#Top 5 Classified Script

[bambi-kinos]

people’s arguments about why john has to be a bottom and not paul tend to regurgitate the same critique these people have about paul (“you say he’s a bottom just because he’s feminine!”) by bringing up john’s appearance and more femme attitude after ‘68 and then saying how paul is more masc because of his body / facial hair. i also feel like a lot of people still conflate dom/sub with top/bottom when it comes to mclennon. though i haven’t thought about the societal perception of receiving / giving, i had an ohhh moment when i read that in your post. i personally will always be a fan of service top john paired with a power bottom paul, but john being servicy to me doesn’t mean he’s “submissive” in the typical way. i think he can be dominant and aggressive with paul but that’s because paul allows him to be. like what you said about paul enjoying being john’s second and being put in his place by more domineering and strong men. there’s a lot of power play that goes on in their sexual relationship and it deeply fascinates me!

people’s arguments about why john has to be a bottom and not paul tend to regurgitate the same critique these people have about paul (“you say he’s a bottom just because he’s feminine!”) by bringing up john’s appearance and more femme attitude after ‘68 and then saying how paul is more masc because of his body / facial hair.

Yes, it gets very transparent for exactly those reasons. What makes me roll my eyes about the “you say he’s a bottom just because he’s feminine!” thing is that anyone who bitches about this can only imagine switching the roles and having Paul by a hypermasculine stoic (which breaks characterization) and having John be a hyperfeminine bottom (which is also OOC). I don't think that the original complaints are necessarily a bad thing, there is an iteration problem in McLennon fandom where Paul can sometimes be reduced to a weepy princess, though I haven't heard of any fics coming out in the past 5 years that actually made this mistake. But it does annoy me that fandom can only imagine flipping the script and having John be the weepy bottom princess. It never leads to something more creative or interesting being produced where John and Paul's roles, both self assigned and imposed on them, are discussed especially for the effect it had their relationship.

It would be interesting to explore John's femme qualities but I think that fans are hesitant about going there because they would have to admit that John's passivity in 1968 was induced by his heroin addiction which destroyed his life and his relationships. There's never any appreciating John's femininity when he wasn't on heroin even though 1965 is arguably when John was at the most soft spoken and open minded. I find it a little sad that John's feminine qualities are only appreciated when he was at the peak of his hatefulness and addiction.

i also feel like a lot of people still conflate dom/sub with top/bottom when it comes to mclennon.

A lot of that is wish fulfillment IMO. Especially since Paul fans are usually the ones driving it and it's pretty universal that we want to see him get railed, not really the other way around. We like him because he's so poundable. So it's nice that he has a built in boyfriend who's willing to fuck him until he cries, you know. And it's easy to classify that as top/bottom::dom/sub.

McLennon is very subtle in some ways because of the give and take between John and Paul was so weird and it's just really difficult for us as outsiders to grasp. John and Paul themselves are baffled and confused by it. It makes me wonder if part of their dissolution was the fact that they didn't understand how much power they held over the other one which meant that they couldn't understand why their decisions were having such profound effects on the other person. They seem profoundly frustrated and bewildered by the undercurrents of their relationship where they perfectly fulfill each other in all ways except one, and how deeply unsatisfying their other relationships have been in comparison.

I think @amoralto damaged the fandom for this in some ways because she ended up having a popular blog which meant that her interpretations of John in particular were xeroxed over and over. The problem with this being that I don't think amoralto fully appreciated the power dynamic between John and Paul and her bias against John crept into her opinions which means that they screwed up the fandom discourse. If you go purely by her public posts then amoralto appears to be under the impression that John was a hysteric that was perpetually shitting himself about Paul one upping him. There is some truth to that but it's also not the whole story because Paul's ability to pull the rug out from under John was always a source of pride, fascination, love, and eroticism for John. Yesterday rocked John's world but he was also proud of Paul for being such an incredible artist and he was always pleased about being the one who discovered Paul. He was always aware that Paul had a lot of power over him and John both reveled and despaired in that.

This relates to the top/bottom::dom/sub thing because this dynamic would naturally play out in an erotic relationship between John and Paul. There's the surface layer where John is railing Paul but then there's the additional layer where Paul is the one enticing John to do it by showing his ass off (like really, who do you think those tight cut trousers are for?) and inviting John to put his cock inside Paul. And then there's the part where John's butch attitude and even some of his violence was egged on and encouraged by Paul who was most likely turned on by John punching people out. Paul was not the slightest bit put off by John being a violent person or else he would have bailed within a year of knowing him. When Julia died, Paul is the only one who had patience with John who was getting drunk and getting into fights…meanwhile there's a femmeboi in the background making soothing noises and cleaning him up so that he's fit for company. Really makes the your mind run wild with possibilities huh? Who is to say Paul didn't say "c'mon Johnny, just put it in me mouth and I'll fix you up." Or something!

The point is Paul is ultimately in control of the situation. This is supposed to be what dom/sub set ups are supposed to be anyway, subs are the ones who dictate the conditions in the bedroom. But considering how John built Paul up in his mind, it seems clear that Paul had a lot of overt power over John too. They don't fit neatly into the dom/sub set up either.

They switched power positions constantly and they got a lot of pleasure out of dominating but also being dominated. Paul liked being on top and being on bottom and John liked it when he got to be on top of Paul and when Paul crushed him. The pleasure was in the struggle itself, not necessarily the positions in of themselves.

though i haven’t thought about the societal perception of receiving / giving, i had an ohhh moment when i read that in your post.

It's not nearly as prevelent now though it still lingers. But heteronormativity really dictated the nature of a lot of relationships in the past.

i personally will always be a fan of service top john paired with a power bottom paul, but john being servicy to me doesn’t mean he’s “submissive” in the typical way. i think he can be dominant and aggressive with paul but that’s because paul allows him to be.

