#Reuben Wilson & The Cost Of Living | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tabloidtoc · 5 years

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Life & Style, March 4

Cover: Kylie Jenner Three Months Pregnant

Page 1: Photo Flash -- Prince Harry spent Valentine’s Day in the Arctic Circle where he braved sub-zero temperatures to visit troops undergoing winter survival training at Bardufoss Air Force Base

Page 2: Contents

Page 3: Say What?! Chris Pratt on his days as a waiter, Cardi B on dating after her split from Offset, Irina Shayk on when she’s not working, Lupita Nyong’o went on a 10-day silent retreat, Hailey Baldwin on her bad breakup from Justin Bieber in 2016

Page 4: The Top 10 BAFTA Looks -- Claire Foy, Kate Middleton, Laura Harrier, Amy Adams, Linda Cardellini

Page 5: Lily Collins, Michelle Rodriguez, Cate Blanchett, Regina King, Rachel Weisz

Page 6: Twinning -- Bianca Brandolini D’Adda vs. Regina King, Melanie Thierry vs. Sara Sampaio, Olivia Culpo vs. Sofia Richie

Page 8: Mandy Moore’s husband from hell Ryan Adams

Page 9: Sharon Stone threw a huge temper tantrum on the set of Chanel West Coast’s new music video for the song Sharon Stoned and cost the production tens of thousands of dollars, Throwback -- Hannah Simone, Biggest Spenders of the Week -- Venus Williams, Gucci Mane, Drake, Priyanka Chopra, Tom Brady

Page 10: Bachelor Ben Higgins is dating someone new, Jeremy Piven strapped for cash, Whose earrings are they? Duchess Kate, Miley Cyrus, Claire Foy, Bebe Rexha, Ashlee Simpson, Katy Perry

Page 11: Pregnant Jessica Simpson put on bed rest

Page 12: George Clooney’s Worst Fear -- Meghan Markle will end up like Princess Diana

Page 13: Housewives in the Hot Seat -- Luann De Lesseps, Phaedra Parks, Lisa Vanderpump, LeeAnne Locken, Dorit Kemsley, Sonja Morgan, VIP Style -- Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Bella Thorne, Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner, Taraji P. Henson and Alexander Wang, Josh Duhamel, Lady Gaga, Nina Agdal, Jawan Jackson and Derrick Baskin and Emily Blunt and John Krasinski

Page 14: The Week in Photos -- Miley Cyrus and Rebel Wilson at the Isn’t It Romantic premiere, Brandon Scott Jones and Betty Gilpin and Priyanka Chopra and Adam Devine

Page 15: Khloe Kardashian and niece Penelope, Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki of The Big Bang Theory

Page 16: Chris Hemsworth, Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott, Milo Ventimiglia is Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Man of the Year

Page 18: Child’s Play -- John Stamos and son Billy, Malin Akerman and son Sebastian, Jennifer Garner and son Samuel

Page 19: Vanessa Lachey and son Phoenix

Page 20: Selena Gomez and BFF Courtney Barry, Victoria Justice, Prince William

Page 22: National Pizza Day -- Reese Witherspoon, Rita Ora, Joe Manganiello and Paul Reubens, Giada De Laurentiis

Page 24: Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Lopez

Page 25: Chris Pratt, Jessica Simpson

Page 26: Stars Behaving Badly -- Toni Braxton, Tracy Morgan and wife Megan Wollover, Miley Cyrus

Page 30: Hollywood Heartbeat -- Josh Duhamel dating actress Rebekah Graf

Page 31: Melissa Gorga wants to turn husband Joe’s house-flipping seminars into an HGTV show, Derek Hough ready to wed Hayley Erbert, Romance Report Card -- Chance the Rapper, Tori Spelling, Dina Lohan

Page 32: Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale got into a heated argument while at the beach in Australia because Rose wants to get married and Bobby is dragging his feet, Paris Jackson’s pals hope she’ll break up with half-homeless boyfriend Gabriel Glenn who smokes and drinks every day, Jennie Garth and Dave Abrams’ divorce is off

Page 33: All Heidi Klum’s wedding details, Can You Believe They Dated -- Kathy Griffin and Quentin Tarantino in 1995

Page 34: Cover Story -- Kylie Jenner’s pregnant again

Page 36: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga finally go public

Page 40: The Bachelor Colton Underwood blindsided

Page 42: Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt taking things slow

Page 44: First Came Breakup, Then Came Marriage -- Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth, Behati Prinsloo and Adam Levine, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell

Page 45: Prince William and Kate Middleton, Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavallari

Page 48: Who Lives Here? Jennifer Garner

Page 50: Entertainment

Page 51: Star Review -- Kim Zolciak-Biermann, As Seen On-Screen -- Gwyneth Paltrow wore on Real Mean Eat Goop the Fitbit Alta HR fitness tracker

