Keep were the most downloaded in this category.

Another pertinent case is TikTok, an application that, since 2019, has offered something to discuss. So far, in 2020, it figured out how to be the most downloaded application on the planet, outperforming applications possessed by Facebook example, Instagram, Messenger, or Facebook Mobile. Statista has revealed that 25 thousand iOS clients in Spain have downloaded this App, from March 26 to April 2, a period wherein the clients were in a circumstance of social detachment. The Android app development Australia based services are there to launch such kind of unique apps.

Entertainment at Its Best

The most well-known applications by several downloads in the entertainment categories are:

Disney +

Disney +, the App initially propelled in the United States on November 12, had solid selection during the first quarter of 2020. It experienced the popularity in Europe on March 24 and created around 5 million downloads on the main day, in Spain is the second most downloaded App with about 360000 downloads. Accordingly, it is one of the most significant amusement applications that buyers use.

HouseParty

Houseparty is another App that has seen exponential development, filling the hole made by the lockdown measures in various nations regarding social contact. At the same time, apps like ZOOM and Microsoft Teams are entirely made use of in proficient life, Houseparty centers around ordinary socialization. The proposition of having the option to play a few games during calls is the thing that genuinely recognizes the application. In the week starting March 15, Houseparty downloads overall grew multiple times more than the earlier week.

Conflict and Slack

Conflict is an App that might be obscure to age. However, it is maybe the most famous correspondence App among the lovers of the video game. It is an application that consolidates the elements of a video call tool, for example, Skype with communication through channels or subjects offered, for instance, Slack. The gamer network has acknowledged it as its application because of the chance of arranging systems around the various games and where a round of a video game can be communicated while they speak with one another.

In the business world, there is likewise news: Whatsapp, Telegram, Facebook.

Surprisingly fast, the business world has additionally needed to rehash itself, presently conferences have gone from eye to eye to being virtual and well-known texting tools, for example, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, or Telegram offer these administrations. Notwithstanding, the quantity of members they permit usually is confinement to create customer appeal towards these tools.

The coronavirus pandemic has filled teleworking, and with it, the requirement for progressively adaptable and ground-breaking programs has developed. Truth be told, as per Statista, from March 26 to April 1, Zoom has become the most downloaded App available, both on Google Play and on the App Store. In any case, this is only an example, probably the most mainstream free applications that have served to help amplify the presentation of organizations that are teleworking are:

Skype

It is, without a doubt, extraordinary compared to other realized Video Call Apps. It was made in 2003, and its prevalence pushed the tech goliath Microsoft to get hold of it in 2011 for $ 8.5 billion. In support of its, its natural structure, the chance of making video calls in top-notch and the sound quality stick out. Nonetheless, the cutoff number for video calls is 25 members, which reduces the opportunity of arranging work gatherings on the off chance that it is a large organization.

Zoom

With social distancing on the board, it is presumably the application that is offering more to discuss. Its usage isn’t just restricted to the business condition. A few educational organizations additionally make use of this tool to provide virtual classes. As indicated by an article in the British paper Financial Times, Zoom’s stock worth significantly increased toward the start of March, where “artful speculators search for organizations that can profit by worldwide health dread.”

The organization was established in 2011 and is situated in the Californian city of San José, Silicon Valley. As indicated by a portion of its clients, Zoom’s effortlessness and speed to arrange gatherings are one of its qualities. What’s more, they bring up the enormous number of capacities that its free form permits, having the option to get together to 100 members simultaneously. You don’t have to enroll to join a formerly made gathering, having the connection and secret word or greeting is sufficient.

Microsoft Teams

When it comes to the Microsoft Teams, after the beginning of the lockdown, including 12 million new clients, around 44 million individuals are associated day by day. On March 12, they chose in an official proclamation to make remote work simpler, making their Microsoft Teams stage accessible to associations and schools far and wide for nothing.

Slack

In Slack, its CEO detailed an expansion in clients on the lockdown stage, finding that the average number of messages sent through the stage expanded by 20%. Similarly, they took measures to team up with their clients by pushing the use of new assets, considering expanding far off work. Among these assets was the upgrade of the stage, to encourage association on it.

On account of video conferencing stages, the experts opine that you have a mediator to help arrange the teammates’ petitions. For that, the utilization of informing steps must propel you to have more noteworthy correspondence with your workgroup and keep up, through this relationship, more noteworthy ordinariness in your work exercises. With Brisbane app development services, you can expect the best supports now.

It is undeniable that the coronavirus outbreak has caused significant changes in how purchasers and organizations connect. Still, it is also true that new mediums are also coming up for fruitful dealings. While brands need to have a system to assist purchasers with winning on mobile gadgets, it is likewise a chance to survey inside and look for not just how to go with their clients as of now yet additionally their representatives so forms They are liquid and are reflected like their items and administrations.

[sector2020]

'Hair Love' Short - Huffpost Canada

CAP/AIDS is a signed up Canadian Charity # 88898 7500 RR0001 with one staff working in Canada and a voluntary Board of Directors based in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. Site: www.capaids.org. Meet the CAP/AIDS Board: CAP/AIDS BOARD.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Advancement's Better Life Index ranks Canada amongst the best locations to reside in the world. Here's why. A study released Neinstein Personal Injury Lawyers the other day by the Company for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that "Canada carries out remarkably well in measures of well-being," according to an online report.

The research study scored 36 nations, consisting of 34 OECD members, Russia and Brazil. No total ranking is reported. The findings will shock some, provided our 7.2% national unemployment rate, 14.5% youth unemployment rate and economic growth forecasts that stay soft in the short term. Here are seven highlights from the OECD report: The average family makes US$ 28,194 each year after taxes.

There is disparity at both ends of the incomes spectrum though, not remarkably. The leading 20% takes home US$ 55,718, while the bottom 20% makes US$ 10,526. We ranked seventh on family wealth and ninth on income. Canadians invest 2 minutes a day volunteering; that has to do with half the OECD average. On the other hand, 64% stated they 'd assisted a complete stranger in the last month.

We ranked seventh on assistance network. 9 in 10 Canadians are pleased with their housing. The average house in this nation provides 2.6 spaces per resident, more than any other nation. And 99.8% of Canadians live in a home with a personal restroom that has an indoor, flushing toilet. (The OECD average is 97.8%.) We ranked 24th on the ratio of housing expenses to earnings, 8th on fundamental facilities and first on number of spaces per individual.

We ranked 14th on contamination and 12th on water quality. Our life span at birth is 81, a full year above the OECD average. And 88% of Canadians state they remain in health. Health costs in this country makes up 11.4% of gross domestic item. (The OECD average is 9.5% of gdp.) We ranked 3rd in health and 17th in life expectancy.

That's well listed below the OECD average of 4%. Our murder rate is less excellent. It's 1.6%, only partially listed below the average rate of 2.2%. We ranked initially on assault rate and 23rd on murder rate.: Canadians work an average 1,702 hours per year. That's 74 hours below the OECD average.

(The OECD average is 9%.) We ranked ninth on working long hours. The complete index is comprised of 11 classifications. Canada ranked 27th on job security, 4th on student abilities, 4th on government transparency and 8th on life fulfillment.

Canada has a goal to bring in one million people to live and work in the nation by 2020. Evaluating by feedback from expats, it should not have too much trouble with that objective. Listed as one of the very best countries worldwide for expats, it is regularly praised for its accepting and tolerant society and terrific quality of life.

If you're considering the big relocation and still require some convincing that Canada is the ideal location for you, continue reading. Here we note the 15 reasons you need to call the Great White North your new house. It appears Canadians live up to their welcoming reputation, with more than four in five expats surveyed for the most recent Internations Expat Insider survey describing Canadians as "friendly" double the international average.

Canada ranked 12th out of 189 countries on the newest Human Development Index, scoring extremely for an entire host of classifications, from life expectancy and gross national income, to security and socio-economic development. With a lower expense of living, a focus on sports and enjoying the outdoors, many expats choose to head to Canada to enhance their lifestyle in truth Canada ranked number 3 globally in the most recent Lifestyle rankings according to a study by US News & World Report.

Neinstein Personal Injury Attorneys has managed serious accident declares throughout Ontario for over 5 decades. Its areas of expertise include medical, legal, and insurance concerns related to healthcare neglect, car collisions, disability claims, slip and falls, product liability, insurance conflicts, and a lot more.

Neinstein is our customers' advocates. Neinstein, in addition to our group of medical, forensic, and investigative specialists, have actually represented individuals from all areas of life 5 decades. We are committed to doing whatever we can to assist our customers receive the settlement they should have.

Canadians in general love sport, however that passion isn't simply restricted to ice hockey, lacrosse and basketball, it also extends method beyond that. Canada is large and the majority of the populations lives in cities, which leaves fantastic expanses of wilderness just waiting to be explored. Whether you're kayaking or swimming, skiing or just strolling through gorgeous landscapes, the Great Outdoors is simply asking to be discovered.

But it is not simply this Francophone city that enchants expats. Coastal Vancouver is the nation's cooking capital, surrounded by beaches, mountains and gorgeous forests, while Toronto is stated to be the most multicultural city worldwide. Add in the cowboy charms Calgary and Ottawa's fame as the Silicon Valley of the North and you have a nation breaking with variety.

Canada is cold. The second coldest country on the planet, actually. But while those long, chilly winters might be mentioned as a reason not to relocate to the nation, the residents understand you can still have fun when the snow is thick on the ground. From Whistler to Lake Louise, the names of this nation's renowned resorts make you wish to grab your skis or board and leap a chairlift.

After the long winter season, the sun comes out across Canada and mountainside are blanketed in vibrant wildflowers, alpine lakes glow in the sunshine, the rugged coastline starts to attract holidaymakers and the sun-kissed vineyards of the Okanagan Valley welcome visitors. Yes, Canada comes alive in summer, with typical temperatures of 25C, and the locals understand how to enjoy it to the max.

You will not need much reason to get out and delight in the sunlight. When the winter season really bites and the wind chill sends you wishing to scoot inside, you do not have to shut yourself up in your home. In the coldest cities across Canada, you can head out shopping and take pleasure in suppers and cocktails, all underground.

