#paramount plus die challenge

[howtobreakvpn]

can i use a vpn with nfl plus

🔒🌍✨ Get 3 Months FREE VPN - Secure & Private Internet Access Worldwide! Click Here ✨🌍🔒

can i use a vpn with nfl plus

VPN compatibility with NFL Plus

Title: Ensuring VPN Compatibility with NFL Plus: A Guide for Football Fans

For football enthusiasts eager to catch every touchdown, interception, and highlight reel moment on NFL Plus, ensuring VPN compatibility is essential. NFL Plus offers an extensive array of games, analysis, and exclusive content for subscribers, making it a go-to platform for die-hard fans. However, geographic restrictions and blackout policies can sometimes hinder access, prompting the need for a reliable VPN solution.

VPN, or Virtual Private Network, serves as a powerful tool for bypassing geo-blocks and accessing content from anywhere in the world. When choosing a VPN provider for NFL Plus, compatibility is paramount. Not all VPNs are created equal, and selecting one that works seamlessly with NFL Plus is crucial for uninterrupted streaming.

First and foremost, look for VPNs with a robust server network strategically located across various regions. This ensures access to NFL Plus content regardless of your physical location. Additionally, opt for VPNs with high-speed connections to enjoy smooth, buffer-free streaming of live games and on-demand content.

Security is another critical consideration when selecting a VPN for NFL Plus. Look for providers offering advanced encryption protocols and a strict no-logs policy to safeguard your privacy and data while streaming football action.

Furthermore, compatibility with multiple devices is key for a seamless viewing experience. Whether you prefer watching on your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or smart TV, ensure your chosen VPN supports all your devices.

In conclusion, for football aficionados looking to enjoy NFL Plus content without restrictions, choosing a VPN with strong compatibility is essential. By selecting a VPN with a vast server network, top-notch security features, and support for multiple devices, fans can elevate their viewing experience and never miss a moment of the gridiron action.

VPN usage for NFL Plus streaming

Title: Enhance Your NFL Plus Streaming Experience with VPN

In the world of sports streaming, accessing NFL Plus content can sometimes be a challenge due to geographical restrictions. However, with the right tool, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN), you can unlock a world of possibilities and enhance your NFL Plus streaming experience.

A VPN works by encrypting your internet connection and routing it through a server in a different location, thereby masking your true IP address. This allows you to bypass geo-blocks and access NFL Plus content from anywhere in the world.

One of the primary benefits of using a VPN for NFL Plus streaming is gaining access to games and exclusive content that may not be available in your region. Whether you're traveling abroad or living in an area where NFL Plus is not readily accessible, a VPN can bridge the gap and ensure you never miss a game.

Moreover, a VPN provides an added layer of security and privacy while streaming NFL Plus content. By encrypting your internet traffic, it protects your personal information from hackers, ISPs, and other prying eyes. This is particularly important when streaming live sports, as it reduces the risk of data breaches and cyber attacks.

Additionally, a VPN can improve streaming speeds and reduce buffering, ensuring a seamless viewing experience. By connecting to a server closer to the NFL Plus content delivery network, you can minimize latency and enjoy smoother playback, even during peak hours.

In conclusion, using a VPN for NFL Plus streaming offers numerous benefits, including access to geographically restricted content, enhanced security and privacy, and improved streaming performance. Whether you're a die-hard fan or just looking to catch the latest game, a VPN can take your NFL Plus experience to the next level.

VPN access to NFL Plus content

If you're a die-hard NFL fan looking to access NFL Plus content from anywhere in the world, a VPN (Virtual Private Network) might be the solution for you. NFL Plus offers exclusive content such as live games, replays, analysis, and more, but this content is often restricted based on your geographical location. By using a VPN, you can bypass these restrictions and enjoy unlimited access to NFL content.

A VPN works by encrypting your internet connection and rerouting it through a server in a location of your choice. This allows you to mask your IP address and make it appear as though you are accessing the internet from a different location. For example, if you are in Europe and want to watch live NFL games that are only available in the US, you can connect to a VPN server located in the US to access the content.

Not all VPNs are created equal, so it's important to choose a reliable VPN service that offers fast connection speeds, strong encryption, and a wide range of server locations. Some popular VPNs that are known for their ability to bypass geo-restrictions and provide access to streaming content include ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and CyberGhost.

Keep in mind that while using a VPN to access NFL content may violate the terms of service of some streaming platforms, many users find it to be a convenient solution for enjoying their favorite sports content from anywhere in the world. Make sure to do your research and choose a VPN that best fits your needs for accessing NFL Plus content.

NFL Plus and VPN compatibility

NFL Plus, the official streaming service for the National Football League, offers fans access to live games, replays, highlights, and exclusive content. However, due to regional broadcasting restrictions, some fans may encounter limitations in accessing certain games or content based on their location. This is where VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) come into play, offering a solution to bypass such restrictions and enhance the NFL Plus viewing experience.

VPNs work by masking the user's IP address and rerouting their internet connection through a server in a different location. This enables users to appear as if they are accessing the internet from a different region, thus circumventing geo-blocks imposed by streaming services like NFL Plus. By connecting to a VPN server in a region where the desired content is available, users can access NFL Plus without any geographical restrictions.

However, it's important to note that not all VPNs are compatible with NFL Plus. Some VPNs may struggle to consistently provide access to the service due to detection methods employed by streaming platforms to block VPN traffic. Therefore, it's crucial for NFL Plus enthusiasts to choose a reliable VPN provider known for its ability to bypass geo-blocks and maintain consistent access to streaming services.

Before subscribing to a VPN service for NFL Plus compatibility, users should ensure that the provider offers servers in regions where the desired games or content are available. Additionally, considering factors such as connection speed, encryption protocols, and customer support can help users make an informed decision when selecting a VPN for their NFL Plus streaming needs.

In conclusion, while NFL Plus offers a comprehensive platform for football fans, VPNs can enhance the viewing experience by providing access to geo-restricted content. By choosing a reputable VPN provider with a track record of compatibility with streaming services like NFL Plus, fans can enjoy uninterrupted access to their favorite games and exclusive content from anywhere in the world.

VPN requirements for NFL Plus viewing

In order to access NFL Plus content from anywhere in the world, using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is crucial. A VPN ensures that your internet traffic is encrypted and routed through a secure server, masking your actual location and making it appear as though you are browsing from a different region. This is essential for bypassing geo-restrictions that may prevent you from watching NFL Plus due to licensing agreements or local censorship laws.

When choosing a VPN for NFL Plus viewing, there are certain requirements to consider. Firstly, it is important to select a VPN provider with a large and diverse server network, including servers in locations where NFL Plus is available. This will help ensure that you can easily connect to a server that grants you access to the desired content.

Furthermore, look for a VPN that offers fast connection speeds and unlimited bandwidth to enjoy high-quality streaming without buffering or interruptions. A VPN with strong encryption protocols and a no-logs policy will also safeguard your privacy and security while watching NFL Plus content.

It is advisable to opt for a VPN that supports multiple simultaneous connections, allowing you to stream NFL Plus on various devices at the same time. Additionally, ensure that the VPN offers user-friendly apps for a seamless streaming experience on your preferred devices, such as smartphones, tablets, computers, or Smart TVs.

By meeting these VPN requirements for NFL Plus viewing, you can enjoy unrestricted access to your favorite games and content, regardless of your location. Stay up to date with all the action on NFL Plus with the added privacy and security provided by a reliable VPN service.

[macdenslut]

okay people we ride at dawn

[yogsandchaos]

Well @bocaditadenata-blog who my tumblr is not letting me at!

While church of prime is what got me on originally on the thinking path of paladin, we do need to establish a paladin isn’t always a pledge to a specific god, a paladin’s vow is really just a sacred pledge in general. While many paladin types are associated with a specific god, a righteous cause in general will work, which fits PERFECTLY for Tommy.

I specifically gravitated to the Oath of the Crown for Tommy as it sums up a lot of what he does.

“The Oath of the Crown is sworn to the ideals of civilization, be it the spirit of a nation, fealty to a sovereign, or service to a deity of law and rulership. The paladins who swear this oath dedicate themselves to serving society and, in particular, the just laws that hold society together. These paladins are the watchful guardians on the walls, standing against the chaotic tides of barbarism that threaten to tear down all that civilization has built, and are commonly known as guardians, exemplars, or sentinels. Often, paladins who swear this oath are members of an order of knighthood in service to a nation or a sovereign, and undergo their oath as part of their admission to the order's ranks.“

This is Tommy swearing himself to the ideals of L’manberg, to Wilbur Soot’s cause, against Dream’s tyranny, while the law part is a bit looser for Tommy of course, he is still pretty lawful outside of the normal petty crimes that everyone does. He obeys rules if he believes in them, if they are just. Which are hella paladin vibes, obeying the few laws that are just and fair while striking against laws that are biased and cruel is just what Tommy DOES. He sticks to his morality whenever possible, and when people try to divert him from his loyalty and true self he always suffers mentally because he isn’t happy like that.

The tenants of a Paladin of the Crown are as follows.

Law. The law is paramount. It is the mortar that holds the stones of civilization together, and it must be respected.

While Tommy is a bit loose on this one as I said, to the person he originally made those vows to, Wilbur, he was loyal to his word, to his laws. The laws he ignores are not laws he views as fair or worth it. However when Tommy finds a set of laws he thinks are good, he will die for them.

Loyalty. Your word is your bond. Without loyalty, oaths and laws are meaningless.

Do I even need to say anything? How even when pushed to the brink of truly breaking his vow, he comes back from the edge, he will protect L’manberg, and when L’manberg is no more he will create a new space to embody the ideals.

Courage. You must be willing to do what needs to be done for the sake of order, even in the face of overwhelming odds. If you don't act, then who will?

Overwhelming odds are Tommy’s thing really, he always acts because no one else will, he fights dream, he protects his friends, he acts, this gets him in trouble, but it also is one of his most important traits.

Responsibility. You must deal with the consequences of your actions, and you are responsible for fulfilling your duties and obligations.

It’s true he’s still learning this one, but he doesn’t shy from fair consequence, when he makes a true mistake he owns up, he apologizes, he does better, he is still growing into it because he’s still young, but he is surprisingly responsible.

Paladin also has a lot of protective areas of learning, and as Tommy is the first person to throw himself to the coals to protect those he cares for. The one who takes the blame, the one who throws himself in front of rockets. Being able to take the damage his allies would take and the like is just, very Tommy.