Page 52: Fashion -- Grammys -- Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, Camila Cabello

Page 53: Dua Lipa, Bebe Rexha

Page 56: Beauty -- Miranda Kerr

Page 58: Beauty Crush -- Lady Gaga

Page 60: How She Got That Body -- Eva Longoria

Page 62: The Fabulous Life of DJ Khaled

Page 64: Diva or Down-to-Earth -- Nicole Scherzinger, Joshua Jackson, Pink and family

Page 66: Social Stars Posts of the Week -- My Best Friend’s Wedding’s Dermot Mulroney and Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz and Rupert Everett, Andy Cohen and baby Benjamin, Melissa McCarthy, Throwback -- Katharine McPhee and Meghan Markle

Page 67: Jessica Alba, Bachelor Colton Underwood, Kanye West and daughter North, Orlando Bloom

Page 68: Horoscope -- Pisces Jessica Biel, They’re Not Together But They Should Be -- Zayn Malik and Camila Mendes

Page 70: Made Ya Look -- Katharine McPhee in Waitress

Page 72: What I’m Into -- Lance Bass

#tabloid #kylie jenner #travis scott #jessica simpson #miley cyrus #liam hemsworth #orlando bloom

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judgepaper19-blog · 5 years

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Piecing Together The Lost History Of Wirt & Knox

The overgrown ruins of Wirt & Knox Manufacturing Company at Sedgley Avenue and York Street. | Photo: Rob Masciantonio

Traveling on West Sedgley Avenue in Strawberry Mansion offers a stark picture of areas in the city still decimated by post-industrial decline. Vacant lots and fenced storage yards dominate a desolate space once packed and humming with manufacturing work sites. Along the corridor several old factory buildings remain in various states of occupancy and decay. The former headquarters of Wirt & Knox Manufacturing Company at Sedgley Avenue and York Street is still standing, but the building is collapsing from within. In its heyday, Wirt & Knox was one of the premier manufactures of firefighting equipment in the United States. The company’s history spans almost a century, and much of the equipment it produced is still in service today. Yet, very little is known about Wirt & Knox, and its reputation has largely faded into memory like so many of Philadelphia’s great manufacturing companies. The only information of any substance on Wirt & Knox is left scattered like breadcrumbs across old trade catalogs, journals, and maps, with the company’s industrial history waiting to be pieced together.

Although the company spent its prime in Philadelphia, the story of Wirt & Knox began in Independence, Missouri when it was a sleepy town of only 3,000 people. It was here that R.D. Wirt & Company was formed in 1881 by Dr. Reuben D. Wirt and G.M Nichol. The original company appears to have engaged in both manufacturing and plumbing contracting. In March 1887, Dr. Wirt was awarded his first patent for a simple garden hose reel. Four months later he was awarded another patent for a complete hose cart. These two patents encompassed a garden hose reel cart constructed of light iron pipe connected by low cost and lightweight pins and rivets. Other carts of the era relied on either coupling collars or welding to construct them. Dr. Wirt’s product was strong and durable, while simultaneously lower cost and lighter weight. The hose cart was a immediate success. Nichol sold his stake in the burgeoning company to H.H. Wait and George Suter. It was reorganized into a stock company and branded the Wirt & Wait Manufacturing Company. However, Wirt & Wait was to be a short-lived enterprise. In 1891, the shares owned by Wait and Suter were purchased by Charles Knox and Dr. John Bryant. The new company chose to focus solely on manufacturing Wirt’s patent hose reel. The firm divested its plumbing department, which was split off into The Wait Plumbing Company, with its new president, H.H. Wait, leaving along with it.

1904 advertisement for “hump racks” patented and produced by Wirt & Knox Manufacturing Company.

The company reformed once more into the Wirt & Knox Manufacturing Company and its product line soon expanded far beyond the basic hose cart that had brought the manufacturer so much success. After making a hose reel for garden use, Wirt & Knox expanded the design for the firefighting market. Large, industrial hose carts soon became a staple product for Wirt & Knox, which is perhaps what the company is best known for today in the world of firefighting equipment collectors. At the time fire trucks were, in essence, nonexistent. Early gasoline-powered fire trucks were more than a decade away. Major cities still relied on horse-drawn carts or, in some cases, steam engines, to get firefighting apparatuses to a scene. However, small fire departments and extant fire insurance companies that served small towns and rural institutions like state hospitals or prisons could often not afford cutting edge steam engines or stable horses to move their equipment. These fire companies were left to fight fire with hose carts pulled by the firefighters themselves. This is the market in which Wirt & Knox made a name for itself. While not as fast or capable as larger animal or self-propelled fire engines, the carts, known as “spiders,” remained popular with small fire companies well into the 20th century. The carts were often pulled by four men, which allowed companies to haul all the equipment needed to fight a fire. The carts would often come fully outfitted from the factory with hoses, axes, and other implements.