In Toronto, PATH is a downtown pedestrian pathway offering restaurants, shopping and home entertainment, while Montreal has its own Underground City, stretching for 20 miles and integrating metro stations, plazas, shops and eateries. Among the numerous joys of checking out the Outdoors while residing in Canada is the remarkable wildlife you can witness.

The moose is an icon of the country, while the Canadian caribou migration is not to be missed and beavers, wolves, meadow pet dogs, coyotes and deer all contribute to its rich wildlife offering. Canada is rightly happy with its state-funded healthcare offering Medicare, which makes sure vital medical treatment is complimentary at the point of shipment.

As a long-term resident, you can delight in both in-patient and out-patient services as part of Medicare, which is really viewed as a health insurance coverage service, moneyed by the taxes people and homeowners pay in through earnings tax, sales tax and things like the purchase of lottery game tickets. If Toronto is one of the most multiculturally diverse cities on the planet, then Vancouver isn't far behind it.

According to the current Internations survey of expats, 94% ranked tranquillity as a crucial part of the country's lifestyle and Canada also carried out extremely well when it came to safety and security, with low criminal activity rates and particularly low violent crime when compared to its southern neighbour. If you desire to raise children in Canada, you will be pleased with the conclusions from expats already living in the nation.

Often weekends are spent escaping to the mountains, lakeside lodges and the coast, anything to get in touch with nature and shake of the stresses of the huge cities. Canada is among the world's strongest economies and there are expanding markets such as mining and oil and gas in general. As a nation, it welcomes foreign employees and positively encourages those who can fill under-represented markets and positions.

As part of its open policy to foreign workers, Canada lists info about all the visas readily available on its website cic.gc.ca. Employers searching for foreign workers can do so through the Temporary Foreign Employee Program, while you can also apply through the Federal Competent Worker Program, which runs on a points-based system based on your academic experiences, language skills and so on.

In truth, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Canadian trainees carry out well regardless of socioeconomic status or whether they are First Nations or recent immigrants, as the nation has a policy of no trainee being left. More than 90 percent of students go to public school and there is a real focus on sports and after-school activities as well as academic achievement.

If https://en.search.wordpress.com/?src=organic&q=places in ontario you're believing of making Canada your brand-new house, we provide an unsurpassable global eliminations service direct from the UK. Get your complimentary quote today.

The Duchess of Sussex is currently there and Prince Harry is anticipated to join her within days. So what is it about Canada!.?.!? Here is our guide to the nation's absolute best destinations and experiences and why you need to think about Canada for your next vacation. For those who want vacations where you escape the crowds, Canada delivers.

The country likewise has the longest coastline worldwide. Fans of Canada say its natural beauty is carefully balanced with fun and stylish experiences, plus a host of urban destinations. THE MUST-SEE SIGHTS1. CN Tower Highlights: Toronto's horizon featuring the CN Tower, which has a glass flooring you can stroll or crawl across at 1,122 ftYou'll require nerves of steel throughout a journey to the top of Toronto's piece de resistance.

There is also the Glass Floor (you can stroll or crawl throughout it while looking down 1,122 feet), and the SkyPod observation deck which, at 1,465 ft, is among the world's greatest seeing platforms. 2. Niagara Falls Visitors get soaked at Niagara Falls. If you wish to leave the crowds, go on a two-mile walk through Niagara Glen Nature Reserve, or dive into the Falls View Water Park, which has 16 water slides, a few of which are six floors highThe white waters and thick mists of Niagara Falls are Canadian essentials.

Additionally, the Journey Behind The Falls tour takes you down a lift shaft and through a tunnel to a series of observation decks for a lot more severe photography. If you desire to get away the crowds, go on a two-mile walk through Niagara Glen Nature Reserve, or dive into the Falls View Water Park with its 16 water slides, a few of which are six storeys high.

Northern Lights: A great place to see one of nature's biggest shows remains in the frontier town of Whitehorse in the Yukon territory. It's a stylish paradise you can fly to with Air North, one of the friendliest airline companies worldwide. Further south in Saskatchewan, La Ronge has some of the darkest skies on the continent and is also a good base for ice-fishing tours.

Vancouver Island: Take a two-hour ferryboat ride from Vancouver to Vancouver Island, where you'll find sandy coves and rocky shores. And who understands, you may even see Harry and Meghan. Looking for a location to remain? The island has everything from camping sites to first-class spa hotels. The island's cool browse town of Tofino deserves a check out, as is the larger Nanaimo, where you can try the Nanaimo Bar, an abundant, chocolate biscuit. : as of July 1 of the year indicated.: Overall total population (both sexes and all ages) in the country as of July 1 of the year indicated, as estimated by the United toronto lawyers Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Department. World Population Prospects: The 2019 Modification. For anticipated years, the U.N.

Find Out More Definitions ...: For 2019: portion change in overall population over the in 2015 (from July 1, 2018 to June 30 2019). For all other years: latest year annual portion change equivalent assuming homogeneous change in the preceding five year duration, computed through reverse compounding.: For 2019: absolute modification in overall population (boost or reduce in number of individuals) over the last year (from July 1, 2018 to June 30 2019).

: The average yearly variety of immigrants minus the variety of emigrants over the preceding five year period (running from July 1 to June 30 of the preliminary and final years), or subsequent 5 year duration (for 2016 information). An unfavorable number implies that there are more emigrants than immigrants.

This parameter offers an indicator of age distribution.: (Overall Fertility Rate, or TFR), it is revealed as children per woman. It is computed as the typical variety of children an average woman will have throughout her reproductive period (15 to 49 years of ages) based upon the current fertility rates of every age in the country, and assuming she is exempt to mortality.

: Urban population as a percentage of total population.: Population living in locations classified as urban according to the requirements utilized by each country.: Total population in the country as a percentage of total World Population as of July 1 of the year indicated.: Total World Population as of July 1 of the year suggested.

Undoubtedly, some food waste is unavoidable this is the food that can't typically be offered or eaten, such as bones, veggie peelings, egg shells, tea bags, and coffee grounds. Preventable food waste is the edible food that winds up in the garden compost or in the bin. Sadly, we typically squander excellent food because we purchase too much, cook http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/places in ontario too much, or don't store it correctly.

[nikki-reuclife]

Superhero

Need to purchase X-Men t-shirts on-line? Whether or not you have got a love for The Avengers, Unbelievable Four, Thor, or X-Men there are a lot or t-shirts and different merchandise to personal. My childhood included a love for 60s and 70s Marvel and DC comics, and my capacity to attract originates partially from learning the tales I learn in those days. We labored for a yr collectively on the piece to plan and draw it. Toy corporations like Hasbro and Kenner used to produce hundreds of Batman motion determine than is launched every year with some variation in it. Transformers 2, the science-fiction film is the latest sensation, and is the most awaited movie of the yr. Let's take the film Avatar for instance. Now and again I went again to the game to take just a few more screenshots to increase a plot. Inside a couple of minutes, I started making comedian strips. Unlike his different comic strips, in Battling Boy, the hero is a child, who's on a mission to save the town.

In truth, the opposite sequence of battling boy grew to become well-liked. To conclude on this matter, I feel it's an excellent idea to offer our children the humorous comics created manner-back-when, comics from your and my childhood. To learn a narrative in adventurous manner is quite thrilling for all the kids. You have to overcome the limitations of speech bubbles and the issue of telling a narrative frame by frame. Admit it you've got! I’m certain you have heard this standard on-line retailer. Since Kids's Graphic Novels are actually simply an outdated concept with a fancy new title, why should not you discover taking old successful comicbook ideas and reinventing them for a brand new technology? The idea was to convey the same which means with phrases that I instructed by way of colors, textures and pictures. Fashionable On-line Comics solidify a which means of a phrase because footage help meaning to phrases. The nomination was a serious achievement for an artist who had - fairly actually -started out small, drawing Post-it be aware sized comics and hiding them in different people’s work in bookshops. The primary comic strips appeared in Germany in 1865. It was about two boys who're getting punished for at all times entering into mischief.

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When we speak about superheroes, something that comes into thoughts are Batman. This crime fighting, caped crusader has become a section of us because it was released in a Superman very comic book series. Most of us have few ideas about him like his name, his sidekick, villains, with his fantastic cool gadgets. But only a number of us learn about certain details of the dark knight. In this article, will speak about who is Batman based on more interesting information about this superhero. 1. The Hulk - This teammate is brilliant and analytical, but moody and temperamental. At her best she tackles probably the most difficult difficulties with precise analysis. She has a grasp of complicated issues and has a reasoned and systematic procedure for them. She is, however, easily upset and will become quite the "monster" when angry. The best approach for that team is to allow her to work alone, whenever you can. Solitude permits her to pursue potential solutions because they eventually her. She ought to be needed to keep another teammate appraised of her work. Because of her logical nature, she'll usually respond positively while confronting facts that disprove her position. However, when she flashes her temper, teammates informed about her will simply get out of just how. After she has calmed down she should be made conscious of the unacceptability of her angry behavior.

While becoming an adult there were this extremely tiny comic shop inside the town I spent my youth, also it was alone in the city. I remember seeing an Amazing Spider-Man #1 about the wall as well as an X-Men #1. Both were in great (VG) condition, without doubt. I remember specifically that the Amazing Spider-Man #1 was being sold for $800 and The X-Men #1 went around $300.

With this as a reboot, each goes straight away while on an origins story. If you're a fan of Spider-Man otherwise you know his beginnings, then you certainly ought to know a number of what you should expect. I'm sure the creators on this movie are stored on to the fact so in retrospect they've added some wrinkles for this existing comic classic. By adding some unfamiliar parts towards the story and subtracting a few of the things we've grown familiar with, the movie is allowed to feel fresh as well as new in some ways.

Superhero comics are becoming a fundamental element of modern pop culture, along with their popularity shows no signs of fading in the near future. As more and more people familiarize yourself with these characters from their appearances in blockbuster movies, the requirement for comic books featuring these heroes has risen. With these affordable reprint volumes, anyone can easily compensate for numerous years of a common hero's adventures.

[maskedheromaskedchampion]

Magic Design History - Legendary Creatures

Hello everybody, we’ve finally reached 2017 and I have returned from a night of heavy drinking to dive into an aspect of Magic with you to discuss the history of it’s development. This installment will focus on an aspect near and dear to my heart and the larger purpose of this blog, Legendary Creatures!