IMO there's a lot of truth to this! @zilabee has a really nice post about how John and Paul could afford to be gentle with one another and wrote love songs together. I think that a service top john/power bottom paul really fits this dynamic because it allowed John and Paul to express themselves to each other which solidified their mutual trust and their bond.

In a lot of ways Paul was an ideal partner for John in that he was someone John could have sex with that didn't have consequences (such as pregnancy) while Paul also had the feminine beauty that John really loved. (There's a quote from Yoko I think that John claimed if he fell in love with another man then that man would have to be extremely beautiful. Handsome is not enough.) John could probably be a lot rougher with Paul who could stand up to being tossed around a bit if needed but was beautiful enough for John to fuck tenderly too. Paul wasn't afraid of John's rough side and even encouraged it and decided to love it. In some ways John being a service top lets him express that roughness sexually with someone who won't break in half from being treated like a sack of potatoes. And there wouldn't be judgment from Paul either because he is still a man and experienced the same puberty and testosterone that John did including the same struggles with temper, the bodily changes, etc. He knows where John is coming from whereas a 1960s woman would not. (The transwomen, crossdressers, and homosexuals in Hamburg may have been John's first explicit taste of this. People who were familiar with what growing up as a male would be like so they didn't judge John for his proclivities and interests.)

In other words, John could express himself sexually with Paul in a way that he probably couldn't with women. Paul was fine with it judging from that photo of John's nutsack against his back and it fulfilled his needs as well!

like what you said about paul enjoying being john’s second and being put in his place by more domineering and strong men. there’s a lot of power play that goes on in their sexual relationship and it deeply fascinates me!

Yes! John overwhelms and dominates Paul but it's because Paul wants it to happen. He relied on John's intuition and discernment and ultimately his trust in John to carry it through. John has a partner who can't get pregnant when he climaxes inside him and then can take it on the chin when John is rough and/or degrading. All while he's sharply aware of how much Paul likes it which itself feeds into John's eros, and so on and on…

[shastra101]

How to Start a Career in Software Testing

In today’s fast-paced IT industry, software testing has emerged as a crucial domain ensuring the delivery of high-quality applications. With the growing demand for skilled testers, now is the perfect time to step into this rewarding career. Whether you’re a fresh graduate or someone looking for a career switch, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you start your journey in software testing.

1. Understand the Basics of Software Testing

Software testing involves evaluating an application to detect bugs, performance issues, and security vulnerabilities. It is classified into two main types:

Manual Testing — Where testers execute test cases manually.

Automation Testing — Where scripts and tools automate test execution.

Before enrolling in a course, familiarize yourself with different testing methodologies, such as unit testing, integration testing, and system testing.

2. Get the Right Education and Training

While a degree in computer science is beneficial, it is not mandatory. Many professionals enter the software testing field through specialized training programs. If you are in Pune, you can join Software Testing Classes in Pune, which provide hands-on experience with real-world projects.

Additionally, having a basic understanding of programming languages can be helpful. Many software testers transition into automation testing, where coding knowledge is beneficial.

3. Learn Popular Testing Tools

A good tester should be proficient in industry-standard tools like:

Selenium (for automation testing)

JIRA (for bug tracking)

Postman (for API testing)

JMeter (for performance testing)

If you’re looking to expand your skill set further, consider enrolling in a Full Stack Java Developer Course in Pune to gain knowledge of backend technologies, which can be valuable in software testing roles.

4. Gain Practical Experience

Hands-on experience is crucial in software testing. Try working on open-source projects, participate in bug bounty programs, or seek internships that offer practical exposure. Many Software Testing Classes in Pune offer live project experience, which can significantly enhance your learning curve.

5. Develop Problem-Solving and Analytical Skills

Software testing requires a keen eye for detail, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Testers must anticipate potential issues and ensure that software applications function seamlessly under various conditions.

6. Explore Automation Testing

Automation testing is gaining traction as companies seek faster and more efficient testing solutions. Learning automation frameworks like Selenium WebDriver and TestNG can give you a competitive edge. Additionally, knowledge of JavaScript libraries can be beneficial, so you may also consider a React Js Course in Pune to understand front-end frameworks that interact with testing tools.

7. Earn Certifications

Certifications add credibility to your profile and increase job prospects. Some well-known certifications include:

ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board)

Certified Agile Tester (CAT)

Certified Selenium Professional

8. Apply for Jobs and Build a Strong Resume

Once you have acquired the necessary skills and certifications, start applying for entry-level software testing roles. Highlight your knowledge of tools, testing methodologies, and any hands-on projects you have worked on.

Why Choose Testing Shastra?

If you are looking for the best Software Testing Classes in Pune, Testing Shastra is a top choice. Here’s why:

Live Project-Based Training: Learn with real-world applications to gain practical experience.

Expert Mentors: Industry professionals guide students through hands-on learning.

Placement Support: 100% placement assistance to help you land your dream job.

Comprehensive Course Modules: Covering both manual and automation testing for a complete learning experience.

By following this guide and leveraging the resources available at Testing Shastra, you can successfully launch your career in software testing. Stay committed to learning, gain hands-on experience, and keep yourself updated with industry trends to excel in this ever-growing field.

To know more about Testing Shastra,

Visit website: https://www.testingshastra.com/ Address: 504, Ganeesham E, Pimple Saudagar, Pune. Email: info@testingshastra.com Get directions: https://maps.app.goo.gl/V1v8MqfFeLMsisQYA

[blogchaindeveloper]

Interactive Prompts: Engaging Users in the Machine Learning Process

Machine learning has advanced significantly in recent years; one notable example is ChatGPT, an advanced language model created by OpenAI. ChatGPT is a flexible tool that supports natural language conversations and is helpful for various applications. This article will examine the top 15 interactive prompts that use ChatGPT's machine-learning capabilities.