Wirt & Knox cornered the firefighting market with its spider carts. The company also began producing a line of hose racks and reels for fire suppression installed inside buildings. Demand was so great for their products that the company could not keep up with orders and, by 1896, began looking to expand into larger facilities, which it had already done several times within Independence. The town was small and remote, and the company was losing money. Steel for their products had to be shipped long distances from mills in the east. The company’s products had to be shipped just as far back east where the majority of its customers were located. To boot, Independence was very small. Labor, especially skilled labor, was limited. By 1898 Wirt & Knox had successfully relocated their production facility from Missouri to Philadelphia.

Dr. Rueben Wirt’s rolling “garbage cart” patent from 1904.

The company’s first factory in the city was a narrow six-story factory building at the southwest corner of 4th and Commerce Streets. It was a block away from Independence Hall, and the building is long gone today. However, at the turn of the century it was a crowded commercial and industrial district. By 1907, Wirt & Knox were producing 160 different types and variations of hose carts, reels, racks, and various other firefighting and industrial products like street cleaning carts and bag holders. As the company grew its leadership changed. In 1905, Knox retired and sold his shares to Philadelphians E. C. Wilson and Raymond Krables. Dr. Wirt stayed on as president and the company name, now well established, remained Wirt & Knox. Despite the company’s success and expanded production capability in Philadelphia, the 4th Street factory soon proved inadequate. Once again, the manufacturer struggled to meet growing production demands. Narrow work floors stacked several stories high was not an ideal layout for a modern facility. The crowded location in the heart of the city made plant expansion there virtually impossible. The lack of direct rail access was also a logistical and financial barrier to the company’s continued growth.

In 1913, Wirt & Knox moved into a large factory at the corner of Sedgley Avenue and York Street. The factory was built along the bustling, industrial stretch that once straddled the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks that ran between Sedgley and Glenwood Avenues. The location gave the company seamless access to the raw materials it needed for production. Proximity to the rail line also eased its ability to ship finished products. The factory, a large two-story brick building, was new to Wirt & Knox, but not new in age. It has been built two decades earlier by the Thomas Dallet Company, then a well-regarded manufacturer of masonry tools that had moved to a larger facility elsewhere in the city. The modest brick building offered a large, open floor plan that would serve Wirt & Knox well for the next several decades. When it moved in, the company added a two-story brick addition on the south end at a cost of $4,000. A Sanborn fire insurance map from 1918 shows the factory’s layout as such: the original, two-story building was used for production on the main floor, with the second floor being used to store finished product. To the rear towards the train tracks was a boiler house and print shop. The 1914, half of the addition was used for a paint shop, while the other half was storage for raw materials. To the north of the factory along York Street was a steel outbuilding, which was also used for raw materials storage. Later, the northern end would be expanded further with an addition that almost doubled the plants production floor.

An advertisement from 1916 for Wirt & Knox’s groundbreaking “spider cart.”

Wirt & Knox finally had a facility capable of meeting its ever-growing demand. While its firefighting spider carts were the original mainstay of the business, that market had slowly dried up as gasoline fire engines became more common. However, by this time Wirt & Knox had established itself as the most recognizable and respected manufacturers in the country of fire hose reels and racks for architectural applications. Its first hose reel for building fire suppression was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office in September of 1900. The design was a simple affair: a rotating steel reel to which a hose could be wrapped around and mounted on two brackets. In October the company submitted another patent for “Wirt’s Hump Rack.” Unlike other designs of the era, this one incorporated a bottom, which was curved up slightly towards the hose i.e. the “hump.” This design served to prevent undue stress on the folded sections of hoses, which in time would damage it and cause potential failure in an emergency. The rack also had rails on both sides so the hose could not fall out sideways, a problem in the designs of many competitor’s hose racks. Wirt’s Hump Rack was a hit, and, in 1904, the company won a contract to outfit all of the buildings in the upcoming St. Louis World’s Fair. The design has proven so practical that today virtually all modern hose racks incorporate this hump feature to prolong hose life. Still, the racks themselves were not perfect. While the industrial-looking reels and racks could be easily mounted to columns or pipes and were great for factory or stairwell use, something a bit more refined was desired for hallways and corridors in commercial and residential buildings. The hoses also trapped in moisture and would rot, especially one that had been used, then wrapped or folded. The solution was a hose rack that kept the hose suspended and slightly spaced between each length.