This topic has a number of story points, in fact its probably more nuanced than I’m even choosing to outline. That said, this could be a long one!

In the Beginning…

In the beginning, there were no Legendary Creature (Legends for the sack of my fingers). Actually, there were no multicolored cards either. I guess that is kind of important for my story.

Then came Legends in June of 1994 as the third non-Core Set expansion. This set was designed mostly before the official release of Magic and brought about the idea of Legendary Creatures - specific people who existed in the world we were visiting. To highlight these characters - who by the way, many were based on the designers’ D&D campaigns - the choice to flip the script was made and they made as Magic’s first multicolored cards. Every one of them.

As a history lesson, I believe the Legend Rule started out being that if I had Dakkon Blackblade out any new copies of Dakkon Blackblade would immediately go to the graveyard when played, thus marooning all other copies in either players’ hands. Because, like, why bother casting a spell that was just going to the graveyard?

I feel this addition to Magic canon was hugely important. But I am biased as I participate in a format that is driven by the quality of Legendary. It is funny to think though that Gold cards were also introduced here and many players will never know realize that all Legends in Legends were Gold and all Gold cards were Legends.

Continuing Trends

Because Legends was an expansion existing before the official release of Alpha, that means that sets following it were aware of legends during their design. That meant that Legends became apart of every set, by my research. So the trend of kicking out a handful of Legends began and with the Legend Rule in its beginning state, it became a design tool to help control the power level of some cards deemed too powerful in multiples. This would be the design philosophy for Legends for the next three years.

I don’t know that anything remarkable happened in this era, this is a point in design that I often flip through in hopes of finding a creature worth building around for it’s color identity and abilities. I am often disappointed. As the next section’s influences begin to come into focus, some of the Legends designed before Tempest would get retrofitted into the story.

Introducing Story

As I stated before - and is terribly obvious - Legends are fabled people existing in the worlds we visit and some time around 1997 - with the release of Weatherlight and Tempest - the cards started introducing more story elements. This meant the Legends being printed began showcasing the characters of those stories. I think this was a great choice that pulled in or retained many of the community personalities we love that identify as a Vorthos.

The story that started it roots in Weatherlight ran through the next four blocks and culminated in the final set of the Invasion block, Apocalypse. Through out all of this, Legends like Mirri and Gerrard were being featured on cards to help showcase their place in the story. My one complaint during this era was that aside from a few characters like Ertai and Croax, we never saw more than one card appearance of characters, leaving the players with no sense of the character’s arc.

Everyone is Legendary

Around the tail end of 2004 Magic took a trip to the new plane of Kamigawa, a Japanese-Shinto inspired world that made the mistake of putting Creative before Design - making for an ill-received block - and now us Samurai enthusiasts must forever pay the price. This was also where the Legend Rule was retooled to make any copies beyond the first destroy all copies of a Legendary Permanent with the same name.

The giant flag waving over all of the Kamigawa block was that it was featuring Legendary Permanents in mass - 163 by my count. Suddenly everything was legendary, including the enchantments and lands and sort of the spells. I think this is real cool in concept, but in the 13 years since, I can see how it might have lessened the special nature of Legends in one way or another.

I personally loved this influx of Legends as a Commander player, because more than half were not linear to build with. The major set back was that Kamigawa was almost entirely mono colored and meaning we were never given allied/enemy paired Legends for any of the tribes used such as Samurai, Ninja, Foxes or Rats.

Thankfully, the following year - Ravnica block - also featured Legendary Creatures in high numbers - 20 in total - and brought about allied/enemy creatures that would also prove to be relatively open-ended once Commander gained popularity. This was an important block in Magic history, because it gave an identity to each of the two-color pairs, something that wasn’t defined until 2006.

Lastly, from a lore prospective, this era of Legends were a mixed bag of important to the stories being told in the novels and completely unmentioned.

Displaced Heroes

Capping off a prolonged period of Legends, Time Spiral block could be described as a nostalgia block. Occupying the space that I see Commander products slowly embracing more and more, the designers turned their attentions to defining the characters of early Magic in card form, sometimes being as fleeting as appearing in flavor text of one card. Thankfully we were not restricted mono colored creatures this time around.

This was another stage of design that I think had it’s ups and downs. Part of the nostalgia also meant making the creatures feel like cards from their respective ages of design. In some cases this made for really interesting designs, like Ib Halfheart or Jhoira of the Ghitu, but (to me) there was a large batch of confusing designs that were more in-jokes than anything, like Mangara of Corondor, Tivadar of Thorn or Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder.

While I think this was an important time in Magic design, I don’t look as fondly back on this time as I might Kamigawa or Ravnica. And while I would more than love another Time Spiral block, I think it’s more for the wink-nod designs of the cards filling the entire set than the Legends specifically. In my eyes, this was a weak point in design, as the Legends were often confusing, though not yet pandering.

The Rise of Commander

 Now we’ve reached Magic circa 2009, and the rise of Commander.

Fun fact: Commander was popularized in the 2008-2010 era, but its roots have been said to go as far back as a 1995 Duelist article, with the format being cultivated in 2001 [x]

As the 100-card singleton format began to take root in the general Magic community - and designers started designing towards it - the use of Legends evolved and their significance began to ramp up. Suddenly, the state of being legendary and the colors that creature occupied were a huge deal. In this era we also saw the Legend Rule change with Theros, now Legendary things only exploded if they occupied the same side of the battlefield.

The reasoning for this explosion in popularity, to me, comes from the release of Shards of Alara and the heavy influx of 3-color Legends, many of which were also well suited for themed decks or archetypes. My one gripe being that many of the Legends in Shards block were very linear. But Wizards heard the community’s love for the format and gave us Magic the Gathering: Commander in 2011, which took the number of wedge colored cards from a handful to double digits.

But that leads up to the final or better yet, most recent, point in the design of Legends…

The Fine Line

So now Wizards is going out of their way to design a product for us, becoming yearly in 2013. And with this attention towards Commander, I think two things began to come into focus:

1) The Commander community started complaining when a Legend didn’t work well in the format.

2) Wizards tried to give us what we asked for, but missed the mark.

Truthfully, both points have merits to both sides of the issue.

With the first point, Commander players got a bit of big head, Dragonlord Kolaghan probably being the best example in recent memory. Yes, Kolaghan is legend, sadly it doesn’t work well or at all in Commander.

We want cool legends, and it sucks when one of a cycle doesn’t fit into the Commander mold. But maybe it wasn’t designed for us. Or maybe just the being a Dragon part was.

The second issue more leans towards my hatred of being pandered to, I liked Kamigawa block because the Legends were never built with Commander in mind and thus, they worked as both build arounds and just unique creatures. With Wizards constructing creatures per our requests, it was nice, but there was a communication error that would occur (see Ulrich or the not-yet-confirmed lack of a UR legend that cares about artifacts in Aether Revolt).

And so, as much as I want to knock on @markrosewater‘s door and request specific things, it takes some of the fun out for me. Though, it does make the game I love feel more approachable.

The End…

Man, are you still here? Wow. Thanks.

So, we’ve just covered a solid 1000+ words on my thoughts about the design of Legendary Creatures across Magic’s history. I hope I educated and not just spouted my shallow thoughts, because this took a lot of research and several attempts on my part. What did I skip over that I could highlight in the future? Where would you like to see the series go in the future?

Either way, thanks for any feedback and I hope to catch you later!

[scienceblogtumbler]

Politics Influences the Science of COVID-19

Many of us are still shell-shocked by the changes in our lives that have been imposed this spring. We’re reacting to each unexpected event as it comes. But to anyone who has stepped back to make sense of this web of contradictory messages that pour out of our newsfeeds, it is clear that the government agencies and corporate news media are slanting their message toward fear. I am particularly concerned when they do this at the expense of honesty. This is a moment for the scientific community to be engaging in spirited dialog among diverse voices. Only with open debatei can we hope to shed light to guide the momentous public policy decisions that are being made, directing our culture and global economy into unexplored territory. But instead of robust debate, what I see is a monolithic message, and censorship of the few brave scientists who dissent from that message. I’m ashamed to say that the scientific community has been part of the problem.

I’m writing here about two issues: 

(1) Numbers reported by CDC have been gamed to make it appear that America is in the second wave of a pandemic. Instead of reporting COVID deaths, they began reported COVID cases. Then they conflated recovered individuals (who test positive for antibodies) with current cases (who test positive for the active virus). No wonder numbers are rising!

(2) A new report featured prominently in Nature purports to show that lockdowns have stemmed the spread of the virus and have saved lives. The article is by the same team whose flawed models produced apocalyptic predictions last March that justified lockdowns in Europe and the US. The new computer model assumes from the start that the number of COVID deaths would have expanded exponentially from their March levels, and that social distancing is the only factor responsible for lower death rates. That is, it assumes exactly what it purports to prove. Where is accountability? Why is this perspective promoted in the world’s most prestigious journal, while reasonable doubts are swept aside?

The global death rate from COVID-19 is down to about 4,000 per day. It is not even among the top ten causes. COVID is lower than traffic deaths, lower than diarrhea. Even compared to other respiratory infections, COVID is now a minority.

In the US, daily COVID deaths peaked in April, and are now down to 1/10 the peak rate, at about 400/day. COVID is now the sixth leading cause of death in America, but it no longer registers as a bump in total mortality.

But the headlines claim we are in the midst of a “second wave”, based on reported numbers of cases.

Deaths from COVID are being over-reported. Hospitals are incentivized to diagnose COVID with Medicare reimbursement rates that are higher than other diseases, and guaranteed coverage from every major insurer. Doctors are being instructed to report COVID as a cause of death when no testing is done, and when chronic illnesses contributed to the outcome. And with all this, the number of deaths continues to fall, even as the reported number of cases is rising. Why is this?

In part, the lower fatality rate is real. Doctors are learning from experience how to treat the disease. More chloroquine and zinc, less intubation. Like all viruses, this one is evolving toward greater contagion and lower lethality. But the most important explanation is an artifact in the way COVID cases are being reported. Before May 18, the “case count” was based on tests for the live virus, and counted only sick people. Then the definition was changed to count both people who tested positive for the virus and for antibodies to the virus. The latter group is mostly people who have recovered from COVID, or who developed antibodies with exposure. As the number of recovered patients increases, of course the rate of positive tests will increase.