1. Making Code Understanding Simpler

ChatGPT is a valuable resource for developers looking for concise explanations of code snippets and algorithms. ChatGPT's thorough insights make comprehending the complexities of algorithms and machine learning techniques easier.

Ideas for prompts:

Give a brief explanation of the cross-validation idea.

Distinguish between algorithms for supervised and unsupervised learning.

Describe how gradient descent works while training a machine learning model.

2. Simplifying the Generation of Code

With ChatGPT, code generation—creating source code from pre-established patterns—becomes more effective. This feature helps the machine learning development process save time by decreasing manual coding and repeated operations.

Ideas for prompts:

Use Scikit-learn to generate code for a linear regression model.

Write code that uses stemming and tokenization, two natural language processing methods, to preprocess text data.

3. Improving the Code Review Process

Code review is still crucial, even in solo development projects. ChatGPT helps with this process by offering insights, spotting any problems, and proposing fixes to guarantee the effectiveness and caliber of machine-learning algorithms.

Ideas for prompts:

Examine a machine learning algorithm's implementation and provide suggestions for enhancements.

Evaluate a linear regression model's code and suggest improving its functionality.

4. Optimizing Code Refactoring

In machine learning, optimizing current code without changing its behavior is essential. ChatGPT facilitates code refactoring, modularization, variable and function name clearing, and code duplication elimination.

Ideas for prompts:

Rework a machine learning script to make it more reusable and modular.

Use well-known machine-learning packages to streamline the code for loading and prepping datasets.

5. Effective Code Finishing

The code completion function in ChatGPT improves coding productivity. By quickly producing code snippets, finishing function calls, and recommending suitable syntax based on the situation, developers can increase productivity in machine learning development and save time and effort.

Ideas for prompts:

Give sample code for everyday machine learning tasks, such as evaluating models or scaling features.

Help finish implementing a function that determines a machine learning classifier's accuracy.

6. Smooth Conversion of Code

ChatGPT promotes cross-platform compatibility by simplifying translating machine learning code between programming languages. Developers may easily translate code snippets, libraries, and frameworks between languages, improving cooperation throughout the machine-learning ecosystem.

Ideas for prompts:

Convert a TensorFlow machine learning model to PyTorch.

Convert a machine learning script written in Python into a Jupyter Notebook.

7. Accurately Recognizing Bugs

Building trustworthy models requires identifying and fixing errors in machine-learning code. By helping developers find and fix bugs, ChatGPT guarantees the dependability and quality of machine learning systems.

Ideas for prompts:

Find and fix machine learning program mistakes that result in unexpected behavior.

Determine whether possible problems with the data preprocessing stages are impacting a model's performance.

8. Documentation Simplified

Up-to-date documentation is crucial for cooperative machine-learning initiatives. ChatGPT can provide in-depth documentation that addresses many facets of machine learning projects, enhancing team collaboration.

Ideas for prompts:

Helped efficiently document machine learning projects, including dependencies and model architectures.

Describe the process of creating lucid documentation for machine learning packages or APIs.

9. Using GitHub and Git to Manage Version Control

Managing machine learning projects requires an understanding of and ability to use version control with Git and GitHub. ChatGPT facilitates efficient teamwork by helping users understand standard instructions and best practices.

Ideas for prompts:

GitHub and Git version control best practices guide for machine learning applications.

Assist with standard Git commands and processes that are pertinent to the development of machine learning.

10. Test Cases and Testing Strategies

In machine learning applications, ChatGPT helps create test cases test documentation, and improve testing procedures. Although ML testing may take a different approach, ChatGPT enhances the testing procedure as a whole.

Ideas for prompts:

Talk about methods for assessing machine learning models with suitable test datasets.

Give instances of machine learning code integration or unit testing.

11. Keeping Up with the Most Recent Frameworks

For practitioners of machine learning, ongoing education is essential. ChatGPT helps developers stay updated with the newest developments by learning new frameworks, offering explanations, code samples, and the ability to see possible problems in their code.

Ideas for prompts:

Summarize well-known machine learning frameworks like Scikit-learn, PyTorch, or TensorFlow.

Help learn the fundamentals and start with a particular machine learning framework.

12. Handling Hyperparameter Adjustment

Machine learning model optimization requires hyperparameter adjustment. ChatGPT advises locating the best hyperparameters and appreciating the significance of hyperparameter tuning.

Ideas for prompts:

Talk about how crucial hyperparameter tuning is to machine learning.

Help choose suitable values and ranges for a machine learning model's hyperparameters.

13. Making Model Deployment Easier

One of the most critical phases in machine learning projects is model deployment. ChatGPT offers insights into various deployment strategies to help developers make trained models available and functional for practical application.

Ideas for prompts:

Describe the various methods for implementing a machine learning model in a real-world setting.

Talk about the best practices and factors to consider when implementing machine learning models as RESTful APIs.

14. Getting the Hang of Data Augmentation Methods

Diversifying training datasets in machine learning requires an understanding of data augmentation. ChatGPT offers thorough explanations and real-world examples of popular data augmentation methods.

Ideas for prompts:

Explain popular methods for augmenting data to make training datasets more extensive and varied.

Give instances of code that apply data augmentation to text or visual data.

15. Clarifying the Interpretability of Models

Model interpretability is essential to comprehending how models generate predictions. ChatGPT helps users understand and evaluate interpretability techniques like partial dependence graphs and feature importance.

Ideas for prompts:

Talk about how crucial model interpretability is to machine learning.

Describe how to understand machine learning model predictions using methods like LIME or SHAP.

In the Age of Advanced Language Models, the Emergence of AI Prompt Engineers 

The value of a prompt engineer has increased significantly in recent years, particularly with the introduction of sophisticated language models like ChatGPT. Because they are skilled at crafting captivating prompts that elicit perceptive and educational answers, AI prompt engineers are essential to maximizing the potential of these models. 