The Channel Divinity of the Crown Paladin also has a very important Bonus Action that truly sells this as Tommy for me

“Champion Challenge. As a bonus action, you issue a challenge that compels other creatures to do battle with you. Each creature of your choice that you can see within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a creature can't willingly move more than 30 feet away from you. This effect ends on the creature if you are incapacitated or die or if the creature is more than 30 feet away from you.“

Anyone else remember that duel with Dream?

He really does at his core embody a paladin’s virtues, it’s still rough around the edges, and he doesn’t always succeed but he always tries. He is young and he will learn, and he does! Tommy is at the end of the day a protective force of nature around his ideals and community, willing to slay the dragon and lose it all for the sake of what he has devoted himself for. He’s a paladin. Rejecting a coveted and powerful position out of fear of disrupting the community and hurting his nation with his one final mission against evil is such a paladin move!

Also he’s a little shit tiefling, that as well, this is one of the reasons despite being the literal paladin embodiment of L’manberg and it’s ideology people are still somewhat distrusting of him and quick to scapegoat, as he appears very chaotic and wild, like a demon, also this lets us have a cool parallel and have Tubbo be an aasimar, though that could also be done with Wilbur and would also be really cool plus honestly more fitting I just want Tubbo to be an aasimar.

[thoughtslikeaminefield]

MJ’s SPN FIC MASTERLIST

All fic under this header is 18+ and SPN related. Warnings for each fic in the link. J2 is a thing, Wincest is not. Neither are Destiel and Cockles.

SPN KINK BINGO 2019 MASTERLIST 

CHALLENGES + DRABBLES

No Pairing

We Shall Go Until We Die: written for @covered-byroses Turns 1 Writing Challenge

Dean x Reader

Everlong written for @impala-dreamer’s Tell Me A ME Story Drabble Challenge

ONE-SHOTS

Choose Your Own Winchester x Reader

Lifting the Veil: You’ve been missing something of paramount importance - until now.

Dean x Reader

Crazy On You: You’ve had a shitty day, but this beautiful, unfamiliar boy will make it all better.

Crossroads and Bound: “You have no idea what I’d do to you,” Dean seethes. “Oh, I have quite the imagination, Mr. Winchester,” she pants, finding just the right spot and slamming down on him.

Hide Your Love Away: “Most hunters don’t kiss and tell; but if you bag a Winchester? You fucking tell.”

All The White Horses: She is his refuge.

MOC Dean x reader

Supernova: Since Dean’s had the Mark and the Blade, he’s pulled away from you, afraid of hurting you. You miss him and you’ve had it. One night you push him to the edge.

Dean x OFC

One Night Only (23 in 1): While on a job in the middle of America, Dean enjoys a rigorous night of mutual gratification with a local art student.

Dean x OMC

River: “It doesn’t take Dean long to find him amidst the thin crowd and cheap holiday decorations. He’s shorter than Dean, thicker, blue eyes just this side of grey, and more than a few days past a clean shave. The beard is what clinches it. Dean shivers internally as he takes a seat at the bar one seat down from the man.” *written for @julesthequirky​’s #Quirky’sWinterHolChallenge

Michael/Dean x anonymous female character

His Sword: Michael takes some time to remind Dean who’s in control. *written for @covered-byroses #Michael!Cember event

SERIES

Sam x reader

For Whom The Bell Tolls: You miss him.

Dean x OFC x Sam

And Then There Were Three: OFC Natalie and Dean are in a "not serious" relationship and one night, she and Sam take a step that will change things forever.

Dean x Donna

The Mud On Your Boots: It's been a while for Donna, and with a wedding and a recent purchase of sex toys, an unexpected visitor is more than welcome. WORK IN PROGRESS

Dean x reader/OFC

Shadow Love: You're an ancient, powerful supernatural entity on the run with Dean as your bodyguard. Neither of you knows your identity or your purpose, but the pull between you is so strong that you can't resist each other. When you begin to regain memories, you aren't sure whose they are; and Dean begins to pull away. Meanwhile, Sam, Cas, and Rowena are on the case. WORK IN PROGRESS

Dean x OFC

Plus One: OFC Vanessa hates weddings until she meets a handsome stranger.

MOC Dean x OFC

Pretty Reckless: Dean stumbles upon another hunter so much like himself. When they’re connection grows inexplicably stronger, they find an answer they never thought existed.

Demon Dean x OFC

Shattered Like A Stone: The Mark is demanding and the demon in Dean won't deny it.

RPF ONE SHOTS + SERIES

Jensen x Reader

Wrecked: "After the show, alone in a dark corridor, he shows you exactly what that song means.”

Angeles: “It started with being in the same place at the same time, friends in common, similar interests in music and movies. Then you touched his knee and laughed when he said something funny – and the look in his eyes left you hot and shivering.”

In For A Penny: This is what they want. This is what they need.

Jensen x OFC x Jared

Bottle Service: They haven’t been looking for a permanent third, not really. But sometimes you find the thing you need when you least expect it; isn’t that what they always say?

[cinemasnob412]

The Definitive Surviving Girls Of FRIDAY THE 13TH

Inspired by an article featured on VHSRevival.com I’ve decided to compile what I consider to be the definitive ranking of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series’s “final girls”. If you’re not well versed into what makes a slasher film “final girl” so special let’s break it down in simple terms: she’s gotta be the smart one, the “pure” one and in a perfect world would go head to head with the big baddie during the film’s finale, ultimately coming out on top, but not successful enough to make it through a sequel. With the ground rules set, here’s a look at the FRIDAY THE 13TH films’ worst to best “final girls”. Warning, there may be spoilers to follow.

12 - Amanda Righetti - Whitney - FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

I’ve never kept it a secret just how much I dislike any FRIDAY THE 13TH film post-Paramount. 2009′s reboot has a few good things going for it: Julianna Guill and a pretty aggressive Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears). In all reality they’re about the only two positives I can come up with off the top of my head. What it’s lacking though is what really made the original set of FRIDAY THE 13TH films so enjoyable. Marcus Nispel’s film leans more into TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE territory than it does FRIDAY THE 13TH. It’s also short on a likable and true to form “final girl”. Righetti’s Whitney character, while by all accounts is the smart and “pure” one, is too reliant on her co-star Jared Padalecki’s Clay character to be considered Jason’s nemesis this go-round.

11 - Lexa Doig - Rowan LaFontaine - JASON X (2002)

New Line Cinema’s entries into the FRIDAY THE 13TH cannon are my least favorite of the bunch. Along with JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY, 2002′s JASON X feels almost nothing like a Jason Voorhees vehicle. Too bad for Lexa Doig, whose Rowan LaFontaine character exhibits all the “final girl” traits, but does so in a pretty terrible film.

10 - Monica Keena - Lori Campbell - FREDDY VS. JASON (2003)

Monica Keena’s Lori Campbell character is really unnecessary in a film like FREDDY VS. JASON. If Jason was going to have an adversary to challenge him throughout the film’s final reel it needs only be Freddy Krueger (Robert England) right? Final girl fail!

9 - Kari Keegan - Jessica Kimble - JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993)

Adam Marcus’s JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY is not even a true FRIDAY THE 13TH film in name. It sure as hell isn’t a true FRIDAY THE 13TH film in content either. With body-swapping, newly revealed Voorhees bloodline ties and not a teenager in sight, JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY is just a complete mess. Kari Keegan’s Jessica Kimble character, like the film she appears in, is a “final girl” by default only (she’s the last girl standing, so I guess that makes her pretty “final”). Her contributions to the “final girl” club are minimal. I guess she does get to stab Jason in the chest with a medieval dagger, that’s pretty cool, right? No! 

8 - Jensen Daggett - Rennie Wickham - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989)

Ah! Finally, the Paramount Pictures contributions to the Voorhees legacy. 1989′s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN is easily the weakest of the first eight films, as is the “final girl” character of Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett). She dresses like a forty year old mom who’s given up on life, is more of a fragile character than usually required to be an imposing, and victorious “final girl”. It’s not all Daggett’s fault. In reality she's ultimately a victim of lousy writing and poor creative choices by the film’s director, Rob Hedden.

7 - Adrienne King - Alice Hardy - FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

FRIDAY THE 13TH purists may cry foul with this one. Hear me out. As a die hard fan I love Adrienne King’s Alice Hardy. She’s the perfect “final girl”. The only real drawback to her character is that she never gets to actually go toe to toe with Jason Voorhees. In fact, the one and only time (not counting the first film’s dream sequence finale) she comes face to face with Mr. Voorhees (in 1981′s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2) she takes an ice pick to the temple! Her “final girl” days were over at that point.

6 - Lar Park Lincoln - Tina Shepard - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988)

In 1987 when Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema couldn’t come to an amicable agreement on potentially featuring both of their marquee horror icons in one film, Paramount forged on with another “versus” idea. Jason versus “the new blood” (I guess that’s what they meant by that title) Tina Shephard (Lar Park Lincoln). Tina fits the mold of the “final girl” perfectly. Add to that fact that she also comes equipped with almost supernatural, telekinetic powers, and old Jason was in for one heck of a showdown in his sixth outing, and the seventh overall FRIDAY THE 13TH film.

5 - Kimberly Beck - Trish Jarvis - FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)

Ask me now, ask me in one hundred years, what is the best FRIDAY THE 13TH film? Hands down, 1984′s FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER. Joe Zito’s film has everything the series has come to be known and loved for. In the fourth entry, Kimberly Beck’s Trish Jarvis, along with her younger brother Tommy (Corey Feldman) put a (temporary) end to the hockey masked killer. Trish is fierce and just as brutal with old Jason as he is with her. She protects her brother, faces her fears head on and ultimately holds her own quite well against Crystal Lake’s most famous resident.

4 - Dana Kimmell - Chris Higgins - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 - 3D (1982)

By 1982, the slasher genre’s “final girl” had become well defined. The third FRIDAY THE 13TH entry runs with that established characterization with no hesitation. Dana Kimmell’s Chris Higgins not only finds herself alone, one on one with the seemingly unstoppable force that is Jason Voorhees, but the film, halfway through clues us in that she’s sort of been through this before, having had an encounter with Jason in her younger days that she can’t quite completely recall. Maybe it was her earlier experience with Jason that prepped her for her Higgins’ Haven redux. She hangs the big fella, whacks him in the back of the noggin with a log and a shovel, stabs him in the leg and even tattoos him in the dome with a full on swing of an ax. She thinks and works quickly, constantly keeping herself one step ahead of Jason throughout the entire final reel of the film. Kimmell’s “final girl” would definitely top the list if it were not for our final three candidates.