In the past, Neil Ferguson’s group at Imperial College of London has produced scary computer models that overestimated the epidemics of Hong Kong Flu, Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, and the 2003 SARS outbreak. In March, his group’s computer model was justification for England, Europe and America to shut down economies, prevent people talking and meeting, prohibit concerts and theater and church and every kind of public gathering, throw tens of millions of people out of work, deny the rights to freedom of assembly that are fundamental to democratic governance. His manuscript was not even peer reviewed, but only posted on a university server. Even before its details and assumptions were made known, the integrity of the model was assailed by other experts, including Stephen Eubank (UVA Biocomplexity Institute) and Yaneer Bar-Yam (New England Complex Systems Inst). After details of the assumptions were revealed at the end of April, the model was widely scorned by real experts (e.g. Andrew Gelman) and self-appointed pundits (Elon Musk).

I have enough experience with computer models to know that results are often highly leveraged with respect to details of the input. Sensitivity analysis is essential for interpreting results, but is almost never done. Too often, the output is reported without the qualification that small changes to the input produce very different results.

Against this background, the high-profile publication in Nature of Ferguson’s recent work is suspicious. I would have thought he had no credibility left among serious modelers of epidemiology, but I have ceased to be surprised when politics trumps competence for access to the most prestigious publication venues.

The Ferguson Article Vindicating Lockdown

They analyze spread of COVID in 11 Eurpoean countries this Spring, averaging over different countries but not contrasting the different local strategies. They take death counts as surrogate for case counts because reports of case counts are even more unreliable than death counts. But (one of several crucial failures) they don’t apply a time lag between death counts and case counts.

They take as input for each country the dates on which each of three different isolation strategies was implemented. They assume that the virus would have spread exponentially but for these measures, and credit the isolation measures with the entire difference between reported death rates and the theoretical exponential curve.

They conclude that Europe has dodged a bullet, that less than 4% of people had been infected, and by implication the lockdown has saved the other 96%. They imply but don’t state explicitly that there would have been about 4 million deaths in Europe instead of ~150,000 reported when the paper was written.

It is obvious that lockdown and social isolation slow the spread of the disease, but not obvious that they affect the eventual reach of the disease. Thus it is an open question whether the public policy prevented or only delayed deaths from COVID. This question can be addressed most directly by comparing regions that were locked down with regions that remained open. Instead of doing this, the Ferguson group lumped all regions together and compared their results with an unrealistic scenario in which the exponential curve would have expanded to infect every susceptible person in Europe.

Two schools of thought

There are fundamentally two hypotheses about the epidemiological events of this spring: Either the number of people exposed has been high and the fatality rate low, or else the number of people exposed has been low and the fatality rate higher. People in the first camp argue that the exposed population is over 50% in Europe and America, approaching or exceeding herd immunity, and the population death rate is in the range 0.0005. In the second camp, people estimate the population exposure about ten times lower (5%) and the fatality rate correspondingly higher (0.005).

The story told by people in the first camp is that social distancing slowed but did not prevent transmission of the disease through the population. By now, the presence of the virus is waning because people in many places have already been exposed.

The story of Ferguson and others in the second camp is that social distancing actually stopped spread of the virus, so that most people in Europe and American have never been exposed. It follows that if we ease restrictions, there is another wave of infections ahead, potentially 20 times larger than the first wave.

The deep flaw of the recent Ferguson paper is that his team does not consider the first scenario at all. Built into their model, they assume that population level immunity is negligible, and the only thing that has slowed spread of the virus has been social distancing. This is where they put the rabbit in the hat.

If they had considered the alternative hypothesis, how would it have compared?

To choose between the two hypotheses, we might compare a region before and after lockdown, or we might compare regions that locked down with regions that didn’t.

In a preprint response to Ferguson, Homburg and Kuhbandner do a good job with the first approach. They take Ferguson to task for not considering the immunity that spreads through the population along with the disease. They show that exponential expansion had already slowed in England before the effect of the lockdown on mortality data could have been felt.

Lockdown went into effect in Britain on March 23. If lockdown had a benefit, it would be in preventing new cases, and its effect on the death rate would show up about 23 days later (April 14), because 23 days is the median time to fatality for those patients who die of COVID. In the graph, we see that the death rate had already leveled off by April 14.

On this log graph, an exponential increase would appear as a straight line sloping upward. It’s clear that the exponential expansion phase ended long before the lockdown could have had any effect. Not only weren’t the numbers expanding exponentially, but the death rate had already started to decline before April 14, when the effect of lockdown was expected to kick in. The authors state they performed the same analysis for 10 other countries in the Ferguson study with similar results, though they show the graph for Great Britain alone.

“We demonstrate that the United Kingdom’s lockdown was both superfluous and ineffective.” — [Homburg and Kuhbandner]

Here in the US, there was a natural experiment when people emerged into the streets to protest racism and police brutality at the end of May. Social distancing in this environment has been impossible. Allowing for a 23-day lag, we should have seen a surge in US mortality starting mid-June. In the plot below, there appears to be a leveling off of the death rate since mid-June, but no new disaster. This alone is strong evidence that US has substantial herd immunity, and that most of the population has already been exposed to the virus.

A second way to distinguish between the two hypotheses is to compare regions that locked down with regions that didn’t. One of their 11 European countries was Sweden, where the economy was kept open and quarantine was limited to people who were symptomatic with COVID. It is a glaring defect in the Nature paper that Sweden is lumped in with the other ten countries when it should have been contrasted. In fact, the mortality curve for Sweden was typical for the other ten countries, even as commercial and cultural institutions in Sweden continued normal operations. Sweden has had a higher death rate than Austria, Germany, France, and Denmark, but lower than Belgium, Italy, Spain, or UK. There is no evidence that Sweden’s COVID mortality was higher for having bucked the trend to remain open, but some indication that Germany and Austria had particularly effective containment policies.

We can ask the same question of the different states in the USA. Comparing death rates from COVID in the 42 states that locked down with 8 states that did not lock down, this article finds that the death rates in locked down states was 4 times higher. (Caveat: there was no correction for urban vs rural or for demographic differences.) The author concludes, “With the evidence coming in that the lockdowns were neither economically nor medically effective, it is going to be increasingly difficult for lockdown partisans to marshal the evidence to convince the public that isolating people, destroying businesses, and destroying social institutions was worth it.”

I’ve prepared a comparison of all states ranked by COVID mortality which you can view here.

The Politics of COVID

In 1933, Roosevelt told America we had nothing to fear but fear itself. It is common for government leaders to dispel panic because they know that a nation can better thrive when people feel confident and secure. Even G.W. Bush responded to the terror attacks of 9/11 by telling the American people, “keep shopping.” On the other side, despots sow fear in their subjects when they want to consolidate autocratic power, and when they want to stir up fervor for war.

It is clear from messaging in the corporate media that the COVID pandemic is being hyped to create more fear than is warranted.

The fatality rate was vastly overestimated initially, and even now is probably overestimated at 0.002 to 0.005

Doctors were told to report deaths from COVID without proof that COVID was the cause

Reimbursement incentives for hospitals to diagnose COVID

Repeated warnings of a second wave, etc, which has not materialized.

Suppression of tests for well-studied, cheap treatments (chloroquine) while jumping into large-scale tests of vaccines that have not yet been tested on animals.

No mention of vitamin D, which is a simple, cheap, and effective way people can lower their risk. [ref, ref, ref]. Our own CDC is silent, while the British equivalent agency actively discourages vitamin D for COVID prevention.

The biggest scandal of all is that lockdown has been authorized in the US and elsewhere based on hypothetical safety benefits with no consideration of costs. Our health is affected by our communities, our cultural lives, our social lives, and our livelihoods. [Yale epidemiologist David Katz politely makes this point.]

Shamefully, the scientific community has been complicit in the campaign of fear. A handful of courageous doctors and epidemiologists have been outspoken. In addition to Katz, John Ioannidis and Knut Wittkowski are best known to me. But the most trusted journals continue to publish articles that are based on politics rather than sound science.

Who is benefiting from the international panic? Who is behind the media campaign and the distortion of science, and what is their intention?

I invite people who are more politically astute than I to speculate on these questions.

source https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2020/07/08/politics-influences-the-science-of-covid-19/

[operationrainfall]

Title Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia Developer Matrix Software, Matrix Corporation Publisher Happinet Release Date June 25th, 2020 Genre Grand Strategy RPG Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating T for Teen – Blood, Violence Official Website

I’m going to start this review of Brigandine The Legend of Runersia with an embarrassing admission – I thought this was merely a tactical RPG. I didn’t fully comprehend the differences between that genre of game and a grand strategy RPG. But now I get it. Whereas tactical RPGs generally take place on more limited fields where you muster your troops, grand strategy is more like a giant game of Risk. You’ll need constant awareness of your surroundings, and have to work tactically, invading enemy strongholds and increasing your strength. After playing the demo of Brigandine, I knew I liked the premise, but there’s a difference between a demo and a full review. Does this live up to my lofty expectations? Or do I still prefer tactical RPGs?

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Brigandine takes place in a world of magic and monsters. The source of all magic are pools of Mana, gifts from the Rune God. The most highly concentrated forms of Mana are special gems called Brigandine, worn in the past by heroic Rune Knights. These artifacts provide massive power to the holder, as well as allowing them to summon magical creatures. Though you don’t need a Brigandine to summon monsters and fight others, those that utilize them are so empowered that they’re revered as rulers of their respective nation. Each of the 6 nations (Norzaleo, Guimoule, Shinobi, Mana Saleesia, Mirelva and Gustava) have their own Brigandine, with the exception of one, and they all are trying to unify the land of Runersia for different reasons. Some want to spread justice, others demand freedom and some just want to exert authoritarian control. Regardless, when you start the game you pick one of the 6 nations, and then guide them as they work to defeat all that stands in their way. For the majority of the game, you’ll just be fighting the other nations in skirmishes and taking new land, but towards the end you’ll encounter some relatively big twists. Though I’m hesitant to reveal the nature of those events, I can say that the latter part of the game is focused intensely on the source of Mana and and the reasons each nation is waging war.