Because this skill set is so essential, specific courses have been created to teach engineers punctuality. These courses aim to give students the skills and knowledge to develop prompts that efficiently communicate with AI models and generate precise and insightful answers. 

These classes concentrate on the complexities of prompt engineering, going beyond traditional machine learning instruction. In the computer sector, a prompt engineer certification is becoming increasingly valuable since it denotes a thorough comprehension of extracting contextually relevant and meaningful information from language models. 

Students who complete the prompt engineer course can create prompts that improve code comprehension, expedite code generation, and enable efficient code review. To guarantee that the language model reacts to different queries as best it can; it also delves into the subtleties of creating prompts for activities like code restructuring and model interpretation. 

A prompt engineering certification attests to one's ability to use language models like ChatGPT in various applications, which is becoming increasingly important as the need for qualified prompt engineers increases. 

To ensure that professionals are skilled at utilizing the capabilities of sophisticated language models to their maximum potential, enrolling in a prompt engineering course is an educational endeavor and a calculated investment in staying at the forefront of the constantly changing fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

To sum up, this paper examines the interactive prompts that employ ChatGPT's features to involve users in machine learning. ChatGPT becomes an essential tool for developers wishing to improve their knowledge and abilities in machine learning by demythologizing challenging ideas, providing valuable insights, and supplying code examples.Blockchain Council offers thorough AI certification training for anyone keen to learn more about the craft. The Blockchain Council, an authoritative association of subject matter experts and enthusiasts, promotes blockchain research and development, investigates use cases, creates products, and shares knowledge for a better society. Blockchain Council is a valuable platform that helps businesses move from conventional centralized systems to the cutting-edge and futuristic world of blockchain, acknowledging the revolutionary potential of blockchain technology.

[mark-selasky]

This newspaper article shows off rhythm in publication design because of the sections and paragraphs. It kind of directs the viewers eye around the page as to where they should be reading next. It has a flow of top to bottom and left to right which is known as the rhythm here.

2. This instructional pamphlet is an example of typographic hierarchy because of the differences we see in the type. For example, the title at the top is bold and bigger than the rest of the content, the headlines are bolded but smaller font size than the title, and the text is smaller and has the regular font weight. All of this contributes to the order and hierarchy on the page.

3. The type in the Goldfish logo has a few good examples of an ascender because there are a lot of parts of the letters that extend upward above the x-height. A good letter here would be the lowercase f as the hook part extends above the crossbar and x-height.

4. The Patagonia logo is an example that shows what a descender is. The p and g are both letters with descenders as they have parts of their letters that extend below the baseline of the entire type.

5. This MSU Live On sticker has a few examples of what a counter is. Letters like o, b, a, r, and d all have spaces within the letters themselves and these are known as the counters.

6. This next MSU sticker has a few good examples of what a crossbar is in typography. For example, looking at the words RAH! RAH! RAH!, you can see that in the capital a and capital h, there is a horizontal line that connects each stem/main stroke of the letter.

7. The Meijer logo is a good example of a type with a large x-height because the ascenders and descenders do not drastically extend above or below the baseline or the mean line.

8. The Pabst Blue Ribbon logo type is a good example of a type with a small x-height because the type has many ascenders that extend drastically above the mean line. You can see this by looking at letters like the P, b, t, l, and i, and comparing them to letters like the a, s, u, or e for example.

9. I feel like this Bud Light logo is an example of what classifies as "modernism" according to the Helvetica documentary because modernism type is very simplistic and versatile as it could be used in any situation really. Also modernist type is usually pretty big and bold and takes up a decent amount of the space it occupies as does the Bud Light type here.

10. The Arnold Palmer type is an example of a type that is trying to connote something rather than just being a readable typeface. The type here is trying to connote the class or fanciness of the drink with the cursive scripted typeface.

[kitsmits]

“The Haunting of Borley Manor” - a movie review.

I watched this movie tonight with my husband - admittedly, I missed the first 5 minutes or so because I was listening to a podcast, but once I started watching…I couldn’t look away. It was just so bad. I was so moved by the viewing experience that I simply must share the review I left on Amazon with y’all. (This is what I do instead of writing my own freakin’ stories.)

Ahem.

Taglines: Haunting…Atmospheric…Cerebral…

Well, I guess one could call a lobotomy “cerebral.” I’ll give it this: It certainly made me think of plenty of ways to tell the story better. The writing was just…UGH. (There. Looks like the vocab center of my brain was lobotomized.) Maybe I’ve been watching too many courtroom trials lately, because I found myself wanting to yell “Objection - no foundation!” SO many times. Like…it’s fine to let the audience form questions, but more often than not, the questions raised were of the frustrating “what the ****” variety.

Borley Manor is an actual place with actual lore to it - the podcast “Lore” has a whole episode on it, and plenty of books and movies have been inspired by it. I’d heard the story through that podcast before, and I’d seen another movie about the manor - though I’ll admit, I don’t remember much of either, and my husband had to remind me of both. Once he did, a few aspects of this movie suddenly made more sense: There were gaping holes in the plot and dialogue that, in hindsight, seem to exist in part because the writer(s) are assuming the audience has some knowledge going in. Or, maybe they were so close to their own project, so completely immersed in the story they were trying to tell, that they forgot to establish most of the pertinent facts and circumstances. You know how sometimes, when you work on, say, an essay for WAY too long, you stop seeing your own typos and inconsistencies? Your brain auto-corrects them for you, because YOU know what you meant to say and how you meant to say its? Perhaps that’s what happened here: the writers’ minds automatically filled the yawning caverns in the script.

Or maybe they just REALLY needed to write a second draft.

The main character, whose name I do not recall, is the most American American who ever American’d in England. Honestly, he kinda makes the film feel like a self-insert fanfiction about the Borley Manor. He’s young, handsome, he’s the best at what he does (we’re told), he’s got a Tragic Backstory(TM) and Psychological Trauma, and he’s the Chosen One to uncover this ghostly mystery.