3 - Jennifer Cooke - Megan Garris - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES (1986)

Jennifer Cooke’s Megan Garris character is not so much a “final girl” as much as she’s the partner in crime with the sixth film’s “final guy” Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews). Why so high on the list then? For starters she’s hot. That counts for something, right? Seriously though, she’s one tough cookie. Not content with just going along for the ride, Megan helps Tommy along the way, compiling all the necessities to return Jason to his watery grave once and for all (?). She even steps in to save the day when Jason gets the best of Tommy during the film’s finale, on the water Crystal Lake fight scene. Just as Dana Kimmell’s Chris Higgins character did in the third film, Megan leaves a permanent mark on Jason’s infamous hockey mask (thanks to her quick thinking and a readily available boat propeller), something that would visually define Jason’s trademark mask throughout the seventh film.

2 - Melanie Kinnaman - Pam Roberts - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)

I know what you’re thinking. “But Pam never fought Jason, she fought the impostor, Roy”. Well, factually speaking you’d be right. And if you took what I said about Adrienne King early and applied it here, then theoretically Melanie Kinnaman’s Pam Roberts should also be lower on the list. I say you’re wrong though. Kinnaman’s final showdown with Roy (Jason impostor or not) is the stuff of FRIDAY THE 13TH legend. She’s tough, protective of her younger costar (similar to Kimberly Beck in FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER) Reggie (Shavar Ross) and aggressive when it comes to taking on the masked murderer intent on putting an end to her. She wields a chainsaw for Pete’s sake! Plus, let’s not forget she looks pretty darn good doing all of this!

1 - Amy Steel - Ginny Field - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)

Amy Steel’s Ginny Field is one bad ass chick! Her showdown with Jason is pretty standard fare when you stack it up against the others in the series. What sets her apart though is her quick thinking and use of psychology to take on Jason when the chips are down. Tricking Jason into thinking she’s his beloved mother by donning her rotten sweater in an effort to strike the death blow on the confused Voorhees may have worked had it not been for one false move. No biggie though, she still lays the smack down on him by way of a machete in the shoulder blade that not only saves herself, but her boyfriend Paul Holt as well, who is in a life or death struggle with the maniac until she lands the fateful whack. Like the character of Tommy Jarvis in the later films, it would have been great to see the Ginny Field character return to do battle with Jason again. Amy Steel has talked about her willingness to return to the series, so maybe, fingers crossed, us fans will one day see the return of the greatest “final girl” in FRIDAY THE 13TH history. A boy can hope! 

[birminghamlawattorney]

Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney After a Jet Ski Accident

A personal injury attorney is called out for a variety of reasons, one of which may involve mishaps while boating. If you’re injured during a jet ski accident, you may have a case, especially if the other party was speeding or was drinking at the time. After all, people can become reckless when you mix a warm summer’s day with boating and booze. Even if the accident does not involve drugs or alcohol, people, while boating, may get a little bit too carefree. Speaking about Your Jet Ski Accident with a Personal Injury Attorney If your medical bills are mounting, you’ve missed work, and you’re going to take a while to heal, you need to discuss the details of your case with a jet ski accident lawyer. You need to work with a legal expert who has experience with water-related personal injury claims – cases that involve the same challenges as you’re experiencing now. Why Boating Fatalities and Accidents Happen According to the American Boating Association, drinking alcohol is the leading known cause of boating accidents. Therefore, it’s not surprising that a jet ski accident lawyer handles large numbers of personal injury claims and wrongful death suits that involve this form of negligence. In 75% of the boating accidents, the victim drowned. Of these victims, 86% reportedly were not wearing a lifejacket. A large number of accidents and deaths occurred on boats where the driver had not received boating safety instructions. Both operator inattention and excessive speed factored into many of the mishaps. The types of vessels often involved included personal watercraft, open motorboats, and cabin cruisers. The highest percentage of fatalities occurred in open motorboats. Slower Reaction Times According to an article in Boating, reaction times for a boat going fairly fast can easily lead to an accident or a fatality. Think about it – when you drive a car, you have four wheels that come into contact with the pavement. This type of connectivity is lacking in a boat. When you push up the speed in a vessel, you become less connected. Therefore, any effort toward overcorrection, driving at the wrong angle, or turning too abruptly can lead to a serious accident. That’s why a jet ski accident lawyer can often prove negligence. If the other party was drinking and/or speeding and an injury occurred, it’s much easier to show why the party’s behavior was reckless or lacked reasonable care. Determining Negligence – What a Personal Injury Attorney Must Show To show negligence, you need to demonstrate the following: The defendant had a duty to the plaintiff to exercise reasonable care However, he or she  breached this duty As a result of the breach, their lack of care caused an accident The victim was harmed or injured as a result For you to proceed with a lawsuit in a jet ski accident case, your personal injury attorney must prove to the court that the above four elements led to your negligence claim. Without these elements in place, you cannot proceed with your case. When they are boating or jet-skiing, many times, boaters lift the veil of safety. People are out having fun on the water, so they may not be as careful. That is why safety is paramount. Think about it – when you drive a boat at a fast speed, you’re partially airborne. Plus, you don’t have brakes to stop the boat. Even if you throttle down, you might not stop in time. In many instances, you don’t have enough time to respond – time that could’ve prevented an accident. Playing It Safe While Boating More people die in car accidents than in boating mishaps. However, there are more people who own cars than boats. Besides wearing the proper gear, such as life jackets, refraining from drinking, and navigating within the speed limit, boaters need to do the following: Do not weave your personal watercraft through waterways with swimmer and boater activity. Know the passing distance and know the rules for approaching a harbor or shore, or what constitutes the right-of-way. Never surfboard or water ski while intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. Don’t carry too many passengers or cargo on a ship. Check your boat’s carrying capacity and the weather conditions before you embark on a boat trip. Never steer a boat in a “swimming only” area or other non-boating areas. When water skiing or jet skiing, know the laws for the use of the equipment and safe operation. Make sure you have qualified boaters (at least 2) onboard to drive the craft and help with skis and gear. If you get hurt while water skiing, seek medical care right away. Even if you’re involved in a crash and feel okay, it does not mean you’re really “okay.” Injuries may appear after the accident. Therefore, it is important to receive aid on the same day. Contact a Personal Injury Attorney with Direct Experience Now Contact a personal injury attorney who has direct experience in jet ski and boating cases. If you need a jet ski accident lawyer, contact Belal Hamideh now. Contact the office at (562) 526-1224 right away.

[jmsebastian]

Good Health: Managing Risk Versus Reward in Shadow Tower

From Software has a long history of finding a formula that works, then introducing small refinements to that formula over time in order to make the games that are concocted with these formulas more appealing to new players. When it comes to their fantasy RPG games, From is remarkably consistent with regard to design philosophies, even as they find creative new ways to repackage the core ideas that got them started as a video game developer. Most of the tropes lauded to no end in the Souls games have their roots in From Software’s very first game, King’s Field. The methods of environmental and item description storytelling, the bleak and sorrowful tone of the settings and characters, the feeling that the odds truly are impossible; it’s what makes From Software games From Software games.

The adherence to the formula that has earned them the reputation they enjoy has had few revolutionary innovations. Demon’s Souls introduced Soul form for your character, where your health is halved when killed in Human form. It also introduced the beloved online system of semi-anonymous player phantoms that can be summoned to aid you on your journey or can invade your world in order to kill you dead. Dark Souls introduced Estus, a method of healing that had a finite number of uses between bonfires (checkpoints) to the traditional stockpiling of healing items. Bloodborne had Insight, a mechanic in the form of an item that when collected, made subtle changes to the world and revealed more of that world to the players that had previously been hidden. It was a way to gamify the growing madness the player character would be undergoing through the acquisition of more and more of the eldritch truth about Yharnam and the universe.

Shadow Tower’s great contribution to the action RPG landscape its gamification of player health. Health, measured as HP, is at the center of combat and the game’s internal economy. Understanding the systems that govern it is vital to navigating the game world. It must be tightly controlled in order to survive and carefully manipulated in order for the player to acquire and maintain the tools they will need to undergo the harrowing trials they will face. Decisions about it must be made constantly, with the potential benefits always being weighed against the possibility that death may be found swiftly and unexpectedly.

To talk about how HP is used as a currency, first we have to talk about how it’s replenished, since so much of it will be lost during the course of play. Thankfully, Shadow Tower is pretty forgiving on this front. To regain lost health, must consume a Healing Potion. These potions can be found in various locations throughout the world, can be dropped by certain enemies when slain, can be bought from vendors using Cunes, the standard in game currency, or can be traded for with weapons.

This trading aspect forces players to balance multiple types of currency in order to optimize the outcomes as much as possible. Unlike gold in the King’s Field games, Cunes are very limited and can only be acquired by exploring the Shadow Tower’s worlds. There are a fixed number, thus putting a hard limit on the things you can buy with them. Trading Cunes for Healing Potions is the most obvious way to ensure you make it through enemy encounters since they cost a single Cune each, but what you need at any given moment depends greatly on what you’ve managed to procure through exploration and combat. Maybe you’ve stumbled across a lot of Healing Potions but very few weapons or armor pieces. Suddenly that shield isn’t looking like such a bad purchase, even if it does take very last Cune you’ve found.

To complement the Cune economy, the tower is populated with various smiths that trade in potions. Some will give you a Healing or Magic Potion in return for a piece of equipment. What makes this option so compelling is that it seems like a bit of a raw deal early on. All the equipment you have was likely picked up from killed enemies or just found while walking along since buying equipment with Cunes is so expensive. Having a lot of equipment on hand is paramount to ensure you aren’t suddenly stuck with nothing but broken weapons and armor, which can’t be used. Trading even a weak short sword feels like asking too much. That extreme cost shifts over the course of the game to feel a lot more reasonable the later deeper into the tower you go. Over time you’ll accumulate a fair amount of gear, some of which will be duplicates of stuff you already have. You’ll be much more willing to part with your short sword once you’ve got three of them.

What’s really beautiful about all of this is that players will eventually stumble on another type of smith, one that repairs equipment in exchange for HP. The amount of HP it takes to repair an item varies depending on the quality of the item and how damaged it is. The more powerful the item, the more health it takes, as it is with the more worn down it is. Broken items can also be repaired, but doing so requires a great deal of health, more than you might have in total when completely healed. This instills in the player the mindset to never let equipment break, but still provides value to broken items since they can be traded for health, if the cost to repair them is too high or the item simply isn’t going to be used anymore. All of this makes it so there’s always a give and take with every transaction. In order to remain fighting fit, you have to sacrifice your HP, thus forcing you to use your Healing Potions, thus forcing you to spend Cunes or equipment to acquire more Healing Potions so you can heal up and repair equipment.