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The basic loop of the game is spread across several years of in-game time. You basically need to unify the continent in a set amount of years, otherwise you lose. Each year is split into 24 seasons, which are each further split into two phases – Organization and Attack. During the former, you summon monsters, arrange them into troops with Rune Knight commanders, send troops on quests to gain experience and equipment and move troops to different occupied bases. During the Attack Phase, you send troops to invade adjacent enemy bases, and hopefully secure new territory. While there is a meaty tutorial present to explain the basics, I found it doesn’t explain nearly everything it should. For example, I was not aware that each base only lets you summon specific monster types, that Revival Stones are used to resurrect slain monsters nor that wounded commanders need to rest for a season before you can use them again. To be fair, all this information is available, but only if you know where to look. Some of it is in the Guide, which covers Tutorial steps, but some are also found in Tips. While I’m glad the information isn’t hidden per se, some of is definitely should have been upgraded to the main Tutorial. It’s no exaggeration I was playing for several hours before I figured out some of this important information. And even then, I’m unclear on some things, such as which quests provide Revival Stones. In my 33 hour playthrough, I didn’t come across one Revival Stone, and thus had to just summon and charm new monsters to fill my depleted roster.

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Any game with tactical DNA lives or dies by the gameplay, and I’m happy to say I mostly loved the combat in Brigandine. Despite the high level of complexity in the game, gameplay is pretty streamlined. Whenever you attack an enemy base, you can use a maximum of three troops, and the enemy is limited to the same number of defenders. While that may initially sound disappointing, keep in mind each troop can have up to 6 monsters and 1 commander, so you can have up to 21 total units. To summon monsters, you’ll use Mana in the Organization Phase, but each base under your control grants you additional Mana each turn. You just need to make sure you have enough to summon them, and also make sure your commander has enough Mana to hold them. If not, you will have to rearrange your troops until your Mana cost is out of the red. Once battle starts, you pick 3 troops and place them on the field of battle. You’ll have 12 turns to defeat the opponent. However, you don’t always have to beat them outright. If you manage to weaken the foe by taking out a couple of their commanders, or even a majority of their monsters, they’ll often lose heart and retreat from battle, netting you a win. It’s far more satisfying to wipe them out entirely though, especially since if you defeat the commanders while they’re distant from their troop, you may capture their monsters for yourself. You can also use magic to charm monsters, for the same effect.

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Combat itself is pretty simple. You move each unit, select a target, and attack. In deference to the hexagonal grid, you can do some maneuvers to block enemy progress or encircle them to increase your odds of dealing damage. The one way Brigandine shows it is still an old school game at heart is how magic works. While spells and some skills require Mana, you cannot cast magic and move in the same turn. So positioning is incredibly important. You’ll need to draw the foe close enough to be in range for your magical attacks. As I said earlier, some powerful attack skills have the same restrictions, often ones that are guaranteed to hit or which do massive damage. At first I was frustrated by this system, but I grew to appreciate it. It just forces you to be more strategic in how you move your troops about, and I’m fine with that. It’s also just fun to attack with hordes of monsters. There’s a ton of different creatures you can bring into battle, from golems to mermaids to dragons and much more besides. Each type of monster has set abilities it can use, passive and active, and will learn more when you upgrade their class. Doing so just requires the monster being at a certain level or specific stat level. The same rules apply to your commanders, who also represent a wide variety of classes and skills, including archers, magicians and brawlers. The key difference is your commanders aren’t locked into specific classes, and can branch out and learn new abilities. Best of all, they can carry some over with a sufficient proficiency level, which is reached by just attacking with them a lot. That said, I didn’t really experiment much with dual classes and the like, since this is already a huge game. A single playthrough can take anywhere from 20 to 40 hours, and that’s just for one nation. When you factor in there’s 6 of them, as well as multiple endings, you’ll start to see how expansive of a game this is. As such, I decided to try and get through fast one time instead of dillydallying.

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  While I do like the variety of monsters in the game, there’s also more than a few that disappointed me. Take the mermaids, for example. They have some really powerful skills that are totally unusable unless they’re on a water tile. All units have a terrain preference, allowing them to move farther and hit harder while situated on it, and be less effective when on a different terrain. But it’s another thing entirely to lock out the best attacks unless they’re sitting on ideal terrain. Especially when you consider each map in the game is nearly identical, with a couple narrow bodies of water and tons more mountain, plain and forest tiles, making mermaids kinda useless. I also wasn’t a fan of the gremlins, which could only do basic buff spells until they change classes, and would easily get wiped out by a couple solid hits. Frankly, all the physical attacker monsters are pretty interchangeable, and the magical ones are only really worthwhile if they can heal. I grew to appreciate monsters that could attack and move afterwards, or which could damage large groups of foes. Otherwise I would either bench them or just release them into the wild to replenish my Mana. Oh and lest I forget, you can only have 100 total monsters summoned at a time. This isn’t an issue for the first few hours, but when you start conquering nations and their commanders join your forces, you’ll have a harder time spreading all your monsters around evenly. Especially since you inexplicably cannot move monsters in reserve between your bases, and instead have to ferry them around in troops.

More Brigandine on Page 2 ->

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Nitpicks aside, I did really enjoy the combat in Brigandine. It’s simple yet complex, and nuanced enough that I kept learning new tricks as I got farther. My biggest complaint with it is that it starts to feel kind of samey after a few hours. Despite using different groups of monsters, all battles have the same goals and the same flow. I almost wish the various nations were more distinct in the way they battle. And while their commanders will have unique tricks, such as how Gustava can resurrect monsters in the heat of battle, for the most part it all falls into a routine. Then again, I did like features such as how you could force the enemy to retreat by pressuring them enough, and how even your relative strength (expressed by the CP number) doesn’t determine whether you’re bound for failure or success. I especially liked how permadeath only technically exists for your monsters, not for your commanders. Ironically my first casualty for my Mirelva playthrough was a commander named Adieu, but he was fine after resting for a bit. That said, things do change up just when you are on the verge of unifying the continent, so don’t get too complacent.

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Another element of Brigandine that a lot of love was put into is the world building. The lore of this land is really compelling, and the many people that populate Runersia are full of entertaining quirks. Each nation has its own style, such as the haughty arrogance of Mana Saleesia or the determined optimism of Norzaleo. It was hard picking which nation I would play, but I eventually settled on Mirelva for one simple reason – it let me play as pirates! It was a close call, since I was also very tempted to play as the fierce Shinobi Tribe, but there’s no wrong choice. And honestly, it just provides a lot of incentive to replay the game as a different nation later. The Mirelvan pirates are generally full of life and love living it up with debauchery and mayhem. That said, there’s some variety to them as well. There’s the brilliant sorcerer Pluto and my personal favorite, the mechanical man Umimaru. Anytime there’s a top hat and cape wearing robot in the mix, I’m sold. But as much as I love the world building, the writing isn’t quite as enchanting. For the most part it’s well localized, but there’s more than a few typos and errors I encountered. And though I like the characters, the narration is often a bit too verbose and tends towards dryness at times. Maybe I was spoiled by series like Fire Emblem, but I’ve become accustomed to tons of in-depth character development. Here there is some growth, but most of it is focused on the larger narrative instead.

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The one area I absolutely adore Brigandine is the aesthetics. The artwork by lead artist Raita Kazama, of Xenoblade fame, is absolutely stunning and truly a treat for the eyes. Even when the writing isn’t on par, the artwork kept me motivated to keep on playing. The narrative scenes are especially a treat, since they often flow with life and aren’t just static art. All the nations of Brigandine are given wonderful visual definition, and each has distinct traits that set them apart. Take the gothic influence in the Holy Gustava Empire, or the swashbuckling, skin showing Mirelvan pirates. All the assorted commanders look fantastic, even if their character models generally use generic class based designs. And though I didn’t play the game solely for this detail, there’s lots of beautiful women and handsome men in the game. The audio is a stirring and epic refrain, and it works quite well. My biggest issue with it was that I wanted the different nations to have distinct audio themes, just to liven things up. That said, the sound effects and voice acting are top notch. I love the roar of monsters and the loud clash of arms, and the Japanese voice actors all bring life to their characters. Aesthetically speaking, Brigandine is a treat, especially since it’s a Switch exclusive.

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Now, I mostly have positive impressions of Brigandine, but there’s still some areas it fell short of my expectations. One I mentioned earlier is the tutorial’s lack of clarity on some details. While it’s great knowing the basics, this is the sort of deep game that almost requires full understanding of the mechanics. I was never told that using the Y button would bring up an information overlay, showing my total units and which bases produce which monsters, for example. And some things just aren’t as intuitive as they should be. In the Attack Phase, you’d think selecting an attack target would initiate combat, but instead you have to select End Phase, and then combat will commence. And though the quest feature is a helpful way to level up new units, it’s also very time consuming, and you never know when an enemy nation will try and invade your base. I also wish you could selectively recruit new commanders, but they just automatically join you at certain story points. Oh and on the topic of the writing errors, that also translates to some attack descriptions. There’s one spell called Geno-Frost, and it clearly indicates it only hits one enemy. Yet when used, it’s actually an AOE spell, which was a shock. Lastly, while this isn’t exactly a complaint, I was surprised that I couldn’t change Stella’s class, the ruler of Mirelva and my main character, until about 24 hours into my game. After she has a breakthrough about what her Brigandine of Ego means, she effectively changes class, and gets some whopping powerful skills in the bargain. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long for her revelation.