He’s been sent to a tiny village in the English countryside by the Allied Forces to try and listen in on the Germans (oh yeah, this is during WW2, btw). We do see him plenty of times in his little rented cabin with radio equipment and headphones throughout the film. His background prior to the war, we are told through a pointless side character, is in “languages and science.” Yes, you read that right: Science. Just…science. He sciences. You know what? I think I’ll just call him John Johnson who does Job at Place (and if you understand that reference, we are now best friends). Oh, and he’s also apparently a total whiz with languages, but that winds up mattering about as much as establishing what Science he sciences in. He insists to several characters that what he’s doing is classified, covert, super top secret he can’t tell you anything - oh, wait, you asked him about it a second time? Okay, sure, he can tell you what he’s doing. He’s not supposed to have civilians in his cabin either apparently, as he quite loudly states later on after he’s allowed several civilians into the place at various times.

Anyway. American military dude with a war injury, stationed in the English countryside to try and pick up on German transmissions…there’s a burned-down rectory nearby, a war going on, he has PTSD…plenty of great opportunities for creepy stuff. Heck, this would’ve been an excellent setup for a psychological thriller: How much of this is actually happening, and how much is in his head? Maybe have some undeniably real things happen around him - some randomly butchered animals, a villager found murdered (especially one who we’ve been introduced to), for example. Something to suggest that there are actual stakes, that uncovering the mystery of the supposed haunting is important. You might even think the radio will play a role.

(I mean…there IS a scene where he hears a creepy whisper over the radio reciting a prayer about “those who follow worthless idols,” but that’s about it.)

Nope. None of that. We are TOLD the villagers find the manor scary - oh, and John Johnson’s cabin, too, for who-the-heck-knows what reason. We are TOLD the most surface-level history of the place, how it burned down a little before the war, but the fire itself doesn’t seem to be the source or even an effect of the haunting. Creepy Ghost Nun just…happened to be there? Watching? Because ghosts are drawn to misery? Oh, and C. G. Nun also made a “shhh” gesture at Female Romantic Interest(But Not Really), but…that makes no sense when you get to the resolution of the film. (That actually JUST occurred to me now.)

Anyway, our American self-insert, John Johnson, goes for a walk, has a random PTSD flashback to when he was injured in the war (complete with over-exposed grayscale and possibly actual historical stock footage that does not fit in with the style of the rest of the film), and suddenly, he’s waking up at Borley Manor - the titular, burned-down rectory. How’d we get here? Dunno. (There’s a good chance I’m conflating this scene with one of a literal dozen others, to be honest - because they all play out the same way: JJ has PTSD flashback, or JJ has weird dream involving a screaming woman at the manor, followed immediately by JJ waking up in a usually random place. It. Happens. A. Lot.)

So JJ kinda looks around the grounds a bit, and then, when he walks off-screen…Ghost Nun rises like a undead prairie dog from the overgrown weeds. Dun dun DUN!

That pretty much sets the tone for the whole movie. It’s trying WAY too hard to be creepy, but it blew its load by showing the nun in her entirety right near the beginning. It tries to build atmosphere, but between the way-too-consistently-sunny-for-England weather and the high saturation of colors it just looks too bright to be eerie. The quick, often nonsensical cuts between shots were vertigo-inducing; I had to look away from the screen several times because of it. Never felt the need to look away when creepy stuff was happening, though, because it was extremely obvious to the point of being silly whenever it did happen. The plot had more holes than a honey comb. Oh, and don’t get me started on the stilted, unnatural, Turing-test-failing dialogue, or we’ll be here all year.

(Okay - a small, only somewhat paraphrased sample. Scene: Unnecessarily Creepy Neighbor (Whom I Was Half-Convinced Was, In Fact, A Bug Man In Disguise) shows up inside JJ’s cabin. JJ was, once again, randomly asleep, and wakes to find UCN(WIWHCWIFABMID) poking at his radio equipment.)

JJ: “You can’t be here!”

UCN: “Says who?”

JJ: “Will you help me?”

UCN: “No.”

JJ: “Then find me this man.”

I’m only paraphrasing a little. That really was the gist of the scene.)

The best part of the movie, though? The end credits. I’m not even being facetious here; the credits were actually kinda hilarious, and made the whole experience worthwhile. I recommend watching the movie just for those. The movie itself was also rather fun to critique, though I suggest watching with another person so that when you start yelling at the screen your neighbors won’t assume you’re having a psychotic break.

[alphacodez]

Alphacodez Clone solutions thrive your entrepreneurial dreams in to reality

Our Top clone solutions :

1. AlphaKartz: Elevate Ecommerce! Tailored multivendor scripts for bespoke needs Optimized models for assured success. #AlphaKartz

2. AlphaBookz: Innovative Appointments! Ready-to-deploy scripts are revolutionizing booking. Refined models, tailored for brilliance. #AlphaBookz

3. Alpha Yumz: Culinary Triumph! Irresistible food delivery scripts are reshaping the landscape. Propel your platform to prominence. #AlphaYumz

4. AlphaTripz: Explore Adventures! Captivating tour scripts connect travelers with unparalleled experiences. Ignite wanderlust with AlphaTripz. #AlphaTripz

5. AlphaAwayz: Travel Excellence! Build elite platforms connecting travelers with dream destinations. Discover excellence with AlphaAwayz. #AlphaAwayz

6. AlphaStreamz: Entertainment Mastery! Captivate audiences with elite streaming scripts. Dominate the digital realm with AlphaStreamz. #AlphaStreamz

7. AlphaFunz: Connect and Delight! Ignite connections and laughter through dating and fun scripts. Embrace AlphaFunz for engagement. #AlphaFunz

8. AlphaCoachz: Learning Redefined! Transform education with innovative scripts. Foster connectivity and shape a brighter future with AlphaCoachz. #AlphaCoachz

9. AlphaFundz: Realize dreams! Empower projects and unite communities with crowdfunding scripts. Shape your aspirations with AlphaFundz. #AlphaFundz

10. AlphaAdz: Marketplace Mastery! Transform classifieds with high-performing scripts. Unleash your potential with AlphaAdz. #AlphaAdz

Reach us : info@alphacodez.com

Website : www.alphacodez.com

[usafphantom2]

My fight with secret MiGs: An F-15 Eagle pilot writes

Hush KitOctober 20, 2020

Credit: USAF

The USAF operated a secret force of purloined Soviet fighters to expose USAF fighter pilots to the strengths and weaknesses of the aircraft they were likely to meet in war. Here former F-15 Eagle pilot Paul Woodford reveals his own personal encounters ‘fighting’ the air force’s strangest unit.