The health costs are actually pretty reasonable considering Health Potions fully restore your HP.

It’s an absolutely brilliant system, and one that means your first playthrough will be constantly fraught with tension. Not knowing what lies ahead in a new region of the game means not knowing what you’ll want on hand. Is it important that your weapons be in top shape because there are lots of enemies to hack through? Is it more important to make sure you have lots of potions to heal up as you make it past difficult to avoid traps? There’s also the question of not knowing how far it will be to the next smith or which smith you’ll find. From Software played a bit of a nasty trick in making only one smith symbol despite each smith only entertaining one kind of transaction. To find out what they are selling, you have to visit them. It can feel like a punch in the gut when you really want to offload some low grade gear for Healing Potions and all they’re offering is Magic Potions. Remembering which smith resides where becomes crucial component of level memorization as a result.

These tend to be more relieving to discover than save points.

In some ways, Shadow Tower represents the most sadistic side of From Software. There’s a lot riding on making good decisions all the time. This is especially true early when resources are more limited and the scope of the game hasn’t yet started to sink in. It can be overwhelming trying to figure out if spending a Cune now will end up paying off later or if you should wait to see if you get lucky and find what you’re looking for in the tower. It’s a lot to make players deal with right out of the gate. Poor item and health management can compound to make the game frustrating as the only way out of it is to explore more, exposing you to serious risk.

On the plus side, it’s not all balanced extraordinarily well. If you take risks and explore the beginning areas thoroughly, you can acquire a healthy amount of Cunes, equipment, and potions, allowing you to amass a bit of wealth. With more stuff to spend, the impact of each decision is lessened significantly. The game is also lenient in that most areas do not have re-spawning enemies. Once killed, they are dead for good, so backtracking to a known smith or Cune vendor to regroup is pretty safe and only really takes up a bit of the player’s time.

I can spare one of these to not die, right?

With just how deeply intertwined the economy mechanics are in Shadow Tower, and how impactful those mechanics are in creating a hostile yet interesting experience, I’m surprised From Software never returned to it after Shadow Tower’s sequel, Shadow Tower Abyss. Perhaps it was too off putting for most players. Maybe they felt they explored it as much as they could in the two games that used it. Or maybe there were simply other priorities when crafting the reboot of the company’s fantasy philosophies for the modern era that it just never made its way back into the mix. Whatever the case may be, Shadow Tower is still one of From Software’s most interesting,challenging, and rewarding games, thanks largely to their willingness to experiment. They bothered to ask “What would happen if we made health a currency?” and didn’t shy away from the results.

[bigyack-com]

Movie Crowds Stay Away. Theaters Hope It’s Not for Good.

LOS ANGELES — For most of last week, movie theater executives clung grimly on.At issue, among other things, was CinemaCon, an annual Las Vegas event intended to bolster the most fragile part of the film business: leaving the house, buying a ticket and sitting in the dark with strangers to watch stories unfold on big screens. The National Association of Theater Owners was under pressure to call off the convention because of the coronavirus pandemic, but worries abounded about potential consumer fallout.What message would canceling the confab send to potential ticket buyers, including those increasingly likely to skip cinemas — even in the best of times — and watch films on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus? American cinemas, after all, were staying open in the face of the pandemic.Reality eventually made the association pull the plug on CinemaCon, another example of how seemingly every part of American life has been disrupted because of the coronavirus. For movie theaters, however, the pandemic could be a point of no return.The National Association of Theater Owners has insisted that streaming services are not a threat. “Through every challenge, through every new technology innovation over the last twenty years, theatrical admissions have been stable and box office has consistently grown,” John Fithian, the association’s chief executive, said in a January news release titled “theater owners celebrate a robust 2019 box office.” Ticket sales in North America totaled $11.4 billion, down 4 percent from a record-setting 2018.Many analysts, however, see a very different picture. Looking at the last 20 years of attendance figures, the number of tickets sold in North America peaked in 2002, when cinemas sold about 1.6 billion. In 2019, attendance totaled roughly 1.2 billion, a 25 percent drop — even as the population of the United States increased roughly 15 percent. Cinemas have kept ticket revenue high by raising prices, but studio executives say there is limited room for continued escalation. Offerings in theaters may also grow more constrained. Even before the pandemic, major studios were starting to route smaller dramas and comedies toward streaming services instead of theaters.And now comes the coronavirus, which has prompted people to bivouac in their homes, theaters to put in place social-distancing restrictions and studios to postpone most theatrical releases through the end of April. Rich Greenfield, a founder of the LightShed Partners media research firm, predicted that the disruption would speed the ascendance of streaming.“The behavior was already shifting, but this hits the accelerator pedal,” Mr. Greenfield said. “I think most of the global exhibition business will be in bankruptcy by the end of the year.”He added, “Now studios are going to think more and more about why they are relying on third parties to distribute their content.”As studios have postponed theatrical releases like “Mulan” and “No Time to Die,” they have been careful to express loyalty for theaters. “We believe in and support the theatrical experience,” Paramount Pictures said in a statement on Thursday, when it announced that “A Quiet Place Part II” would no longer arrive in theaters on March 20. But a question looms: Could the pandemic hasten long-brewing changes in the way that new movies roll out?Most movies still arrive the same way they have for decades. They appear first in theaters, for an exclusive run of about 90 days, and then in homes. Theater chains, including AMC, Regal and Cinemark, have fought off efforts to shorten the exclusivity period. They worry that people will be reluctant to buy tickets if they can see the same film on their living room television set or iPad screen just a few weeks (or days) later.Many entertainment companies, however, are eager to shorten that exclusive window and make some films available on their streaming platforms, in part to reduce marketing costs.The biggest studios declined to comment. A senior Disney executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to a reporter, said that rerouting “Mulan” to the company’s Disney Plus streaming service was not currently under discussion, in part because of piracy concerns. (Disney Plus is not yet available outside the United States.) Even so, Disney is clearly mindful of the power of its video platform. The company brought “Frozen II” to Disney Plus on Sunday — three months earlier than planned. (The musical was released in theaters on Nov. 22.) Disney described that move as “surprising families with some fun and joy during this challenging period.”With the masses staying at home, ticket sales dropped precipitously over the weekend, even though two high-profile new films, “Bloodshot” and “The Hunt,” arrived in wide release. Each was supported by a marketing campaign costing tens of millions of dollars, and the money had already been spent by early last week, when the pandemic intensified in the United States and studios started to postpone releases planned for later in the month.“Bloodshot,” starring Vin Diesel as a superhero, collected roughly $9.3 million, according to Comscore. It cost Sony and several financing partners about $45 million to make. “The Hunt” (Universal Pictures), a satirical horror film about elites killing “deplorables,” cost about $15 million to make and took in $5.3 million.The No. 1 movie was a holdover, “Onward” (Disney-Pixar), which sold about $10.5 million in tickets in its second weekend — a 73 percent decline from its first three days in theaters. Pixar movies typically decline 30 percent to 45 percent from their first to second weekends, demonstrating the impact of coronavirus fears on moviegoing. Cinemas will soon run out of high-profile new films to show. Studios like Disney, Universal, Sony and Paramount all postponed films scheduled for release this spring, including “The New Mutants,” “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” and “F9,” the ninth chapter in the “Fast and Furious” series.“The core audience for our film is older moviegoers, and we want them to be able to see it at a time that’s safe,” said Tom Dolby, who directed “The Artist’s Wife,” a drama that was set for limited release starting on April 3 but was postponed.Theater chains in the United States are doing anything they can to avoid shutting down. AMC Entertainment, the No. 1 multiplex operator in North America, said on Friday that it would reduce the number of theatergoers allowed in all of its auditoriums by 50 percent so that people could leave at least one empty seat between each other. No auditorium would offer a capacity beyond 250, the company said — a threshold that some states, including California, have said group activities should not exceed until the pandemic eases.AMC said its restrictions would last until April 30. The company seemed to indicate that it was making the move to avoid possible government intervention; some chains in Europe have been forced to close entirely. AMC said it was “reducing the availability of tickets to comply with any current or future federal, state or local governmental order.” AMC’s stock price has fallen 59 percent over the last month; it closed on Friday at $3.22.The Cineworld Group, which owns Regal Entertainment, followed AMC and reduced its auditorium capacity by half. In a statement, Regal said it was “complying, where applicable, with state mandates on social gathering limits. We welcome moviegoers into our theaters!” Mooky Greidinger, Cineworld’s chief executive, told analysts on Thursday during a year-end earnings discussion that the company had so far experienced a “minimal” impact from the pandemic but that Cineworld would be unable to pay its debts if people started to stay home in droves.Cinemark, the No. 3 chain in the United States behind Regal, referred questions to the National Association of Theater Owners, which declined to comment. Alamo Drafthouse, a Texas-based chain with about 40 locations, required social distancing at some theaters while closing others outright.With most finished live-action films pulled off the release calendar — “Black Widow” from Marvel-Disney remains scheduled for May 1 — film companies have started to halt or slow their assembly lines. Disney, for instance, temporarily stopped production on a new version of “The Little Mermaid,” which was supposed to begin shooting in London; “The Last Duel,” a period epic starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon; and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” a Marvel superhero film.As a result, even films scheduled for release at Christmas, like “The Last Duel,” will most likely be delayed. (“The Little Mermaid” and “Shang-Chi” were never expected before 2021.)Reached by phone in Budapest on Friday, moments after the announcement that the World War II drama “The Nightingale” was being shut down because of fears of the coronavirus and the European travel ban put into place by President Trump, its producer, Elizabeth Cantillon, said she was heartbroken.“If you can’t produce content, then I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Movie theaters, television networks, Netflix — they all need content all the time. If we can’t produce it because we can’t be next to each other, what happens? It’s just going to be a lot of YouTube videos of people in their bedrooms.”Kyle Buchanan contributed reporting. Read the full article

[cemetrygatess]

Let me explain:

Deep Space Nine asked what price are we willing to pay for paradise. Lower Decks asks who does the Work of paradise and inherent issues in hierarchical institutions. Now lower decks mostly has a light tone, so I think this as a critique of star trek is pretty subtle (I also doubt management types at paramount plus really want a show that makes a big Point).