Wirt & Knox introduced the “Eclipse Rack” in 1907. The design hung the hose on galvanized pins spaced slightly apart from one another, which allowed for airflow that dried the hose and prolonged its rack life. The pins were fashioned to drop if the hose was pulled, allowing it to quickly be brought into service. But it remained attached to the rack, facilitating easy return when the job was done. These features are what set the company’s product apart from it’s competitors. Other designs used either falling pins, which would scatter to the ground, or a series of wire hangers that needed to be looped around the hose and hung from a suspension bar. Wirt & Knox’s system proved itself superior once again. Not only is this pin design still in use in modern hanging hose racks, but one can still find original Wirt & Knox racks in service within many older buildings today.

A Sunburn fire insurance map from 1916 showing the layout of the Wirt & Knox factory in Strawberry Mansion.

The company’s product line continued to grow and improve. Within a year it was offering two other hanging rack models: the “Crown” series, which was designed to be a more economically friendly option, and Wirt and Knox’s flagship “Royal” hose rack. These racks could be hung from simple wall mount or off of pipes. In residential and office applications, it was usually found in large metal or glass cabinets that were flush with the wall. It is not uncommon to see Wirt & Knox fire reel cabinets in commercial and residential buildings hallways these days, but the hose and rack have usually been replaced with a fire extinguisher.

Ultimately, it would be fire extinguishers, and Wirt & Knox’s failure to adapt to a changing market, that would be the company’s undoing. For the first half of the 20th century fire hoses in buildings were popular and installed nearly everywhere. Early fire extinguishers left a lot to be desired. The average fire extinguisher of the era could only deliver a few gallons of pressurized water before it needed to be refilled. While suitable for something like a wastebasket fire, they were of little use on anything larger. The first chemical extinguishers began showing up in 1911, when the Pyrene Manufacturing Company began making fire extinguishers filled with carbon tetrachloride, a chemical that is incredibly effective at extinguishing flames and so toxic that it can kill. Safer chemical extinguishers were introduced later, but they remained expensive specialty products. Occupant-use fire hoses remained the the go-to choice for firefighting equipment in most buildings during the years leading up to WWII. But it was not long after the war before landlords and homeowners owners began to prefer the new cheaper and handier extinguishers over the hose systems that required expensive installation and perpetual upkeep. Although Wirt & Knox had produced some soda acid extinguishers in the past, it was caught unprepared to compete in the chemical extinguisher market with companies that had been working on and perfecting their products to meet the demands of military contracts over the past several years.

A 1928 advertisement for Royal Firehose Stations. Cabinets like this one can still be found in old commercial and residential buildings today.

Wirt & Knox’s failure to enter the fire extinguisher market caused serious trouble for the company, but it was a slow declined rather than folding overnight. Its products were not completely obsolete. Industrial sites continued to utilize hoses for greater firefighting capacity, and, of course, many commercial building owners would continue to maintain existing hose racks and reels, even if they were not installing new ones. Wirt & Knox struggled and their competitors continued to grow as sales of more modern fire equipment soared. The company stayed afloat throughout the 1950s, but eventually could not continue to stand on its own. In 1965, Wirt & Knox was purchased by National Foam Systems, then a West Chester-based producer of fire-suppressing foams developed during WWII. The company was established in 1819 and was the first U.S. producer of fire hoses. At the time, it was also producing a full line of fire equipment like hose reels and nozzles.

The buyout may have been the end of Wirt & Knox as an independent company, but it was not necessarily the end of Wirt & Knox, at least in name. The company continued to operate as a subsidiary and became the Wirt & Knox steel products division of National Foam. But the buyout was the beginning of the end of the company’s story in Philadelphia. In 1967, National Foam announced plans to consolidate all metal working activities to a new 52,000 square foot factory being built in Exton, PA. Wirt & Knox closed its doors in 1968 on Sedgley Avenue for good and, like so many other companies of the era, moved from the city to the suburbs. Hose reels and racks continued to be made under the Wirt & Knox name for another 25 years at the new Exton facility. In the early 1990s the Wirt & Knox brand was terminated and the Exton location was closed. Wirt & Knox came to a quiet end after 100 years as the nation’s premier manufacturer of firefighting equipment.

Wirt & Knox was purchased by National Foam Systems in 1965 and operations were moved to Exton, Pennsylvania. This postcard show National Foam’s a new facility.

The company’s old factory in Strawberry Mansion held a series of tenants in the following years. A 1990 directly lists Fred Mcourteis Moving and Storage Inc. as the occupant, presumably using the old factory for a warehouse. A sticker on the front door advertises Baar Rubber Products Company, perhaps another tenant. In the past 20 year the property has been bought and sold several times, falling into greater disrepair with each passing year. WMC Enterprises purchased the factory in 2016. The firm appears to be little more than a real estate holding company, which owns much of the block the factory sits on and several row houses scattered throughout the area.