Read from the perspective of the MiG Aggressor pilot here

An aviation photographer and writer I follow on Twitter posted this the other day:

I couldn’t resist commenting:

My response triggered questions, mostly from people wanting to know when, where, and how it happened. Not that many years ago I could have gotten in serious trouble for even confessing to flying against a MiG, never mind sharing the details.

One of the aviation writers who participated in the discussion prompted me to tell the story on my blog. I’m flattered to learn a working aviation writer and journalist — someone who actually gets paid to do it — knows about my blog, but in fact I have told part of the story here. This is from a post I wrote in 2018:

In my day the USAF ran a super-secret program (finally declassified in 2006, which is why I can write about it now) called Constant Peg from an airstrip near Tonopah, Nevada, where it had a small squadron of MiG-21 Fishbeds and MiG-23 Floggers. Aircrews at Nellis AFB’s Fighter Weapons School, along with visiting aircrews taking part in Red Flag air war exercises, were able to go out in ones and twos to engage with the MiGs over Tonopah. It wasn’t adversary training, not really … it was a familiarization program, as in “here’s what a MiG looks like in the air, here’s how it flies and fights, here are its strengths and weaknesses” … the idea being to get the buck fever out of your system before you saw the real thing in combat. Great training, but strictly limited (as in you only got to do it once), rigidly scripted, nothing like actual air combat.

Here’s the rest of the story, as I remember it.

During my first two F-15 assignments, from 1978 to 1985, I frequently trained with and flew against USAF aggressor pilots trained in Soviet tactics and equipped with F-5E Tigers, roughly equivalent in size and performance to the MiG-21 Fishbed, which at the time was still one of the other side’s front-line combat aircraft. I’d heard whispers about a program where USAF fighter pilots got to fly against actual MiGs, but that was the extent of it — bar talk and rumor.

In 1984, I deployed from Alaska to Nevada for a Red Flag exercise. It was there I was read in to the Constant Peg program and realized I was going to get to see the MiG-21 and MiG-23 in action. The program was highly classified, not so much due to the fact we had MiGs, but to conceal how we obtained them. We had to be formally read in before participating; afterward we were read out and warned never to talk about it, even with F-15 squadron mates.

The MiG pilots were assigned to a unit called the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, the “Red Eagles.” They were experienced Air Force and Navy fighter pilots, a lot of them veterans of the F-5 Aggressor program, and many were “target arms” — Fighter Weapons School graduates. My Constant Peg flight consisted of me, a wingman, and two Red Eagle pilots — one flew the MiG-21, the other the MiG-23. We briefed at Nellis, three to four hours before our scheduled takeoff time. That allowed time for the MiG pilots to hop on their transport aircraft, a Mitsubishi MU-2, and fly uprange to the Tonopah Test Range airfield where the MiGs were based.

Tonopah_Test_Range_Airport_-_1990

Tonopah Test Range Airport (USAF photo)

My wingman and I took off in our F-15s at the scheduled time, met a tanker over Caliente and topped off, and headed northwest to Tonopah. The MiG pilots monitored our progress on the radio, calibrating their takeoffs to give us maximum time with each. Which translated into the MiG-21 taking off just before we entered the working area over Tonopah and jumping us the second we did.

Sadly, we are again way behind our funding targets. This site is entirely funded by donations from people like you. We have no pay wall, adverts (any adverts you see on this page are not from us) or subscription and want to keep it that way– please donate here to keep this site going. You can really help.

Eagle versus the Russian Flanker here

We took turns dogfighting the Fishbed, which was (to me, anyway) surprisingly nimble and tight turning, hard to see due to its small size, and hard to get a guns tracking shot on. The Fishbed, if it uses afterburner (as ours did the entire time we fought with it) has enough gas to fly for about 20 minutes. It was a busy 20 minutes for both of us.

4477th_Test_and_Evaluation_Squadron_MiG_21_Landing

Red Eagle MiG-21 Fishbed (USAF photo)

As the Fishbed turned back toward Tonopah, almost directly below us, the Flogger joined our our wing. We didn’t do as much turning and burning as we had with the Fishbed. The Flogger, as we’d been briefed, doesn’t turn for crap, and bleeds off energy quickly. Instead, our MiG-23 pilot showed us how it flies, which is as poorly as it fights: difficult to control and unstable, especially with the wings swept aft. What it could do well, as its pilot showed us, was make a high speed, high-angle attack and then run. It accelerated away from us like nothing I’ve seen before or since, driving home the point that if you have a missile shot at a no-shit fast mover you’d better take it right now, because in a second it’ll accelerate right out of the firing envelope, and I guess that was the object of the lesson. The F-15 has the top speed advantage, but there isn’t enough fuel in the world to catch up with a Flogger determined to get out of Dodge. Read from the perspective of the MiG Aggressor pilot here

MiG-23 Flogger (photo credit: unknown)

We did not land at Tonopah to debrief. The airfield was also home to the Black Jet, the F-117 stealth fighter-bomber, and everything there was classified to hell and gone, just like the airfield in nearby Area 51. Instead, we flew back to Nellis, followed a while later by our Red Eagle adversaries in their cushy little Mits.