Starfleet is an institution based on rank; for being about exploration they sure are organized like a military. And that organization has been shown time and time again to be bad for people who are in the lower rank. All the way back to TOS, red shirts are lower rank individuals who die and it’s not important for the audience. 

What does this have to do with academia and being a grad student? Well another very hierarchical institution is academia. As a grad student your academic advisor holds your whole future in their hands. Btw this has led to rampant abuse. Two of the worst fields for sexual assault and harassment are the military and academia. These institutions share a similar structure where power is top down, and authority not easily challenged. How different really is a Starfleet captain from some weird mix of a general and a tenured faculty member?

Now you say "well but the folks in the lower decks love their jobs!" Where's the criticism? and you're right, they do. And I love being a grad student. That doesn’t mean the institution is well organized or fair. 

Both Boimler and Tendi really really want to be promoted. They work hard, and are good at their jobs, but promotion is seemingly random. If the goal for either of them to obtain rank of Commander or even Captain, that’s not necessarily going to happen ever. Like academia, Starfleet is essentially a pyramid scheme. More people want to reach the top than ever will.

On the other hand Mariner really really doesn’t want to be promoted, leaving her with no room to grow. Mariner is highly capable but doesn’t like or desire the work of promotion. Starfleet seemingly has no place for a career ensign beyond ensign. To avoid being promoted, she essentially has to cause problems repeatedly. 

So I think to circle back the Point of Lower Decks is that lower level people will work very very hard for Starfleet to work, and then extent to which they are rewarded or recognized is essentially random and luck based. Those that actually like doing this kind of work and want to keep doing are at risk of being promoted out. Those that don’t like the work and want to be promoted can’t expect to be.  

Lower Decks is an allegory about being a grad student, right?

[mustafa-el-fats]

in: A Man's Life, Featured, Personal Development

Brett & Kate McKay • January 30, 2014 • Last updated: September 17, 2020

Your Concentration Training Program: 11 Exercises That Will Strengthen Your Attention

In this series on mastering your attention, we have emphasized the fact that attention is not just the ability to focus on a single task without being distracted, but in fact, is comprised of several different elements that must be effectively managed.

But this doesn’t mean that single-minded focus is not of paramount importance. Yesterday we compared managing your different kinds of attention to being the supreme commander of your mind – you must be able to deftly maneuver and deploy your units to various battles. But good management can only get you so far; to win the war on distraction, the absolute strength of your voluntary attention — your focus foot soldiers – greatly matters.

Research has shown that individuals who can sustain their attention for long periods of time perform better on all sorts of cognitive challenges than those who cannot. A man with a scatter-shot attention span will only be able to experience one plane of existence; he can skim across the surface of the world’s vast knowledge and wisdom but is unable to dive deeper and discover the treasures below. The man with an iron-clad focus can do both; he is the boat captain and the pearl diver and the world is truly his oyster.

If you have a goal to learn and understand as much about the world as you possibly can before you die, strengthening your power of concentration is not an option, it’s a necessity.

Think of Your Mind as a Muscle

Last time we used the analogy of being the supreme commander of your mind to explain attention management; when it comes to attention strengthening, we’d encourage you to think of your mind as a muscle. The parallels between strengthening your body and strengthening your mind are in fact so close that it’s really not so much an analogy as a description of reality.

Your physical muscles and your attention “muscles” both have a limited amount of strength at any given time, their stamina and power can either atrophy from inactivity or strengthen from vigorous, purposeful exercise, and they require rest and recovery after they’ve been intensely exerted.

You get the same feeling of internal dread/doubt right before you begin an intense workout – the one that says “I’m not sure I want to do this” – as you do right before you decide whether or not you’re going to read a long article, and in both cases, you have to set your mind, bite down, and get going with it.

Just as you can hit a wall in a tough workout where you think you can’t do one more rep, in the middle of reading a long article your mind will want to quit and surf to another tab. In both cases, if you tell yourself to dig deeper, you’ll be surprised how much more strength and focus you actually have left in the tank.

And while everyone’s looking for cool new “secrets” for how to build both their body and mind – shortcuts and hacks heretofore undiscovered – the truth is that strengthening our physical and mental muscles comes down to plain, good old fashioned, highly unsexy work. Gaining strength in either area is ultimately about eating right, getting ample sleep, and engaging in challenging daily exercise.

So put on your lifting belt and chalk up your cranium. We’re going to hit the mental gym and turn your focus into a beast. Below, you’ll find your brain’s workout plan.

Your Concentration Training Program: 11 Exercises That Will Strengthen Your Attention

You’ll never get big muscles from sitting on the couch all day, and you’ll never develop amazing powers of concentration from exclusively reading Buzzfeed and watching Tosh.O. Your mind muscles, just like your physical muscles, need resistance; they need challenges that stretch their limits and in so doing, grow their focus fibers. Below we outline exercises that will beef up your focus so that you can start lifting heavier and heavier cognitive loads.

1. Increase the strength of your focus gradually. If you decide you want to physically get in shape, but are starting at ground zero, the worst thing you can do is to throw yourself into an extreme training program – you’ll end up injured, discouraged, or both, and you’ll quit before you even really get started.

Likewise, if your attention span is currently quite flabby, it’s best to slowly build up the weight you ask it to lift. In this series we’ve mentioned trying the “Pomodoro Method” in which you work for, say, 45 minutes straight, and then allow yourself a 15-minute break. But for many of us, 45 minutes might as well be a mind marathon!

So start out with a pretty easy goal and work your way up from there. Set a timer for 5 minutes and focus completely on your work/reading for that time period. Then take a 2-minute break before going at it again for another 5 minutes. Each day, add another 5 minutes to your focused work time, along with an additional 2 minutes to your break time. In 9 days, you should be able to work for 45 minutes straight before you allow yourself an 18-minute break. Once you get comfortable with that set-up, you can work to lengthen your focus sessions a little, while shortening your break times.

2. Create a distraction to-do list. Because the internet has made any bit of information instantly accessible, we tend to want to look something up the moment it crosses our mind. “I wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow?” “What year did that movie come out?” “I wonder what’s new in my Facebook feed?” Consequently, we’ll toggle away from what we’re working on the instant these questions or thoughts pop into our minds. Problem is, once we get distracted, it takes on average 25(!) minutes to return to our original task. Plus, shifting our attention back and forth drains its strength.

So to stay on task, whenever something you want to check out pops into your head, just write it down on a piece of paper next to you (or perhaps in Evernote for you tech types), and promise yourself you’ll be able to look it up once your focusing session is over and your break time has arrived.

3. Build your willpower. Voluntary attention and willpower are intimately entwined. Our willpower allows us to deliberately ignore distractions while staying focused on the task at hand. It would serve your attention span well to review our in-depth article on strengthening your willpower.

4. Meditate. Not only does meditation help keep you cool, calm, and collected, research has also shown again and again that mindfulness meditation can boost your attention span significantly.

In one study, 140 volunteers took part in an eight-week course in meditation training. After the eight weeks, all the volunteers showed measurable improvements in attention span, as well as other executive mental functions.

You don’t have to spend your days meditating in a monastery to take advantage of its attention-boosting power. Research has shown that just 10 to 20 minutes of meditation a day will do the trick. What’s more, you’ll even see improvements in your attention after just four days.

So if you want the power to focus on your studies for hours at a time, start your mornings off just focusing on your breath for a few minutes.

5. Practice mindfulness throughout the day. In addition to dedicating 10 to 20 minutes a day to mindfulness meditation, attention experts recommend finding opportunities to practice mindfulness throughout your day. Mindfulness is simply focusing completely on what you’re doing, slowing down, and observing all of the physical and emotional sensations you are experiencing in that moment.

You can practice mindfulness when you eat as you take time to really chew your food and concentrate on its flavors and texture. You can practice mindfulness when you shave; as you smell your shaving cream, note the pleasure of applying a warm lather to your face, and slowly drag the razor across your stubble.

Incorporating short sessions of mindfulness throughout your day will strengthen and expand your attention span for the times when you really need it.

Mindfulness can also help you push back against distractions as they arise. If you’re working on a task and feel that restless itch to go do something else, think to yourself, “Be here now.” At that moment, bring your awareness to your body and your breath. After a few seconds of focusing on your breath, you’ll notice that the distraction is no longer present and that you’re ready to get back to work.

6. Exercise (your body). Not only can you compare exercising your mind to exercising your body, doing the latter actually directly benefits the former. Researchers have found that students who engaged in moderate physical exercise before taking a test that measured attention spans performed better than students who didn’t exercise. The researchers found that exercise primarily helps our brain’s ability to ignore distractions, although they aren’t exactly sure why. I would venture to say that the discipline it takes to push through the pain of a workout strengthens the same supply of willpower that we use to ignore the itch of distractions in order to keep working/focusing.

7. Memorize stuff. We’ve talked about memorization on the site before. Besides being a cool bar trick and providing you a fount of poems to recite at the drop of a hat, memorizing stuff is an excellent way to exercise your mind muscles. Make it a goal to memorize a poem or a verse of scripture each week.

What About Attention Training Games?

Brain training games have received a lot of press in recent years. You’ve probably seen commercials for Lumosity or Brain Age on Nintendo DS. The games’ creators claim that spending just a few minutes a day playing can improve your attention, memory, and mental agility. However, the research on the veracity of these claims is divided.

Some studies indicate that brain training games can help improve attention in children with ADHD or in the elderly, but that they don’t benefit young, healthy adults.

Other studies show that while certain brain training games can boost attention levels, those gains don’t crossover to other areas of life. In other words, brain training games can help people pay better attention and do better at brain training games, but they won’t help people pay better attention in class or while studying.

A recent study showed a certain type of brain training game called n-back can improve working memory (an important aspect of attention) and that improvement can crossover to other cognitive challenges.

So what does this all mean? The verdict is still out on whether these brain games will definitively increase attention spans and further research needs to be done. It won’t hurt to try them out as part of your attention training program, but include the other suggestions outlined here as well.

8. Read long stuff slowly. Fight the TL;DR culture. With the rise of tablets, e-readers, and smartphones, some studies indicate that reading e-content, in general, has gone up nearly 40%. This is a good thing, right? You’d think so, except that Slate recently did some research with the help of website analytics company Chartbeat that determined that only a paltry 5% of readers who start an article online will actually finish it. What’s more, 38% of readers never scroll beyond the first few paragraphs. So to say that reading, in general, has gone up would be misleading. What we’re actually doing is more scrolling, and less engaging.