The decaying building today is a testament to the skill of the laborers who erected in almost 150 years ago and the quality of materials they used. The roof and much of the second floor have largely collapsed and now lie at ground level, as have all the stairwells. But the solid brick walls still stand tall and straight, almost in defiance to the neglect the building has endured. In the places where the roof or upper floor have managed to hold, the floor below is littered with trash and debris. Old appliances left to rot by the last company to use the building are strewn throughout. In one roofless room there are pallets of new roof flashing and material staged, perhaps for an upcoming rehabilitation project or just being stored for use elsewhere. On the second floor landing of a collapsed stairwell hangs a rusty Wirt & Knox fire hose cabinet, the first and final breadcrumb leading to the building’s industrial legacy.

—

Inside the crumbling factory of Wirt & Knox Manufacturing Company. Photographs by Robert Masciantonio.

The walls of the factory still stand despite a collapsed roof and extensive interior damage.

The original main factory floor.

The coal bunker that has since converted into storage.

The main factory floor looking towards the boiler room.

A fire door leading to a storeroom.

The remains of the freight elevator.

The second floor and roof have collapsed over most of the main production floor addition.

Looking towards the 1913 addition.

A Wirt and Knox fire hose cabinet still hangs in the factory.

About the author

Robert Masciantonio attended Shippensburg University where he received his BA in Political Science and History. A proud native of Delaware County, Masciantonio carries a lifelong fascination with Philadelphia's deep, layered past. He has an strong interest in photography and architecture, with an emphasis on industry and institutions. Masciantonio is currently pursuing a degree in Structural Engineering.

Source: https://hiddencityphila.org/2019/03/piecing-together-the-lost-history-of-wirt-knox/

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Let your mind wander with 40 of our best reads • Eurogamer.net

We’ve been lucky enough to publish some wonderful work on Eurogamer over the years, written by some wonderful writers, and we thought pulling some of it together at a time like this would be a nice thing to do.

If you see something you like, scroll down to the bottom of the piece and click on the author’s name to see what else they’ve written. There are some real treats I haven’t been able to include here – it’s a long enough list as it is!

Thank you everyone who contributes to Eurogamer and helps make it what it is, and thank you for reading it. Have a nice Easter weekend.

How Age of Empires 2 got some Scottish kids into RTS – Here’s a question: How do you get a bunch of disillusioned kids in the arse end of Scotland into real-time strategy games? Sam Greer remembers the 90s in Scotland and an unlikely gaming champion.

Petscop, the internet’s favourite haunted video game – Last March, a YouTube channel titled Petscop began releasing Let’s Play-style videos of what appeared to be a bargain-bin Playstation One game designed to entice undiscerning children. But things quickly took a darker turn, as Sara Elsam finds out.

An ode to video game doors – It’s easy to underestimate doors, Andreas Inderwildi writes, and yet they are also imbued with a kind of magic. If you’ve ever wanted to see a lot of lovely video game doors, now’s your chance.

After half my life, Ace Attorney’s re-release brought me full circle – Some games can have profound influences on our lives. Jay Castello grew up with the Ace Attorney series and wanted to be a lawyer – but life doesn’t always go the way it was planned.

I went Christmas carolling in Rust with a real piano, and got shot a hell of a lot – When Emma Kent heard that craftable pianos were coming to Rust (with MIDI support) and she could plug a microphone in too, there was only one thing she wanted to do. But would her fellow Rust players share in her festive spirit?

The story behind the Oblivion mod Terry Pratchett worked on – Imagine one day getting an email thanking you for the companion you made for Oblivion, signed by someone claiming to be author Terry Pratchett. Then imagine discovering, many letters later, it really was him. Cian Maher tells an unlikely story of friendship and collaboration.

The Lords of Midnight: on the legacy of a truly epic wargame – Even now, there’s little else remotely like it. Jennifer Allen remembers a cruel but magical adventure for Commodore 64. And thanks to devoted fans, there is now a way to play it.

Red Dead Redemption 2 and XCOM 2 have one crucial thing in common – companionship – From perishable squad mates to tales around a camp fire, Vivek Gohil digs into what makes companions in Red Dead Redemption 2 and XCOM 2 so special.

I was in Football Manager and I don’t know how to feel about it – Imagine our surprise when writer Chris Tapsell turns around and announces he was once in a Football Manager game, a series he loves – but as a football player. If it weren’t for a shoulder injury he may well have been a professional footballer today. But something always bothered him about his FM representation: his stats weren’t right. His height, his birthday, his eccentricity. This is the story of him getting to the bottom of it.