Overall I still had a blast with Brigandine The Legend of Runersia. Though I had no previous familiarity with the original game, this long delayed sequel was a lot of fun. And even if it’s a little expensive at $49.99, you’ll more than get your money’s worth, with upwards of 240 hours of main campaign, as well as a challenge mode. While I do wish some things were more clear and that other things were more varied, I still think this is a must own game for any Switch owner. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t order the sweet physical edition from Limited Run Games while I had a chance. But if you’re a fan of tactical styled games and are eager for something meaty, Brigandine is the way to go.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Brigandine The Legend of Runersia Title Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia

[muscledemandsrespect]

WELLNESS ESCAPE TO THE WESTIN MALDIVES MIRIANDHOO

I recently returned from 9 days in planet Earth’s most rapturous dreamland – the Maldives. I’ve been fortunate to visit this heaven on prior occasions, and I am struck by how its luminous beauty never dulls; on this trip, I visited the wonderful Westin Maldives Mirandhoo, a jewel in the crown of the Westin  Hotels and Resorts group. I’ve worked with Westin for many years as their Wellbeing Movement ambassador and I’ve experienced several of their properties around the world; as such, I know the wellness ethos that pervades every detail of this hotel group well, and it’s one that I feel passionately about infusing into every trip I take. Whilst I was hosted at the Westin Maldives Miriandhoo (henceforth WMM), I experienced the purest expression of their Wellbeing philosophy, free from the restrictions and confines imposed by a bustling cityscape, and instead, able to indulge in the secluded tranquillity of island life. Picture-perfect postcard-style, powdery-soft sandy beaches, mesmeric sunsets, the freshest seafood and perfect temperatures, all render it an unsurprising top honeymoon destination; for me, after only a few days, I recovered the hitherto lost sensation of feeling recharged, relaxed and renewed. Thereafter, the ensuing week of pure revival left me ready to take on 2020 with gusto! Click MORE to see and read about my experience of this nirvana…

For your ease of consumption, this review will be laid out in alignment with the 6 key pillars of the Westin Wellbeing Movement, so as follows; 1) Feel Well, 2) Move Well, 3) Eat Well, 4) Sleep Wel­­­­­­l 5) Play Well and 6) Work Well.

1) THE SPA COMPLEX – ‘FEEL WELL’

Part of any wellness escape necessarily includes the opportunity to check-in with one’s own physical and mental wellbeing, and to focus on nourishing self-recovery. I maintain that there is no better way to do this than to dedicate an hour or two to literally doing nothing. Switching off fully, detaching the consciousness from worldly concerns, and letting the body and mind relax is something I can only really achieve at a tranquil spa, and this heavenly facility excels at exactly that.

As you wander over the bridge you uncover ‘The Heavenly Spa’ elegantly perched on the apex of the island, surveying the vast turquoise expanse beyond. A dramatic yet soothing view awaits you inside, and the placid silence is only punctuated by the sounds of the waves meeting the coral reef outside.

There are countless treatments on offer. If you get a massage you could, of course, close your eyes and fall asleep or keep them open to watch the fish swim below through the glass floor. Personally, as a trained sports masseuse, my preference is always a deeper massage to really iron out any knots and muscular imbalances.

  The Feel Well credentials extend beyond the spa, and pervade the entire island, and are fed by the ensuing 4 pillars.

2) THE FITNESS CENTER – ‘MOVE WELL’

Upon check-in, you’re offered a running session with the in-house trainer as part of Westin’s ‘Run Concierge’ concept. Bright and early on the first morning, we circumnavigated the c.2km island a number of times whilst the Maldivian sunrise bathed the island in crepuscular radiance. The run, at this early stage of the trip, is a great way to see the island, establish your grasp of the spatial geography and learn the layout, as well as burn some calories early to set up a full and fresh day ahead.

Fitness apparel from the beautiful Silou London (https://siloulondon.com/)

No training kit with you? Not a problem, as WMM will lend you a fresh set of workout clothes so nothing can stand in your way. One thing I especially like about Westin properties is that they engage in this ‘Gear Lending’ program so that every guest can hire fresh New Balance branded kit, including fresh sneakers, for no more than 5 USD, and in some properties (including this one), at no cost at all. This means you can pack light, and fitness activities are accessible to all guests, even if it wasn’t a core reason for which you booked the holiday.

The gym complex itself is absolutely gorgeous, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the beach and ocean outside, raised a level up. That’s rare in the Maldives, as most buildings are at sea level, but this glistening panopticon gives you a glorious perspective of the ocean and broader island. Kit-wise, you’ll find an ample array including TRX, kettlebells, treadmills, rowers, ellipticals, cable machines, dumbbells and much more as well as an in-house trainer to guide you should you need some help or motivation. This was a very easy gym in which to have a workout, meaning there was one fewer reason not to get involved.

I started the second morning with the glorious sunrise yoga session. It was just what my body needed. After ten long hours of sitting on a plane, my body was so tight, and even a gentle yoga session was a struggle, but I enjoyed so much relief afterwards. This is part of my compulsory routine (where possible) anytime I travel and is a given at this Westin too.

3) THE RESTAURANTS – ‘EAT WELL’

The Westin group has a nutritionist-led partnership with SuperFoodsRx and has created a nutritionally balanced, super healthy menu for all their hotels, complemented by a suite of revitalising juices curated by The Juicery. At WMM, the Executive Chef has overlaid this template with local Maldivian flavours, to reflect what can be locally sourced, and what makes up the mainstay of the local style; I had the pleasure of a cookery class to make a Maldivian Tuna Curry dish to sample this style and was enamoured with it (recipe to follow shortly!). This made it very easy to order from the regular menu throughout the whole stay without having to ask the chef to alter any dishes to make it healthier. There are 5 key ports of call to cover off when it comes to food;

ISLAND KITCHEN

This was my preferred restaurant on the island. It’s set within a vast, bright and airy space overlooking the hotel’s infinity pool and ocean beyond, with cavernous triple-height ceilings, and a satisfying aspect. It gives you the option to sit indoors or out, without feeling as though you’re having to make a choice between either. On the menu, you’ll find the ‘Eat well’ options which consist of fresh ‘catch of the day’ (often the likes of Maldivian yellowfin tuna/barramundi/reef fish), as well as superfood salads and filling soups to name but a few. There is a wide choice here, which helps to keep things interesting throughout the holiday, meaning you don’t suffer the ‘menu fatigue’ often experienced on captive island settings.

HAWKER

This is a smaller, more intimate beach restaurant where you can watch the chefs create each dish in the ‘live kitchen’. There’s something impossibly relaxing about sitting barefoot with your feet basking in the powdery sand whilst tucking into your locally-sourced fresh fish dish. Flavours are spicier than Island Kitchen, with more shellfish on offer here.

THE PEARL

I was lucky enough to be at the WMM on the same day as a vast yellowfin tuna had been caught and was being prepared to be part-eaten, and part-frozen given the hulking size of the thing! Without doubt, it was the freshest, most delicious tuna I’ve ever had, with just a lick of soy sauce to render it a savoury masterpiece.

The Pearl itself is the centrepiece restaurant on the island and allows you to enjoy your meal either outside on the open-air deck, or inside. It’s a tribute to the great Japanese restaurants of London but with the characteristic fresh ingredients of the local fishermen.

SUNSET BAR

This generous veranda projecting out over the reception, one level up, is part of the play space, where you can shoot some pool, enjoy board games or just hang out. It’s a lovely place to mingle with other guests should you prefer to socialise – or simply grab a drink and watch the explosions of colours over the Indian Ocean. It also doubles as a cosy night-time rain shelter for when an evening monsoonal interlude decides to unfold at full-pelt!

THE BREAKFAST BUFFET

This is the mainstay of an indulgent hotel experience; there’s a vast array of choices here catering for a suite of cuisines – Chinese, Japanese, French and many more. My preferred choice is a classic omelette and one of the freshly squeezed juices on offer, as well as some of the exotic local fruit, but that covers around 2% of the available offering! The breakfast venue is physically based in the wonderful space of the Island Kitchen, so there’s a fresh feel blowing through the whole breakfast experience.

4) THE ROOMS – ‘SLEEP WELL’

The beach villas (my chosen form of accommodation, as I quite like solid ground underfoot!) are spacious, minimally appointed in a fashion which promotes cognitive ease, and are all sea-facing. They each have their own little private slice of beach and of course, their own private pool. Depending on the orientation of your villa, you’ll either enjoy stunning sunrise to wake you in the morning or a sunset masterpiece to send you to sleep.

For any regular readers of FitnessOnToast, you might think I’m slightly obsessed with sleep… That would be accurate. And why not?! We spend a full 1/3 of our lives sleeping so it’s important to nail it. Sleep helps enhance muscle recovery, restores & maintains mental alertness, dissipates neurotoxin build-up which accumulates during wakefulness, releases Human Growth Hormone so you can recovery among many other things, so it’s worth investing in. After a few fairly stressful months in London, I hadn’t realised how stressed and tired I was until I arrived in the Maldives. After a few nights of tranquil sleep in the Westin Heavenly Bed (a global standard at these hotels, and essentially a vast chasm of mattress, perfectly supported and enrobed in blissful 250-thread-count sateen sheets), I felt human once more. The addition of a special sleep-well menu which promotes rest is a lovely touch.

5) THE ACTIVITIES – ‘PLAY WELL’

There is a popular misconception that an island escape is synonymous with ‘activity poverty’; quite the opposite. There are countless activities to be ticked off here, many of which hail from the well-equipped Dive Center on the island! I’ll list just a few of note…

Snorkelling – the Mirandhoo reefs offer some exceptional viewing – you’ll find clown triggerfish, powder-blue surgeonfish, I spotted manta rays and countless other species. You can snorkel just off your private beach any time, and there are island villa reef tours or excursions to reefs nearby organised through the hotel.

Dolphin watching – as you can imagine there’s no guarantee that you’ll spot a dolphin since this is after all their home ad they could be anywhere in the Indian Ocean. But the staff know their whereabouts surprisingly well, so sightings are common. The dolphins will swim very close to the boats whilst driving, such that you’re almost a bit scared they might hit the hull – but it’s perfectly safe!

Tennis – there’s a large tennis court which you can book at any time for a game. It also doubles as a football pitch in case you want to get involved in any of the staff matches!

Cookery classes – The island is staffed by locals, which means that there is a wealth of culinary knowledge indigenous to this part of the world. That is an exceptional opportunity to get under the skin of the Maldivian fare so that you return home not only with a sense of restfulness but also with an additional string to your gourmet bow!

6) WORK WELL

Amidst such isolation, one might not expect such a fully equipped business center with super-fast wifi, a comfy ergonomic chair and all the chargers you’ll need, but there are in fact several of these hidden around the island. They host corporate escapes and offsites and have a number of conference rooms with presentation facilities. Whilst this wasn’t relevant for my holiday, I appreciated the subtle presence of the facility. I did make regular use of the super-fast wifi though, for all manners of Instagramming, as well as Netflix streaming on a couple of slightly guilty occasions!