At the same time, we’re reading fewer books; a recent study showed that 25% of Americans didn’t read a single book last year.

This is truly a shame. While long definitely does not automatically equal better, there are certain complex ideas that are impossible to condense into shortlist posts and require an entire book (or several books) to flesh out. To skip something simply because it is long is to miss out on a whole world of knowledge available only to those willing to dive deeper. There’s definitely a place for skimming online and learning a little about a lot. But you should also make room for plunging into a few subjects whole hog.

If you haven’t read a book in a while, I challenge you to pick one up tonight. Really try to dig into it. Learn how to read a book properly; it’ll change your life.

Besides books, make an effort to read one or two long articles a week. Longform journalism, as it’s called, is experiencing a renaissance of sorts, and the amount of quality, in-depth content available is at an all-time high. A few of my favorite sources of long-form articles:

Arts and Letters Daily

The Economist

The New Yorker

The Art of Manliness (Always strives to publish comprehensive posts that are as useful as possible. Also, I hear its founder has a glorious mustache.)

9. Stay curious. The more curious you are about the world, the greater the stamina of your concentration will be when it comes to any endeavor. William James suggests a simple experiment to test how staying curious about the object of your attention can prolong your ability to stay focused on it:

“Try to attend steadfastly to a dot on the paper or on the wall. You presently find that one or the other of two things has happened: either your field of vision has become blurred, so that you now see nothing distinct at all, or else you have involuntarily ceased to look at the dot in question, and are looking at something else. But, if you ask yourself successive questions about the dot,—how big it is, how far, of what shape, what shade of color, etc.; in other words, if you turn it over, if you think of it in various ways, and along with various kinds of associates,—you can keep your mind on it for a comparatively long time. This is what the genius does, in whose hands a given topic coruscates and grows.”

Charles Darwin was a master of this concept. His contemporaries marveled at his ability to spend an entire day just staring at animals and plants. Darwin’s secret was his unflagging curiosity – he could discover more and more about a single object by homing in on various details, examining it in different ways, asking new questions. Bit by bit he would peel back its layers.

10. Practice attentive listening. Focus isn’t just useful for intellectual endeavors. It’s also an essential interpersonal skill. The ability to be fully present with a loved one or friend builds your rapport, intimacy, and trust and with them. At the same time, making an effort to focus all your energy on someone else strengthens your concentration muscles overall. It’s a win-win. So next time you’re talking with your main squeeze, put away your phone and listen as attentively as possible.

11. Perform concentration exercises. The above exercises not only boost your focus but offer other benefits as well. Every once in awhile, however, it’s good to do some exercises that are aimed purely at boosting your concentration. Here are twelve to try.

Series Conclusion

Modernity has given us a lot of comforts and conveniences, but it has also unleashed a torrent of stimuli competing for our attention. To live a truly flourishing life amidst this cacophony of distractions, mastering your attention is key. At the end of your life, who you’ve become, what you’ve learned and accomplished, and who’s there at the end with you will be the sum total of what you chose to pay attention to each year, day, and hour of your life. Will a series of cat videos flash before your eyes? Or will you look back on the deep conversations you had with your family and friends, the books that changed your life, and the little details you discovered in all the places you visited?

We hope our series on attention has gotten you to think about this increasingly precious commodity in a new light, as well as inspired you to take steps to improve it. You’ll be amazed at how much your life can improve just by paying attention to your attention.

Read the Entire Series

I: What Every Man Ought to Know About Focus

II: How to Effectively Manage Your Attention

Related Articles

Attention, Please! What Every Man Ought to Know About Focus

Become the Supreme Commander of Your Mind: How to Effectively Manage Your Attention

Podcast #435: How to Achieve Hyperfocus

12 Concentration Exercises from 1918

Podcast #338: How to Beat Distraction and Stay Focused

Think Better on Your Feet: How to Improve Your Working Memory

Tags: attention

PREVIOUS

NEXT

Want to start taking action on the content you read on AoM?

Join the Strenuous Life

LEARN MORE

TAKE ACTION TODAY

Join The Strenuous Life

The Art of Manliness

Copyright © 2021 All Rights Reserved

CONTACT

LEGAL

ABOUT

ALL TOPICS

ARCHIVES

PRIVACY SETTINGS

The Art of Manliness participates in affiliate marketing programs, which means we get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links. We only recommend products we genuinely like, and purchases made through our links support our mission and the free content we publish here on AoM.

[iparts4ultduk]

What’s wrong with my phone battery? A helpful guide to keeping your mobile alive

Do you consider the phone battery before you buy your next mobile? Well, most people only think of the obvious marketing features like the camera quality, memory and processing speed whilst forgetting about crucial features like the battery. Smartphones are portable devices, meaning you should be able to use it outside your house or office for a reasonable time without the need to recharge. To understand the importance of a battery in a smartphone, think of having a phone with all the best features in the market, but then it keeps nagging you about low battery only a few hours after use. Such an issue can really limit you from some of the best benefits of having a high-end mobile phone. This article aims to help you when it comes to choosing the best battery for your cell phone.

What Types of Batteries are in Mobile Phones?

Nowadays, smartphones come with different battery types to meet varying customer needs. The quality and design of the battery determine the energy they can store and hence the time you can use the device with a single charge. Phone manufacturers have to produce a powerful battery, but often face limitations in size and weight. The types of batteries commonly used in cell phones are Nickel-cadmium (NiCd), Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH), Lithium-ion (Li-ion) and Lithium Polymer (Li-pol). Whilst all of these can be found in a mobile device, Lithium-ion and Lithium Polymer are the most commonly used in our phones.

Lithium Polymer (Li-Poly) Batteries

Lithium polymer batteries are currently the most advanced batteries on the market. They are now the most preferred type by most smartphone manufacturers. These batteries come with the advantage of being lightweight as they are mostly made of plastic, as opposed to metal. Another benefit of these batteries is that they don’t suffer from “memory effect“. They can also potentially offer 40% more power than most smartphone batteries of the same size.

Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) Batteries

Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries are an older cell phone battery technology but are currently the most popular. These batteries have a higher energy density depending on their weight and size. They can also retain their battery capacity as they do not remember the charge cycle. The major drawbacks of Li-Ion batteries are that they are slightly more expensive. They are often not compatible with newer smartphones models.

Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) Batteries

This battery type is the most prone to memory effect. This can result in reduced battery capacity and lifespan.

NiCd battery users must fully discharge the battery and fully recharge it to avoid this issue of capacity. This is limiting for most individuals, as most people aren’t willing to wait for a device to fully discharge before recharging it. Nickel Cadmium batteries also contain toxic chemicals that can be harmful to your health as well as the environment.

Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries

NiMH batteries are an upgraded version of Nickel-Cadmium batteries. The main difference between the two is that they do not contain cadmium.

These batteries can offer 30-40% higher capacity than NiCd batteries. They are also more environmentally friendly due to the elimination of the toxins found in cadmium. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are still affected by memory, therefore still making them prone to memory effect. They are also at higher risk of explosion due to voltage drop after several charges. Reasons like this could be why cell phone manufacturers no longer use them.

So which is the best battery type?

Mobile phone manufacturers decide on the type of battery to use depending on the features of the specific phone model. The only battery types currently in widespread use are lithium polymer batteries and lithium-ion batteries. This is due to their superior quality compared to the older Nickel Cadmium and Nickel Metal Hydride batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries have a higher energy capacity compared to lithium polymer batteries. They can be a good choice if the phone has high electrical current requirements. Lithium polymer batteries, on the other hand, are the right choice if the size of the phone is paramount. You can also consider lithium batteries if the cost is a factor. They are usually less expensive than their lithium polymer counterparts.

How Long Should A Mobile Phone Battery Charge Last?

As like many of you, I have owned several mobile phones since their introduction into the market. Every phone has had a different charge holding capacity. The same would also apply even for another phone model because there are a lot of factors that impact how long a battery charge will last. Some of these factors are listed below;

Phone Usage

The way you use the phone depends on how long the battery will last. For example, a phone that is on standby mode can last longer than a phone that is regularly in use. A phone in standby mode can last up to three days depending on its type and the number of applications (apps) it holds. Top phone brands like Apple helpfully give their consumers an estimate of the number of full charging cycles the batteries should last. Phones also have an official talk time, which is mostly between five and seven hours on a single battery charge. Talk time is the number of hours you can use the phone for talking before the battery dies.

Applications

Applications are also a significant factor when it comes to determining how fast your phone battery drains. Applications that are used for playing games, videos and music are particularly demanding of a phone’s battery life and charge. Other uses that can drain your phone battery quickly include browsing the internet as well as prolonged use of the camera.

Battery Age

The battery will most likely die faster as your phone gets older. Batteries are not meant to live forever. This means they will start holding power for fewer hours as you approach the final stages of their lifecycle and they begin to naturally degrade. Most batteries will start draining faster than usual after an average of 18 months of regular use, however, this can be earlier or later depending on the frequency and nature of said use. It can also in some cases depend on whether the battery is kept continually recharging when not in use.

How to tell if a cellphone battery is bad

The best way to identify if a phone battery has a fault is by looking for the usual telltale signs that indicate the same. Some of the signs include;

Fast Charge Drains

A bad battery does not power up your phone for long, even when it is in idle mode. Most batteries will serve you for an average of two years or so. It is after this that you will start seeing these signs. The best thing to do is to replace such a battery (which you can get from us!), and your phone will be as good as new.

Failure to charge even after plugging in

Another common sign of a bad battery is that it just doesn’t charge. Some batteries may start charging after some time, but dead batteries stay dead even after several charging attempts.

Phone restarting on its own or powering off randomly

This is a prevalent complaint among smartphone users. You can be using your phone at the right charge level, and it suddenly restarts or powers off. The phone may require you to insert a charger to power on again.

A bulging or swollen battery

Some batteries can bulge when they go bad, especially as a result of overcharging. Overcharging causes the battery to overheat, thus leading to undesired chemical reactions that cause the swelling. You should replace such a battery immediately to avoid any potential damages to your phone’s back cover or screen.

Overheating

According to AVG, the average phone temperature should be between 37ºC and 43ºC. Anything above that should be a red flag. Overheating is a sign that your battery is not in good condition and needs replacing. Overheating can affect the overall performance of your phone, plus it also poses an immediate hazard.