One odd detail sticks in my memory. During the briefing and debriefing, I was distracted by the grotesquely long and curled pinky nail of our MiG-21 driver, apparently a fetish of his. In my Air Force, anything like that would have been a Be-No; apparently the Red Eagles had more freedom to indulge in personal eccentricities. Not sure why I’m sharing this memory, other than that it still gives me shivers.

Here’s a new thing! An exclusive Hush-Kit newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. Hot aviation gossip, opinion, warplane technology updates, madcap history and other insights from the world of aviation by @Hush_Kit Sign up here

I believe Red Eagle pilots were dual-qualified, meaning that they flew and maintained proficiency in two aircraft simultaneously. Holding dual qualifications was common in the USAF of the 1950s and 60s but was rare in my day. I can’t recall if their other aircraft was the F-5 Tiger or A-7 Corsair II (probably the latter, since it was the aircraft their Tonopah colleagues, the F-117 pilots, were dual-qualified in). Perhaps someone who knows can enlighten us in a comment. Of course a few of the Red Eagles were also current in the Mits, the MU-2 twin turboprop they flew back and forth between Nellis and Tonopah.

Well, those were the Reagan years, when budgets were fat and the military services could (and did) ask for the moon. The USAF had Constant Peg and three full-up F-5 Aggressor squadrons, one each in Europe, the Pacific, and CONUS. Imaging having all that, then asking Uncle Sam for a spiffy little business turboprop to get back and forth in — and getting it!

These programs ended, or were sharply curtailed, with the end of the Cold War. Constant Peg went away. The Aggressor squadrons were deactivated, eventually coming back in the form of what are today two small F-16 adversary training units, one at Nellis and one in Alaska, plus small contracts with civilian aggressors operating older foreign-built fighters (Hawker Hunters, Kfirs, and Mirages). With the post-Cold War integration of former Warsaw Pact nations into NATO, USAF pilots assigned to Europe have had limited opportunities to fly with, and train against, more modern Russian-built equipment. National air forces operating Russian aircraft now participate in Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB. Training opportunities are there, but they are a far cry from what we had in the early 1980s.

I have to say, I think I got to fly the F-15 Eagle at precisely the right point in history, and will be forever grateful for the experience.

[classifiedscripts]

Top 5 Features A Classified Script Offers To Marketplace Business

The features of a dating platform make it successful. If you are planning to get into this industry, use a classified script for a feature-packed platform.

[thewhizzyhead]

a non-filipino's guide to trese: ep 1

So some of my mutuals decided to check out Trese aka the Netflix adaptation of the Filipino horror comic book series that I keep rambling about here and then since well um most of my mutuals aren’t from the Philippines fshfs I decided to make a long-ass post that basically consists of me rambling about the cultural context present in Trese with fun little tidbits about Filipino folklore. I’m not an expert on Filipino mythology so um I just typed out the stuff that I know and the stuff that I looked up on Wikipedia so um take this with a grain of salt aaaaa I’ll save the extensive google scholar research ramble on folklore present in Trese for another day.

I’ll try to find the sites where I got some of the information from cause um yea I kinda had a bit of a hard time finding the other shit so um once again, take the stuff here with a grain of salt. Also, feel free to add more info if you guys got any!

SO ANYWAYS ENJOY ME RAMBLING ABOUT EPISODE 1 OF TRESE WOO

+ MRT and LRT (Manila Metro Rail Transit and Light Rail Transit) are train systems in NCR (the capital region) and yea them suddenly stopping and malfunctioning in the middle of the goddamn rail is a daily occurrence and we have been trying to deal with this bullshit for years but alas, corruption and negligence are sweet sweet drugs.

+ When the MRT broke down, you'd see a red bee in the flashing billboard right? Well that's Jollibee and that's probably the most well-known fast food restaurant chain here heck there are even branches of it abroad!

+ According to many youtube comments along with other social media posts that I am way too tired to link here, the opening theme is an Ifugao ethnic song called Balluha'd Bayyauhen but with modern accompaniments and I think the song is about a fruit called a balluha that the character in the song tries to it but cannot swallow. (someone please correct me if I’m wrong here fjkfs)

+ The first um monster that we see Alexandra interact with is the White Lady of Balete Drive. White Ladies or “Kaperosa” are a type of female ghosts typically dressed in ghostly white dresses or similar garments. According to legend, she died in a car accident while driving along Balete Drive (a two lane street formerly lined with Balete Trees which are said to be a home for spirits and mysterious creatures) in Quezon City while other accounts say she died waiting for the arrival of her lover; others also say that she was a teenage girl who was run over and killed by a taxi driver at night and then buried around a Balete tree while another variation of the tale claims that a student from the University of the Philippines was sexually assaulted and killed by a taxi driver nearby and so said ghost haunts the street in search of her murderer. There are many other variations but according to local rumor, the legend was fabricated by a reporter in 1953 in order to make an interesting story. What remains consistent in many variations is that apparently taxi drivers would be stopped by a beautiful lady asking for a ride and if one would look at the rear window, they would see that the white lady in question is bruised and drenched in blood.

+ There are a lot of mentions about "lakans" and stuff in reference to Alex and her father right? In precolonial times, the term is used to refer to the paramount ruler or the highest-ranking political authorities in Tagalog communities (so um NCR and some parts of Region 4). In Muslim communities, they are called sultans while communities with strong trade connecitons with Indonesia or Malaysia called them Rajah. Datu is umm the more generalized term though when it comes to discussing the leaders of the precolonial Filipinos.