CONCLUSION

My 9 days here were transformative. I sampled almost everything there was to experience and drank deeply from the restorative elixir which flows from such beautiful island life. If you’re already familiar with the Westin proposition, this will be your nirvana. If you’ve never sampled it before, this is the ideal place to induct yourself. Their formula contains key threads which run through all of their properties, so I always have the sense of returning to something comfortingly familiar, yet different enough each time so as not to feel like a bereft carbon copy. Whether or not you’re new to this, there is the certainty that the exquisite weather (even the rainstorms blow over within 30 minutes), cuisine, facilities and vistas will leave a permanent impression on your holiday history. Whilst it was not my first visit to the Maldives, it was no less special and left me with a valued sense of calm and peace which has guided me through the start of 2020.

These gorgeous glasses with gold chain from NeonHope (https://www.neonhope.com/)

The post WELLNESS ESCAPE TO THE WESTIN MALDIVES MIRIANDHOO appeared first on Fitness on Toast.

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[biofunmy]

It’s Called ‘Plant-Based,’ Look It Up

The terms “vegan” and “plant-based” are often used interchangeably, but there’s a growing effort to define just what it means to follow a plant-based lifestyle.

According to Brian Wendel, the founder of the “plant-based living” website Forks Over Knives, going plant-based is “for people who are very enthusiastic about the health angle” of eating mainly whole plant foods.

Reynolde Jordan, who runs a food blog called Plant-Based Vibe in Memphis, said it’s also a way to distance oneself from the rigid ideology of veganism, which calls for abstaining from animal products of all kinds.

“When you classify yourself as vegan, you’re now being watched,” said Mr. Jordan, who posts vegan recipes for dishes such as Cajun seaweed gumbo and raw beet balls along with photos of the vegetarian meals he orders on trips. “In my DMs, I’d get all these messages from activists for protests. I’m just not that guy — I did this for the purpose of eating better.”

Mr. Jordan is one of a growing number of health-conscious consumers embracing a plant-based lifestyle. Unlike many vegans who adhere to a philosophy of animal rights, those going plant-based tend to be inspired by research showing the health benefits of a diet made up of largely fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, grains and nuts. Free from specific ethical constraints, plant-based eaters often have no qualms buying or wearing items made with or tested on animals.

Awareness of the term is growing. And though just 6 percent of Americans eat vegetarian, according to Nielsen, almost 40 percent now make an effort to eat more plant-based foods.

Plant-Based Eating Enters the Mainstream

In 2015, Beyoncé wrote in an email to The New York Times: “First it’s important that you know I am not a vegan.” However she and Jay-Z co-own a food company with Marco Borges, their personal trainer, called 22 Days Nutrition, which promotes what is essentially a vegan diet.

But as Mr. Borges later explained to The Times, Beyoncé eats a “plant-based breakfast daily” and consumes no meat on Mondays. Jay-Z, meanwhile, eats “2 plant-based meals a day,” he wrote in an email.

The number of food and drink products made in the United States that use “plant-based” in their labeling spiked 287 percent between 2012 and 2018, according to the consumer research firm Mintel.

Plant-based items such as jerky, ice cream and protein bars are becoming increasingly common on supermarket shelves. Fast-food chains including Dunkin’ Donuts and Burger King have even started offering plant-based menu options such as the Impossible Whopper.

Some restaurants, such as Café Gratitude, a small chain in Southern California, have even rebranded themselves as entirely plant-based after originally characterizing their menus as vegan. In 2016, after a website dug up a year-old blog post by the restaurant’s owners revealing they had begun raising and slaughtering animals on their family farm, many vegans boycotted and picketed the chain while its founders reportedly received death threats.

In the wake of the controversy, the restaurant made a “conscious choice” to rebrand as entirely plant-based, according to its head chef, Dreux Ellis.

But with the abundance of plant-based choices now available, customers are increasingly looking for options they know reflect vegan values, Mr. Ellis said. In response, Café Gratitude employees have again begun describing the restaurant as vegan, and there have been discussions about restoring the term in its branding.

“We feel like there’s nothing to be lost by trying to regain that confidence in the vegan community,” Mr. Ellis said. “It’s us reclaiming what is rightfully ours.”

The implications of a plant-based diet

Thomas Colin Campbell, the Cornell University biochemist who claims responsibility for coining the term plant-based, said he came up with the phrase to help present his research on diet to skeptical colleagues at the National Institutes of Health in 1980.

“I wanted to emphasize that my work and ideas were coming totally from science and not any sort of ethical or philosophical consideration,” he said.

Mr. Campbell now advocates a “whole food plant-based diet,” which he termed to draw a distinction between more nutritious whole plants and processed food products such as veggie burgers. He said he’s noticed the term catch on since the release of the 2016 edition of his book “The China Study,” which summarized his findings from a survey of 6,500 Chinese people on their eating and other lifestyle habits. The study’s results suggested that following a plant-based diet may help reduce the risk of certain cancers and diseases.

But not everyone thinks eating only plants is always healthy. “Anytime you’re restricting a whole food group or number of food groups, it’s a red flag for a possible disordered eating mentality,” said Vandana Sheth, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “That’s not always the case, but it’s important to figure out how to get all the nutrients you need to prevent chronic conditions within your diet choice.”

“The Game Changers,” a documentary released on Netflix in 2019 about plant-based diets and athletic performance, has both broadened the appeal of plant-based diets and drawn criticism for some of its health claims.

According to Joseph Pace, a producer and writer on the film, the vegan and vegetarian movements carry connotations of New Agey-types or PETA activists, which don’t always resonate with male viewers.

“Using ‘plant-based’ allows people to feel they’re not joining a specific group for eating a specific way,” he said.

Mr. Campbell sees the plant-based concept as a way to educate people on the environmental consequences of eating meat. A recent report from the World Resources Institute pointed to raising livestock as a significant source of carbon emissions and recommended reducing meat consumption as a way to combat climate change and stem deforestation.

“The environmental issue is a big one, and this plant-based phraseology works well when you think about it in a broader context,” he said.

The trouble with labels

Yovana Mendoza Ayres, the vlogger formerly known as Rawvana, was a star of the expansive world of vegan YouTube — until she was caught eating fish in another YouTuber’s video earlier this year.

The backlash was swift. “Fishgate,” as the ensuing controversy was dubbed, triggered a deluge of outraged comments and videos chastising the 30-year-old influencer for misleading her followers.

Some disgruntled fans flooded her social media pages with taunting fish emojis and GIFs. Others made death threats, which Ms. Ayers said she continues to receive.

“Just like how the vegan community welcomed me, when this came out, I became their enemy,” she said.

In an apology video titled “THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING,” Ms. Ayers said she began eating meat after experiencing a variety of health problems including a gastrointestinal disorder and the loss of her period, which occurred after completing a 25-day water cleanse during which she consumed nothing but water. In an interview, she added that she had planned to tell her followers about giving up her raw vegan diet but “didn’t want other people’s opinions to affect my transition.”

In the months since her public apology, a half-dozen popular influencers have roiled the vegan internet by renouncing veganism after claiming to have experienced health complications caused by their diet. Ms. Ayers, who now goes by her first name online, said that as she and other vloggers have left veganism behind, she’s noticed more discussion about what it means to be vegan as opposed to eating a plant-based diet.

“A lot of us used the word ‘vegan’ because that was a way of communicating that we ate only plants,” she said. “Maybe after seeing us, people are learning not to put labels on themselves or on their diet,” she added.

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

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[coin-news-blog]

Crypto 2020: How Adoption Will Look Next Year and Beyond

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/markets/crypto-2020-how-adoption-will-look-next-year-and-beyond

Crypto 2020: How Adoption Will Look Next Year and Beyond

According to Kaspersky‘s Cryptocurrency Report 2019, 19% of surveyed people (in 22 developed economies) have bought at least one kind of cryptoc urrency or another, and while this is an encouraging percentage for such an immature sector, it’s clear that crypto still has a long way to go if it wants to become ubiquitous.

However, help is at hand, for 2020 looks set to bring a range of developments that will help drive further adoption of cryptocurrencies as well as blockchain-based platforms and services. From decentralized finance to central bank digital currencies and even economic recessions, these will combine to make crypto seem more attractive to organizations and individuals alike.

2019: predictions and reality

First things first: just how accurate were Crypotnews.com’s predictions regarding adoption trends in 2019? Well, this varies from sector to sector.

One prediction was that banks and financial institutions would become increasingly interested in blockchain-based solutions, particularly for cross-border payments. This was borne out by the adoption or trialling of blockchain-based cross-border payments systems by, among others, HSBC, Wells Fargo, Standard Chartered, Mastercard, 60 banks in Latin America, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, the Bank of Thailand, the National Bank of Cambodia, and by Deutsche Bank and other banks joining JPMorgan‘s Interbank Information Network.

Another prediction was that security tokens would rise in prominence. This has been proven true to some extent, insofar as there have been more security token offerings (STOs) in 2019 than there were in 2018, with the total for the first half of the year (55) outnumbering the total for all of its predecessor (35).

Lastly, one other big prediction was that many of the big initial coin offerings (ICOs) of 2018 (and 2017) would actually begin launching their products in 2019, something which would usher in greater adoption. Once again, this has only been partly true: the mainnets of Filecoin and Hdac (two of the five biggest ICOs of 2017) are still waiting to be launched next year, while Sirin Labs (another of the 2017 big five) ended up axing 25% of its staff after disappointing sales of its Finney smartphone.

2020: halving, DeFi, payments and gaming

So what is likely to be big, or at least get bigger, in 2020? Well, perhaps the biggest milestone on the horizon is the Bitcoin mining reward halving due to take place in May, something which experts believe will increase demand for the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin analyst Simon Dingle tells Cryptonews.com, "This will further restrict supply, and I expect demand for Bitcoin to continue increasing throughout the year."

One other potential winner is decentralized finance (DeFi). This sub-sector has already witnessed some gains in 2019, but crypto analyst Lou Kerner thinks one particular event taking place towards the end of November will set it up for a very good 2020.

"I think Multi-Collateral Dai, coming out November 18th, will be a major milestone in DeFi," he tells Cryptonews.com. "New features include the Dai Savings Rate (DSR), which establishes an entirely new dimension for innovative Maker protocol integrations on the backend of DeFi dapps (decentralized apps)."