Phone Battery Overheating Problems

Smartphones tend to get warm whilst they’re being used, but that does not include your phone getting “hot” from time to time. One major cause of overheating in phones is usually an overheating battery. Your phone battery can overheat as a result of both internal and external factors. Some of the reasons why your phone battery may be overheating include:

Prolonged Gaming

The battery will most likely overheat due to overuse. Some applications on the phone tend to consume more power than others, the main culprit of which are gaming applications. Heating gets worse if you use these applications simultaneously. Graphic intensive games naturally eat up the phone’s CPU, GPU and RAM, hence causing the battery to work harder than it should.

Environmental Factors

Another reason why your battery could be heating up is due to direct exposure to sunlight or another heat source. Phone batteries may encounter problems if the temperature is above 43ºC. The battery is also one of the biggest components in a phone, meaning it will absorb most of the heat.

What do I do if my Phone Battery Overheats

An overheating battery is a hazard to itself as well as other components of the phone. It is also challenging to use an overheating phone as you cannot comfortably hold it with your bare hands. Below are some of the ways you can cool down your overheating battery.

Turn the Phone Off

Shutting the phone off will force close all the applications running in the background. Closing these should return the battery’s temperature to normal.

Give the Phone a Break

Using your phone continuously for a long time causes the battery to continue working, therefore may result in it overheating. Especially true if you are running high-graphic applications such as games. If you are using your phone while charging, stop one of the activities you’re doing if overheating occurs. It could be the reason why your battery is overheating.

Use the Right Charger

Another reason why your phone could be overheating is down to using a wrong charger. You should use official chargers that are specifically built for your phone type. This is because some chargers are for more demanding, energy-hungry batteries. This can lead to battery overheating and potential damage.

Summary

Everyone today owns a smartphone, and we use these devices for almost every aspect of our digital life. The phone battery is, therefore, an essential feature of a cell phone. It enables the use of the phone even in the absence of power sources. For example, when you are outdoors or on the move.

When buying a new smartphone it pays to research the battery a little bit. You can now see how important the battery is.  When, rather than if you encounter a battery charge issue, you can buy good quality replacements such as ones available from iParts4U. There are available battery replacements for iPhones, Huawei, Samsung, Sony and other popular smartphone brands. However, do be aware that while some batteries can be easily replaced there are others that require a professional changeover.  We can help in both cases, but the golden rule is that you’re uncertain, our friendly technical support team are here to help with some professional advice.

.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe { width: 100% !important; }

"What’s wrong with my phone battery? A helpful guide to keeping your mobile alive" was published first on iParts4U Blog

[waynekelton]

The Best Turn Based Strategy Games on Android & iOS

This particular codex will train and challenge even the most avowed strategy enthusiasts with a maddening variety of scenarios and systems to learn and master from the world of turn-based strategy. Tactics, 4X, Puzzles... across all platforms and many different playstyles, there's a range of turn-based strategy games to celebrate in 2019.

We've reviewed a few titles recently that have moved to our list of the best war games, you should check them out!

Enjoy, and take your time digesting our top picks of the best turn-based games for Android, iPhone and iPad:

Community Suggestions & Recent Releases

We can't always review every game, and out of the ones we do, not all of them manage to claim a top spot in the list. Plus we're always getting input form our readers on what some of their favourite turn-based strategy games are. It'd be remiss of us if we didn't give them a small shout-out as well:

This is the Police 2

Squids Odyssey

Slay

Starbase Orion

UNIWAR

Shattered Plane

Mini Galax4y

Ticket to Earth (Review)

Publisher: Robot Circus Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $4.99

In hindsight, our original score of 5/5 was perhaps a bit ambitious. While an excellent turn-based strategy game, much of Ticket to Earth's appeal and potential rested on the assumption that Robot Circus would finish the final three chapters of the game. They certainly took their time, but nearly three years later Episode 4 was finally released as a free update in October 2019.

With a unique take on turn-based tactics, a genuinely engaging story and plenty of challenge to boot, now that Ticket it Earth is finally complete it definitely deserves your attention, and can be considered one of 2017's silent stunners. Now that it's complete, it might even be one of 2019's stunners as well!

Tharsis (Review)

Publisher: Choice Provisions Platforms: iPad Only Price: $7.99

While Tharsis takes a lot of inspiration from board games with dice-based allocation/drafting mechanics, it's very much a turn-based strategy experience through and through. As the player, you're in charge of a group of astronauts on their way to Mars, except everything's going wrong on the last hurdle and you need to manage your surviving team-members, dwinlding resources and a failing ship to the best of your abilities so that someone, at least, makes it all the way to the end. If that means you need eat someone along the way, then so be it.

The game is wonderfully brought to life with an excellent 3D engine, and the app plays smoothly on iPads (which might explain why it's only available for iPads!). Some might find the reliance on dice-rolls to get anything done frustrating at times, but it does feed into the sense of theatre created by the tension and dread as you pray that nothing else goes wrong on the ship as it is hastily patched back together. Imagine Apollo 13 except Tom Hanks ends up eating Bill Paxton - great stuff.

Feud (Review)

Publisher: Bearwaves Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: Free

In many ways Chess is the quintessential turn-based strategy game, and a classic that many people try and iterate on over the years. Some we've been fans of, others not so much, but Feud has impressed us the most so far. This free-to-play gem, instead of trying to be too clever or add in extra rules, instead trys to condense the Chess experience into a tied, closed-quarters tactical brawl.

A 4x4 board, with sixteen pieces (eight each side), leaves no room for manoeuvre, so planning your attacks, moves and exploitations is paramount. Matt was very impressed by this bite-sized take on the classic formula, and there's even cross-platform multiplayer (async) as well as pass-and-play. The only thing it's really missing is a ranked mode and some QoL touches - make sure you check it out!

Egypt: Old Kingdom (Review)

Publisher: Clarus Victoria Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $4.99

Clarus Victoria are back with a second entry in their turn-based strategy series based on different historical periods of Egypt. The first game focused on the prehistoric history of the area, while their new game focuses on the 'Old Kingdom' period, which last around 400 years ending around 2100 BC. Back then, the capital of the nation was Mephis and it is here that the player must work to try and build great periods and develop their civilisation.

Resource management is key, and then you must also try and assimilate the other Egyptian tribes through either diplomacy or warfare. It's a niche-style strategy game on a very niche topic, but a breath of fresh air and an excellent pick for those looking for something a little bit different.

Farabel (Review)

Publisher: Frogames Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $8.99

Given that there are so many ways you can design a turn-based tactics game, for something to come along with a genuinely interesting and clever twist is rare, and speaks to the highest levesl of creativity. Farabel's trick, such as it is, is to start you at the end. You being the story at the height of your power, having just emerged victorious from a long and bloody struggle with the Orcs. But to learn the tale, you have to go backwards in time.

With each level you complete, your forces actually get weaker as you make your way back to the beginning of the war. Within individual turn-based battles there's also some timey-wimey shenanigans your hero character can exploit, making for some devilishly flexible tactical solutions. There are thirteen scenarios in all as part of the main story, and beyond that you can participate in daily challenges, or build an army from scratch to take part in special modes, like survival. All round, it's excellent value for money, even being at the steeper end of the scale.

Euclidean Skies (Review)

Publisher: Miro Straka Platforms: iOS Universal Price: $4.99

This game would also fit right in on our Puzzles guide, but there's a healthy enough dose of turn-based tactical thinking that earns it a place on this list (that, and the five-star review it got). It's a significantly different game to its predecessor, and while it doesn't always work the raw ambition this game shows makes it all the more compelling. Even the art style is different - more vibrant and aggressive, it brings the world to life in a way that's unexpected, but also fantastic.

This is a must buy for fans of puzzle tactics games, and while some of the charm is lost in the shift away form Euclidean Land's simplicity, there's plenty of character in this boisterous new chapter.

Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind (Review)

Publisher: A Sharp LLC Platforms: iOS Universal Price: $9.99

Some strategy gamers will find Six Ages' blend of (sort of) forced immersion awful, where others will lap it up. Fans of King of Dragon Pass - which this serves as a spiritual sequel to - will already be familiar with it. They'll discover a smoother interface and a new setting in a new culture. Forgoing the traditional control and power fantasies of strategic empire-building is a hard habit to give up. But for those that can make the sacrifice, Six Ages holds a wealth of wonders few other games can match. It wants to tell you a tale of gods and humans, of mysteries and the mundane while still taxing your tactics. It's a bold goal and, while it doesn't always work, the narratives that it weaves are unlike anything else in gaming.

Darkest Dungeon (Review)

Publisher: Red Hook Studios Inc. Platforms:  iPad Price: $4.99

With each passing year since its conception and release, Darkest Dungeon recedes into annals of history, into the collective memory of unspeakable legends. In other words: a horrid, demanding and sublimely satisfying little game is fast becoming an all-time classic. Some have balked at the fine-tuning numbers behind its challenges (e.g. pre-Radiant days, the initial Crimson Court balancing), but in general the game’s ‘give-no-quarter’ philosophy has won a die-hard following that keeps coming back for more punishment. With the next expansion The Color of Madness slated to arrive later this year, this is a game whose vicious, compelling cycle will continue for a long time.

XCOM: Enemy Within (Review)

Publisher: 2K Platforms:  iOS Universal, Android Price: $9.99

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is still the golden standard for turn-based tactical gameplay, so let’s take a moment to revisit why. Squad-based, knife’s edge combat constantly challenges commander’s ability to scrape victory from defeat. Players make overworld and between-scenario decisions for which soldiers to train and tech to pursue, every bit as decisive as the individual commands given to the squad members in the heat of battle. The game has its hallmark AAA production lustre and mankind-on-the-brink storyline, and these conventions work in its favour. Keep your squad intact, do the mission, save the world, piece by piece. The Enemy Within expansion content makes this turn-based strategy game even better.

The Battle for Polytopia (Review)

Publisher: Midjiwan AB Platforms:  iOS Universal, Android Price: Free (additional Tribes as in-game DLC)

Polytopia takes the crown for best Civ-lite. If this sounds like damning with faint praise, it’s quite the opposite. Because civilization-building builds its challenges and satisfactions with a grand scope and timeframe in mind, trying to miniaturize this genre experience can go pear-shaped in several ways. In Polytopia, the tribes are separated by a single tech (with some glaring exceptions), and the map has been foreshortened to a grid of 256 squares. Units and tech are the same for everyone, but the simplicity of this means a shorter list of decisive, vexing choices. There is no diplomacy system, but victory is determined by points and not necessarily conquest. The game’s blocky, loose artstyle and easy interface make it an easy game to learn and hard to put down. Only just recently did the support for online multiplayer finally make its debut, and it is this latest change that elevates this title to a must-try.