Roleplaying across the internet – It doesn’t have to be people sitting around a table. In its purest form, roleplaying is when a person says, “Let me tell you a story,” and the other person says, “Me too.” Giada Zavarise takes into the world of forum roleplaying.

If Ubisoft wants to cling on to Clancy, it’s time to talk politics – Tom Clancy relished a political drama so why does Ubisoft try to avoid it in his name? Is such a thing even possible? Edwin Evans-Thirlwell takes a closer look at Clancy and the legacy he left behind.

I owe everything I am to Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday – You’re in a game shop in the mid-1990s and you have £15 to spend, and that’s a lot – you’re a kid and you’re poor. Jennifer Allen had a choice on her hands. What to choose? Pele? Streets of Rage? Or how about this box with the hero and the aliens on…?

Kazunori’s War: the world of Gran Turismo’s creator – He keeps a selection of pre-packed bags by his desk so he can leave at a moment’s notice. He’s an occasional racing driver. And he spun out a car at 200km/h as a very naughty youth. He is Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of Gran Turismo, and Martin Robinson travels to Japan to meet him.

It’s not easy being green: a brief history of orcs in video games – Who invented orcs, how did they get their green colour, and when did they start being more than dumb enemies? Nic Reuben seeks answers.

Why did ancient Egypt spend 3000 years playing a game nobody else liked? – Here’s a game responsible for one of the first ever instances of trash talk, a game played by pharaohs, but even after 3000 years of play, Senet went the way of the disonaur. Christian Donlan tries to find out what happened.

The boy who stole Half-Life 2 – In May 2004, a German boy wakes to find his bed surrounded by armed police officers. Seven months earlier, the source code to the in-development-and-late Half-Life 2 leaks onto the internet. Simon Parkin tells the story of a global hacker hunt, from both sides.

The six-year story of GTA Online’s long-vacant casino – When GTA Online launched, the Vinewood Casino was there. It wasn’t open but it was “opening soon”, according to a sign on the door. One year later, still closed; two years later, still closed. Nearly six years later, still closed. Why did it take so long? Jordan Oloman digs into a troubled development.

The cult of Hideo Kojima – What is it about Hideo Kojima that has crowds turn out in their hundreds to meet him? Khee Hoon Chan waits among one such crowd in Singapore, and then all of a sudden, spotlight on, Kojima is there.

Hearts and minds – Tom Bramwell puts on his best suit for the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, and it leaves him wondering why there aren’t more heroes in games.

The US town ruled by an AI storyteller – Great storytellers talk about creative partnerships with all kinds of things, from drugs to religion to half-awake states of mind. Can artificial intelligence now be added to the list? Emily Gera shines a light on a fascinating storytelling experiment.

The God who Peter Molyneux forgot – Do you remember Curiosity and the promise of a life-changing prize for whoever tapped the last block? Brayn Henderson does – he tapped it. But did it change his life? Wesley Yin-Poole travels to Scotland to find out.

The Wind Waker inspired me to build a boat – Ever decided to build a boat because you really liked a game about sailing around? No of course not. Nor, I bet, have you ever bought an ocarina instrument because of a game, or fashioned your hair to look like Nathan Drake. Or have you? Omar Hafeez-Bore ponders the influence of games.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and the feud that keeps on running – This time he’s demanding a single coconut. Philippa Warr tells the a hilarious story of two lifelong friends falling out over a valentine.

Brando and Bowie: The amazing stories of a man you’ve never heard about – He alone witnessed Marlon Brando’s last ever performance, and David Bowie kissed him on the lips. He held high positions in the video game world and directed big games for big companies. And yet, he never quite found success as we know it. Or did he? Bertie tells a long story.

Why can’t video games get shoulders right? What an inspired question! And it turns out it’s all in the shoulder blades. Alan Wen investigates.

Viva Piñata places a brutal lens on late-stage capitalism – Don’t be fooled by its cutesy looks. Viva Piñata is, as Hazel Southwell tells us, maybe the only game where the kind of business psychopathy preached on Huel-based wellness retreats outside San Francisco will actually work.

The promise of a game world you can touch – James Holland puts his hands in front of him and as the on-screen bubbles start to pop, he feels them popping on his skin, on his bare skin – he’s not wearing gloves or equipment of any kind. Is this the tech of the future?

Inside Tomb of Horrors, the hardest D&D module ever made – Just getting inside can be an ordeal, as two of the entrances lead to certain death, and losing a character level 10 or higher – all that time invested – really hurts. Why would someone make something like that? Malindy Hetfield takes a closer look.

PS2: The Insiders’ Story – The PlayStation 2 is still the best-selling console in the world. It was a landmark machine and its success made Sony feel invincible. Ellie Gibson takes us back to a time of David Lynch adverts and wild parties.