Blockchain-based payment networks and platforms are also likely to see more use, with other companies likely to follow Facebook‘s lead in announcing their own versions of Libra, which itself is scheduled to be launched next year (conditions permitting).

"We believe that there will be substantial growth in payment related blockchain projects and payment-oriented cryptocurrencies in 2020," says Filipe Castro, the CIO at crypto payments service Utrust.

"This expected growth is due to multiple factors including the expansion and diversification of stablecoin models, new private and government-led central bank digital currency initiatives (Libra, e-Yuan) and sheer market size."

(Learn more: Payments is the Main Battleground for Banks Amid Bitcoin Rise)

Charles Phan of crypto exchange Interdax believes that two slightly less hyped up areas will grow in 2020. "Gaming is another area of crypto that is gaining traction," he tells Cryptonews.com.

"With the roll-out of the Lightning Network we have seen Lightnite, a Fortnite-inspired game where players can earn a small amount of bitcoins. Recently, the venture arm of Blockchain (one of the biggest cryptocurrency companies in the world) invested in the blockchain game technology firm Enjin which shows that they think the crypto-gaming play is likely to be profitable."

Phan also thinks that cryptocurrencies belonging to exchanges, such as Binance Coin and Huobi Token, will grow. "Exchange tokens are likely to continue to display strength in 2020 as more traders enter the crypto ecosystem and exchanges continue to innovate," he adds. "These tokens incentivise traders to provide liquidity to the platform and reward them with lower trading fees."

Beyond 2020: central coins and global recession fueled adoption

Looking further into the future, one more element of the crypto ecosystem is likely to enjoy wider adoption over the next decade.

"Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will gain traction as an idea and we may even see one launch, with China and Switzerland the most likely to take the lead in this regard," predicts Vaibhav Kadikar, the founder and CEO of decentralized prediction market platform CloseCross.

But as Charles Phan explains, this will take more than one year, due to the cumbersome and cautious nature of central banks and governments.

"We are looking at a timescale of five years according to IBM and the Official Monetary Institutions Forum, while ING’s chief economist predicted that we’ll see a CBDC from a G20 country in the next 2-3 years," he says.

And more generally, coming years could speed up cryptocurrency ownership, particularly if regional and/or global recessions occur.

"I don’t know when, but eventually we will have to pay the price for central banks printing money on overdrive, while debt has escalated to unimaginable levels," says Simon Dingle. "A massive global recession is on the cards, and when it arrives we should see a whole new appreciation for deflationary and decentralized cryptocurrency."

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Learn more: What a Possible Global Recession Could Mean for Crypto 50+ Positive Catalysts on Bitcoin’s Horizon by Murad Mahmudov 6 Crypto Experts on What Would Encourage People to Use Bitcoin

Source: cryptonews.com

[isaiahrippinus]

Exploring the Emerging, Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire

From cracking into a lobster tail on a craggy coastline to the Freedom Trail, New England has long been a draw for tourists. The six-state region also has a world-class beer scene, bolstered by such iconic breweries as Massachusetts’s Tree House and Hill Farmstead in Vermont, and an eponymous IPA.

For some time, the bulk of its craft beer heritage has been in three states: Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Now, however, a New Hampshire beer scene is emerging.

“[New Hampshire] used to be like a halfway stopping point for people going to drink in Maine,” laughs Scott Thornton of Great Rhythm Brewing Co. in Portsmouth, N.H., whose brewery pumps out some of the area’s best hop-forward beers and a killer kolsch. “Or stopping on their way back.”

“N.H. has as good tasting beer as any one of our neighboring states,” says Paul St. Onge of Manchester’s Backyard Brewing. “But if you’re talking about notoriety, that’s an entirely different subject.”

Credit: Greatrhythmbrewing.com

Thornton and St. Onge believe this change is happening because many breweries have started embracing their communities, focusing on creating welcoming spaces and excellent beer instead of packaging and exports. Much of this is a result of new legislation supporting small-scale breweries and on- and off-premise sales.

“The N.H. beer scene has been here a while,” says Thornton. “It just hasn’t seen the growth or development that we’ve been seeing over the last few years.”

Indeed, the beer scene in New Hampshire spans centuries. The first European settlers arrived in Portsmouth (or, as it was first called, Strawbery Banke) in the 17th century and built taverns, most of which served their own creations. Frank Jones Brewing Company eventually came to dominate the region and brewed over 250,000 barrels at its peak.

The state was also home to the first line-around-the-block beer release, in 2008. Kate the Great, a Russian imperial stout brewed by Portsmouth Brewery, was once regarded by Beer Advocate magazine as the finest beer in the country (and No. 2 in the world), and its limited production run and release on “Kate Day” had patrons camped outside brewery doors.

In 2014, New Hampshire legislators introduced 178:12a, which is helping contemporary New Hampshire brewers embrace their brewing roots.

“[New Hampshire beer legislation] hasn’t always been the friendliest,” says Thornton. “In the past few years, we’ve seen favorable legislation to favor nanobreweries or nano-plus or beverage manufacturers.”

Put simply, the new legislation allows for a few major changes. Licenses for smaller operations, such as nanobreweries, are less expensive, so more aspiring brewers can enter the industry professionally. Additionally, breweries like Portsmouth’s Great Rhythm, which were once legally restricted to free, on-site samples, are now allowed to sell samples and offer pints, but also sell packaged beer to go.

“That’s a huge piece to it,” says Thornton. “Having more favorable license types really overcame a huge barrier to get into the industry.”

The new legislation encourages small and aspiring brewers to get in the game, and means that iconic mainstays like Smuttynose and Red Hook — and industry giant Budweiser, which has a plant in Merrimack — are no longer the only players.

“N.H. had a reputation — probably deserved — as having subpar beer,” says St. Onge, whose Backyard Brewing tap list is expansive. There’s an IPA that St. Onge considers the brewery’s flagship, but the team has built a menu that includes a Belgian-style dubbel, a Dortmunder lager, a witbier, and a wild ale.

“Now with more competition and more breweries popping up, I feel like that’s no longer the case,” he says.

One of the state’s most sought-after breweries is Kettlehead Brewing in Tilton, in the heart of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region.

“As soon as we opened, it just exploded,” says owner-brewer Sam Morrissette, whose outfit will be celebrating its second anniversary in November. “People were excited to have something to do. As soon as it hit, it was way more than expected.”

Kettlehead offers a full menu of mostly farm-to-table food, which means the group could register as a restaurant, which Morrissette says “really helped.”

That, plus a little press and good word of mouth, encouraged beer fans to head to the Lakes Region for Kettlehead’s flagship IPA, The Agent, and its opaque, juicy, and refreshingly bitter double IPA, Quest, a four-hop blend of Mosaic, Simcoe, El Dorado, and Columbus.

Morissette hopes Kettlehead will help develop beer tourism in the Lakes region. “We’re not that far from [the state capital] Concord,” he says. “We’ve got people coming up from Massachusetts, but our goal really is to have good beer, good food, and a good atmosphere for our community.”

Thornton agrees. “We want to be deeply rooted in our communities,” he says. “But we also want to help build a brand for New Hampshire to make this an attractive beer destination.”

Credit: Backyardbrewerynh.com

“More than ever, people are kind of embracing their own communities,” says St. Onge. “Not just with beer but with consumer products and farmers’ markets. That’s what we sought out to do. We wanted to be that community, public house, taproom that people can just kind of sit at the bar and shoot the shit.”

Smuttynose, a New Hampshire beer landmark since 1994, is similarly inspired by this local movement, despite being widely distributed. Following struggles that culminated in a 2018 sale at foreclosure auction, the company rebranded its flagship beers and introduced an array of beer styles targeting a new generation of consumers, from hazy IPAs to low-ABV offerings like sub-5 percent sours.

On the new labels, the marketing team “really doubled down on N.H,” says Alex Weaver, communications director at Smuttynose Brewing. Finestkind IPA, for instance, shows a recumbent tuber on Echo Lake and Robust Porter illustrates Carleton Bridge, one of New Hampshire’s iconic covered bridges.

“N.H. is definitely seeing the proliferation of the small, neighborhood taproom model,” Weaver says. “That [community brewery] model has caught on. People are now so much more aware of what a brewery is. And these places move in and become part of the community.”

What’s next for New Hampshire’s next-wave breweries? Kettlehead and Backyard are focusing on their communities and hope to increase the volume of their to-go options. Morrissette is aiming for a few more keg sales around the state, and St. Onge is encouraged by widening demographics in the industry.

“We want to have a community where people feel safe to explore craft beer,” he says. “We had a very loyal customer base of people in their 50s and 60s [at the restaurant] and then we opened up the brewery and we had people in their 20s flocking in. Now we have both because both sides are so open to trying new things.”

All share the same goal: to make excellent beer in New Hampshire and put their state on beer travelers’ maps.

“This is our state and we have a lot of pride in that,” Thornton says. “N.H. has this potential to build this awesome brand around itself.”

Credit: Portsmouthbrewery.com

Five Breweries to Visit in New Hampshire

Despite its relatively small size, New Hampshire has a set of distinct regions spanning mountain ranges, lakes, seacoast, and the wilderness near Canada. Here are five beer destinations wherever you find yourself in the Granite State.

Kettlehead Brewing

Regardless of season, the Lakes Region is stunning to visit. End your day of hiking or skiing with any of the hop-forward options at Kettlehead in Tilton.

Coos Brewing Co.

Located in the heart of the Great North Woods, closer to the Canadian border than the capitol building, Coos serves a delicious variety of beers, including Snowbound Stout, a rich and subtle dark beer with cinnamon, or any of the Puckerbrush Berlinerweiss series.

Backyard Brewing

Situated on a busy road behind the Manchester Airport, Backyard Brewing crushes everything from lagers to witbiers.

Great Rhythm Brewing

Along the seacoast lies New Hampshire’s richest history. Grab a seat at a picnic table outside overlooking the water and enjoy a Squeeze IPA or its big brother Double Squeeze.

Flying Goose Brewpub

The Flying Goose is a New London brewpub that was just named one of the top five breweries in the state. Try the Forever Locked Lager, a Vienna lager, whose proceeds go toward a New Hampshire Fish & Game scholarship.

The article Exploring the Emerging, Community-Oriented Craft Beer Scene in New Hampshire appeared first on VinePair.

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