Invisible Inc. (Review)

Publisher: Klei Entertainment Platforms: iPad Price: $4.99

The future came and went, (Invisibly) and it has been cruel to all but a select few supranational, extraterritorial megacorps. Your ragtag bunch of spies and specialists will scour the globe for intel and supplies so they can make one final run, wipe their identities from the omni-vigilant database and live off the grid in peace. Each run escalates if the agents are detected by the guards, cameras or drones, yet the stealth aspect of the game is only one kind of risk calculation among many. The game’s AP and power systems mean that even successful runs can be tight, and sometimes making a clean escape is a failure if the team did not steal enough resources. The game’s generous learning curve belies an experience in which knowledge can lead to perfect play and challenge runs for pacifist or no-item wins at even the most fiendish difficulty.

Imbroglio (Review)

Publisher: Michael Brough Platforms: iPad Price: $3.99

Imbroglio sounds like a mess; it is in the name. But of all Michael Brough’s excellent, sparse designs, this one has the most player-driven customization and controlled random inputs. Here is ample proof that roguelikes can offer as much strategic challenge as the best of classics. Each character has their own ability and weakness, and the 4x4 grid on which the game unfolds is filled with tiles doubling as weapons. Swiping towards an enemy will activate that tile and fire its ability, with every slain enemy adding experience to the weapon responsible.

The goal of the game is to collect treasure, which upon collection heals the character and causes the walls of the grid to change configuration. Enemies spawn quicker and quicker as the turn count increases, so the whole affair is a race against time to level-up the sixteen tiles while staying healthy and collecting treasure at a steady pace. It is accessible but with a glut of weapons and characters to unlock and the final challenge to beat, it will reward sustained interest and focused strategic approaches.

Hall of Fame

We like to keep these lists lean, so we can't feature all games at all time. Still, whether it's a classic we initially forgot about, or something that's been rotated out of the main list to give way for a newcomer, we want to make sure these past genre heroes are not forgotten.

Heroes of Flatlandia

Warbits

The Banner Saga

Chaos Reborn: Adventures

Templar Battleforce Elite

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

Civilization 6

What would your list of the best turn-based strategy games on mobile look like? Let us know in the comments!

The Best Turn Based Strategy Games on Android & iOS published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[housebeleren]

Random Commander Challenge: Tuvasa the Sunlit

Another month passed, another random Commander deck complete. For August, the wheel landed on Commander 2018′s Tuvasa the Sunlit. In general, I don’t prefer precon Generals, but I already had a deck concept in mind from when this deck first came out, so it wasn’t too hard for me to come up with something interesting to build. Sure enough, the deck ended up really fun and actually pretty successful, while still being fairly unique.

Art: Eric Deschamps

Theme

For this build, I decided to mix together two themes: Enchantments & Merfolk. The Enchantment theme is the natural tie-in to her abilities, and it would be foolish to ignore the power there. But to give it a little more variance from the typical Tuvasa build, I added the Merfolk tribal secondary theme. Tuvasa is the only Bant Legendary Merfolk in the game, meaning she’s the only one who can combine the best parts of both Lorwyn and Ixalan Merfolk tribal elements. 

The good news is there are actually several points of overlap between the two themes, and I was able to get critical mass of both without much difficulty. It also gave me the opportunity to play with Deeproot Waters, Aquatic Incursion, and Merrow Commerce, all three of which play directly into both themes.

Card Groups

Enchantment Ramp - Given how important Enchantments are to this build, it makes sense that your primary form of ramp will come from Land Auras, rather than dorks or rocks. The good news is that many of these came in the same precon as Tuvasa, including Wild Growth, Overgrowth, Fertile Ground, and Dawn’s Reflection. I added New Horizons from Ixalan as well for flavor and because the extra +1/+1 counter can be relevant for the Voltron plan.

“Voltron” Auras - Protecting Tuvasa is paramount, so Shielded by Faith, Indestructibility, and Gift of Immortality all made the cut. Steel of the Godhead and Shield of the Oversoul are also great additions, with the Shield being a fourth way to grant Indestructible, and Steel helping with the unblockable game plan. I also added Conviction to the deck, as it allows for repeatable card draw, as well as Alpha Authority and Unquestioned Authority for extra redundancy.

Enchantments Matter - Last in the Enchantments side, a little redundancy for Tuvasa’s card draw is good, so Enchantress’s Presence and Eidolon of Blossoms are must-includes. I also added Satyr Enchanter, but skipped Mesa Enchantress and Verduran Enchantress, since I just found that many options unnecessary when Tuvasa is in the Command Zone. Starfield of Nyx is phenomenal in any Enchantment build, as is Estrid’s invocation. Both Idyllic Tutor and Enlightened Tutor are here to find the necessary pieces, and Enchanted Evening is the secret sauce that makes the whole deck click. It’s costly, but boy is it worth it. Sterling Grove is another phenomenal option, but I had to stick to the budget somewhere, and Enchanted Evening was the more essential piece.

Value Merfolk - Moving on to the Merfolk side, I included a few just plain solid value inclusions, starting with Cold-Eyed Selkie, Seafloor Oracle, and Salvager of Secrets. Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Tishana, Voice of Thunder are also good for extra card draw. A pet card of mine for the deck is Sea Scryer, which is one of the only Merfolk dorks out there.

Merfolk Matter - A few cards get powered off having lots of Merfolk in the deck. Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca is an obvious option that adds more card draw. Lullmage Mentor is a bit ambitious, but in the right circumstance, can completely control the game. Wanderwine Prophets are the last major inclusion in this category, but they are an essential alternate win-con, and can go infinite turns with the right support. To help enable these, I added Deeproot Waters and Summon the School, which are a little jank, but surprisingly effective.

Tappy Things - A number of the above, including Kumena, Lullmage Mentor, and Summon the School all can help tap your Merfolk, and there are several good reasons to do so. Fallowsage, Stonybrook Schoolmaster, and Surgespanner all reward you for tapping them, while Enclave Cryptologist can tap itself for yet even more card draw. Drowner of Secrets is the most jank win-con in the deck, but it does provide a free tap enabler, even if you’ll never actually win with it. I also included Kiora’s Follower to get extra use out of some of these, and Merrow Commerce does phenomenal double duty as an untapper and an Enchantment.

Unblockable Enablers - The last major card group are ways to make Tuvasa unblockable. This is crucial, since the most common way to win with the deck will be through Commander damage once Tuvasa become huge/huge. Merfolk Sovereign, Deepchannel Mentor, and Sygg, River Guide are probably the best, but I also included Aquatic Incursion, as it is also an Enchantment. Tempest Caller is more of a one-shot, though there are ways to reuse it, so I added it as well. And lastly, Rogue’s Passage is inefficient, but no reason not to include it. The mana base can support it.

So those are the main card groups. From there, I rounded out the build with some counters and removal (often Enchantment-based), some graveyard retrieval, and a few other essentials. Of note, I would always include Leyline of Anticipation, which enables so many shenanigans and keeps your opponents guessing, plus it allows you to trigger Tuvasa on your opponents’ turns as well. Seahunter is a Merfolk tutor that more than warrants its slot for being able to find any of your combo pieces (as well as Crib Swap), despite having the wrong creature type itself. Crib Swap is super cute as a removal piece, since it will trigger some of your Merfolk payoffs, and Reviving Melody is surprisingly good as it will basically always net you two pieces back. Finally, the Reveillark/Karmic Guide/Eternal Witness package is too good to pass up, and those pieces alone will often keep you in the game even at the harshest tables.

Win Conditions & Lines of Play

The good news is that Tuvasa is very well set up with a built-in Win Condition, so most of the deck’s plan is just to enable and protect that strategy. That said, there are a few options, and one solid alternate plan (along with a couple jank ones) to keep the deck interesting.

Enchanted Evening Voltron - It’s really not overstating things to say that Enchanted Evening is the most critical, irreplaceable card in the deck. The ramp package can all change, the Enchantress mix can change, the removal mix can change, but Enchanted Evening is the card that makes a Commander Damage win absolutely trivial to achieve. You’ll need to pair it with some form of unblockability and ideally some protection, as well as some recursion in case it gets dealt with. But this is your #1 Win Condition, and the primary strategy should be to assemble this board. If Enchanted Evening gets exiled or you never manage to find it, Tuvasa can still win on this path, it will just often take multiple attacks to get it to work.

Wanderwine Turns - Wanderwine Prophets is a fantastic card, and serves as a really solid alternate win condition for the deck. Using  Stonybrook Schoolmaster or Summon the School, you should be able to get to a state where you are able to sacrifice a Merfolk to the Prophets every turn, and thus take every turn. Once again, some form of unblockability is essential to make this plan work, but there are plenty of those options in the deck. From there, you’re generally going to just win with Combat Damage, but you can also technically mill everyone out with Drowner of Secrets as an alternative. (In case someone has infinite life or something.)

Merfolk Swarm - This is the least likely line of play to actually win the game, but it technically is a possibility so I wanted to include it. Along with some of the aforementioned pieces that make Merfolk tokens, your critical piece here is Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca. Once you get a large enough mass of Merfolk, you can start adding piles of +1/+1 counters to them to make a massive army that can quickly overrun all your opponents. Merrow Commerce will help speed this along, and Surgespanner can work with this plan to clear the board for your army to advance.

So those are the basic lines of play for this deck. Generally speaking, the Enchantment direction is probably going to be 75% or more of the wins for the deck, but it’s good to have options, just in case.

Conclusion

When putting together this deck, I definitely went over my target budget of $25 for new cards, largely due to Enchanted Evening, which is $20 in itself. On top of that, I needed Seahunter, Merfolk Sovereign, Deepchannel Mentor, and some other odds & ends, which pushed me a little over the line. That said, they’re all cards I’m glad to have on hand, even if some of them are Merfolk-specific. The good news is that it’s cheaper overall than my Rona build was, so I generally think a budget version of this deck is pretty achievable.

I’ve really enjoyed playing the deck, and actually had some success with it as well, winning two games over the four I played during the month. Which is actually a pretty solid record, though I was definitely playing at a 75% table for those. Taking apart the deck is bittersweet, since it has been super fun.

For September, I’m tweaking the rules somewhat, so the General I picked is from the Commander 2019 set, though I still chose randomly. The proverbial die roll landed on Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero, so I definitely have my work cut out for me!