VR has already taken people with dementia to the seaside, and now video games are exploring neurological disease itself – Watching a participant literally cry with happiness as they remove the headset is not a sight writer Luke Kemp will soon forget.

Decoding Shenzhen: The Chinese city that makes the world’s tech – Known as the mecca of manufacturing, Shenzhen is a fishing city turned megatropolis, where an idea can be made a reality and sold in a market stall in two weeks. Arshiya Khullar investigates.

The human cost of Red Dead Redemption 2 – In October 2018, Red Dead Redemption set a new benchmark for the kind of production values a video game could reach. Technically, it was a marvel. But at what cost?

The folklore roots of Sekiro’s anus-ball snatching enemies – Why does an enemy in Sekiro grab a pale fleshy thing from your behind, hold it up like a trophy, then devour it in its own behind? It’s all to do with some disturbing monsters in Japanese folklore, as Ewan Wilson finds out.

Why I play video games – Dr Omar Hafeez-Bore believes a good part of why he chose to pursue medicine was because of video games, and not for the reasons you may think.

Stories with dice: the thrill of old-school D&D – Even 40 years on, video games have a lot to learn from Dungeons & Dragons. Oli Welsh discovers the joy of pen-and-paper role-playing games.

A horse named Gizmondo: The inside story of the world’s greatest failed console – It’s like it never existed now, but for a while Gizmondo – a handheld gaming machine – was going to conquer the world. The 2005 launch party even featured Pharrell Williams and Sting. But less than a year later, the company behind Gizmondo collapsed into bankruptcy. Ellie Gibson hears the whole shady story from the people who were there.

Passing on the gift of games – Have you ever passed the gift of gaming on and watched someone come to terms with it like you once did? Oh the tantrums I used to throw playing Street Fighter! Emad Ahmed has a niece and nephew to pass the gift onto, with surprising effects.

After I stepped into Yakuza’s world, Yakuza’s world seeped into mine – Wish you were there, in Japan? Well, there are few games better than the Yakuza series for taking you there. They helped Malindy remember happy years studying there, and overcome a painful memory.

The quest for Shadow of the Colossus’ last big secret – What if everything in Fumito Ueda’s renowned game had not been found? Could there be a 17th colossi hidden somewhere, waiting to be discovered? Craig Owens takes us into a world of unsolved mysteries and secret hunters.

The secrets of Dark Souls lore explained and explored – It’s not easy to get at the story in Dark Souls because unlike in other games, it’s scattered and hidden away. Richard Stanton connects the dots for us.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/let-your-mind-wander-with-40-of-our-best-reads-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=let-your-mind-wander-with-40-of-our-best-reads-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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johnaculbreath · 6 years

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Save the date: adoption and foster care conference at Cato July 19

Details and registration here:

Panelists include Walter Olson, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies; Stephanie Barclay, Assistant Professor, J. Reuben Clarke School of Law, Brigham Young University; formerly Legal Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; Sarah Warbelow, Legal Director, Human Rights Campaign; Robin Fretwell Wilson, Roger and Stephany Joslin Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law; Elizabeth Bartholet, Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Faculty Director, Child Advocacy Program; Margaret Brinig, Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law, Notre Dame School of Law; Mark Montgomery, Professor of Enterprise and Leadership, Grinnell College; coauthor, Saving International Adoption: An Argument from Economics and Personal Experience; Irene Powell, Professor of Economics, Grinnell College; coauthor, Saving International Adoption: An Argument from Economics and Personal Experience; and Ryan Hanlon, Vice President of Education, Research, and Constituent Services, National Council for Adoption.

America has developed its own decentralized and pluralist approach to adoption, with a wide variety of both private and public actors helping match children with the families they need along several paths: adoption of older children in public care, including the foster-to-adopt path; adoption of newborns; and international adoption. But services for children in public care have been swept up in controversy over what if any role is appropriate for religious and other agencies that decline to work with gay parents or that give preference to cobelievers. The rate of international adoption, once hailed as a success, has plunged in recent years. Meanwhile, the domestic foster care system has long been beset by policy challenges.

How can government policy best avoid placing obstacles in the way of finding permanent homes for children? Are there ways to respond to legitimate concerns about international adoption, such as official corruption, that do not simply close down that process? What is the role of pluralism, and can groups with differing objectives and fundamental premises work side by side?

Cato’s half-day conference, featuring keynote speaker Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard law professor and noted adoption expert, will air a variety of informed views. Topics will include the conflict between LGBT advocates and some conservative religious agencies over the latter’s participation in state child placement systems; sources and possible solutions of the crisis in international adoption; and the proper role and practical effect of birth mother choice.

Tags: adoption, foster care, live in person

Save the date: adoption and foster care conference at Cato July 19 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Save the date: adoption and foster care conference at Cato July 19 republished via Overlawyered

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knowledgenabler · 7 years

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Facilitating change through the Transition Narrative towards Society 3.0 (Humanity 4.0)

Transition from surviving to sustainable development, from resilience building towards a thriving world in which humanity is inspired by & lives in balance & harmony with nature.

5P’s of sustainable thrivability

People – Planet – Progress – Purpose – Passion

INSPIRE people in HARMONY with the planet for BALANCED progress towards building communities that THRIVE!

Facilitate transformational changes in social values, resource needs and technological advancements, in which people, their capacities and human values matter and are central to the approach.

UNlearn to RElearn

Focus on CAPACITIES = uniqueness + limitations of self, team, company & extended enterprise to enable collaboration, co-design and co-creation

Inspire one – 1x = X1 – motivate many!

Learn from the changing world and share your change to the macro! Learn how you can participate your contributive change at the micro! We change the way we LIVE! We change the way of LIFE! Thriving in the flow of Life! Ideas for Life! Soul of Life!

For humanity and communities

(self and your immediate environment)

From ME to WE, from EGO to ECO, from SILOS to COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY

Connecting the econological shift (following the sequence is essential)

spiritual connected: connection between self and self

social connected: connection between self and others

ecological connected: connection between self and nature

Encouraging entrepreneurship (social, community and/or commercial)

For organizations and extended enterprise

(corporates, institutions and their stakeholders – extended enterprise)

From SHAREHOLDER to STAKEHOLDER Economics! From GROWTH & PROFIT to PROGRESS! Adding the 2Ps: PASSION & PURPOSE Think, act and lead without the box!

Transforming organizations and the extended enterprise to form lattice TEAL circles and working environments, which are agile, holistic and open.

Encouraging intrapreneurship (innovation, co-creation and agility)

How to ignore the box

apply lateral thinking techniques (TEAL – lattice circles & agile OD)

rethink situations as opportunities

connect the dots between creativity & innovation

walk the positive road – Learn to dream (Ai)

generate innovative opportunities aligned with your needs

promote intrapreneurship | encourage entrepreneurship

Lattice or TEAL organization forms take on worn-out corporate ladder inproductivity and adopt more agile ways to engage its people, processes and ultimately the extended enterprise in which a corporation operates.

Whole Systems Transformation is a journey! Systemic change is required at all levels of our society!

Whole System Transformation modality (Sullivan Transformation Agents)

Some references in this emerging evolution

– Otto Scharmer (Theory U & Presencing Institute)

We are collectively creating results nobody wants. That’s why leadership should help people to see the whole system. It is time to change our organizations and institutions, and bust three leadership myths.

3 visible divides:

The ecological divide: we currently use 1.5 times Planet Earth; that is our ecological footprint. This is the divide between self and nature.

The social divide: 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Here we see the divide between self and other.

The spiritual-cultural divide: people are excluded, experience lack of meaning and more and more feel depressed. The divide between self and Self. Capital Self represents your highest future potential that you may develop – what you are here for on Planet Earth.

– Frederic Laloux (Reinventing Organizations)

If we define Tops, Middle, Bottoms, and Customers, not as static boxes on an org chart, but as relational spaces or contexts, then they are still very much present. People just flow and navigate between these different spaces, including within the same day. So, on one initiative I am leading it, and I am in a Top space. Another time, somebody else is leading and I am just following; I am the Bottom. And in another situation, I might be sort of the Middle, somebody else is really leading the big picture of it, but I am designing some elements; I am coordinating some stuff.

And what this brings I think, is an enormous relief for the Bottoms and the Middles, and also for the Tops! We tend to think that being Top is so great. We often underestimate the weight of the poor people at the Top of the organizations who constantly have to be Top, and can never relax into Bottom, where I can just follow. I will do my share, but I don’t need to be in a leadership position”.

Hierarchy isn’t abandoned at Teal; what is dismantled is the static form of hierarchy that is in the buttress of the org chart. The goal of self-management is not to make everyone equal, to have everyone having the same say on all the questions. It is really the opposite. It’s to have natural hierarchies, and to have lots of natural hierarchies.

The following illustrations may assist you in understanding the evolutionary transition of humanity and how we transform communities and organizations to adapt to the changing future:

Evolutionary breakthroughs in human collaboration

The evolution of organizational paradigms

Evolution from Change Management to Change Facilitation

Kotter 8 step change model

Stages of human evolution according to Frederic Laloux and Otto Scharmer

The challenge response matrix

Social Evolution Matrix co-creative eco-systems

Paradigms of Economic Thought: symptoms of systemic disconnects

From hierarchical control structure to ecological approach with whole systems transformation.

Theory U – Leading from the Emerging Future

Biomimicry – applying nature’s principles