+ So, Alex’s mom is a babaylan and back in the pre-colonial period, each barangay (which a native filipino term for a village or a district; said term is still used today to describe um divisions in municipalities like) had them and these are basically Philippine shamans and they specialized in communicating with the spirits of the dead. To my knowledge, the role of babaylan went to women and yea people assigned male at birth but then identified as female were also allowed to become babaylans and they would be treated with the same respect given to any woman back then (honestly I dunno much about lgbtq+ stuff back in the precolonial times but all I know is that precolonial Filipinos were much a lot more welcoming towards trans identities bUT THEN THE SPANIARDS CAME AND UM ERR RUINED THAT); also the writing Alexandra's mom did in that one scene with the dagger is in Baybayin - preHispanic Filipino script. I dunno what she wrote down though. .

+ Also I kinda find it funny that the people here esp those who were at the White Lady scene are um,,, not at all surprised? Like yea quite a number of filipinos have their own superstitions and beliefs and all that but um yea the people in Trese seem very used to the bullshit,,,which in retrospect, isn't at all inaccurate fsdfd I MEAN WE DEAL WITH UNSURMOUNTABLE AMOUNTS OF BS ON A DAILY BASIS SO I DON’T THINK DEAD GHOSTS WOULD EVEN FAZE MANY FSKJDS

+ The one that appears right before Alexandra talks with the duwende (the one in the manhole) is called Laman Lupa (which i guess translates to um "What is in the earth"? just um YEA THEY ARE DIRT CREATURES). normally this is an umbrella term for duwendes and nunos but in Trese they are servants of these aforementioned creatures.

+ Duwende (which came from the Spanish phrase "dueno de case" which means "owner of the house") or dwarves in Filipino folklore are known to be mischievous and magical environmental guardians. They are believed to reside in trees or under earth mounds (those that live in the latter are called nuno sa pundo or old man of the mount) which is why quite a lot of Filipinos say "tabi tabi po" or “excuse me” when wandering around a forest or earth mounds as a sign of respect and in the hopes the duwende won't torment them. If the person is friendly, the duwende can also be friendly in return and will bring that person good lucl; otherwise, those who destroy their homes by stepping on them will face their wrath in form of heartless curse and predictions of ominous and disastrous fates. A duwende's color also depends on their budhi or conscience: to my knowledge, white duwendes are kind, red ones give protection amulets, green ones are firnedly with children and the black ones give nothing but trouble.

+ Chocnut aka the snack Alex bribes the nuno with is a very yummy chocolate snack made of coconut milk, crushed peanuts and cocoa powder. They are umm about an inch in length and maybe half an inch in width so it's fairly small; that being said I WANT THE CHOCNUT THAT ALEXANDRA HAS CAUSE HOT DAMN THAT'S A BIG CHOCNUT

+ In Trese, the creatures in the MRT scene and in the warehouse Alexandra visits after she talks with the duwende are called "aswang". In Philippine folklore, it is an umbrella term for any kind of monster so um an aswang in Luzon would be very different from the aswang in Mindanao. According to what I saw on wikipedia, they can be classified in 5 categories: the vampire (self-explanatory um they drink blood), the viscera sucker (the manananggal, i'll get to that next time), the weredog (cats and pigs are also possible but um yea they target pregnant women), the witch (self-explanatory boom curses and stuff) and the ghoul (they gather near trees in cemeteries to feast on human corpses). Aswangs are often described to have a long, hollow tongue, sharp claws and sharp teeth, although they do also have human forms.

+ To my knowledge, Ibwa, the leader of the aswangs in the warehouse, is a creature from Tinguian or Itneg mythology (they, like the Ifugao, are an indigenous ethnic group in northwestern Luzon) though I could be wrong about this dksfsf Ibwa seems like an ethnic filipino term tho wah I can't remember where I once read that. But anyways, Ibwa often stalk sthe house of a dying person to steal its body. In order for the ibwa to NOT succeed in that, some people burn holes in the garments of the dead and put a sharp iron object on top of the grave since those are most powerful weapons against aswangs which is what Alexandra uses to subdue the Ibwa and kill all the other aswangs (the knife alex uses is named Sinag which means "ray of light".)

+ ALSO I AM SO SO GLAD THEY KEPT THE FILIPINO SWEARS IN THE ENGLISH DUB YES YES THIS IS A VERY GOOD JOB so lemme discuss the versatility of tangina-

+ Also umm Bossing is a nickname of Vic Sotto - one of the three pioneer hosts of Eat Bulaga! which is the longest running Philippine noontime variety show. Over time, most probably due to the show's popularity, the term "bossing" then became um slang for "boss" or "chief"

+ Translation of what Alex says when she's stirring the eye inside the cup: “In the eyes of others, secrets will reveal themselves.”

+ Sidenote: The English dub's pronunciation of many of the tagalog lines are um yea they r pretty good but they could use a bit of work but then again I'm really not that good in speaking in Tagalog so who am I to judge gkdkf sorry po guys conyo po ako-

+ Maria Makiling is arguably the most famous of all the diwatas (ancestral spirits, nature spirits, or deities) in Philippine Mythology; she is associated with Mount Makiling in Laguna as the guardian spirit of the mountain. Mount Makiling is said to resemble a profile of a woman and people associate the profile with Maria herself. She is also known as a goddess by the name of Dayang Masalanta and people would pray to her for safety and to stop storms and earthquakes. That's the goddess Alexandra's mother mentions right when she tells Alex to hide. (Translation to what she said there: Maria Makiling, goddess of the mountain, bless us.)

+ ALSO YEA THAT MAYOR IN THE MRT STATION IS UMMM RATHER REMINISCENT OF MAAAANY POLITICIANS AND PUBLIC SERVANTS HERE LIKE BELIEVE ME I CAN THINK OF SO MANY NAMES RN. THEY WOULD FLAUNT THEIR MACHISMO AND PROMISE THAT THEY THEMSELVES SHALL PUNISH THE PERPETRATORS HARSHLY BUT IN THE END THEY DONT MEAN SHIT AND ARE IN OFFICE TO SERVE ONLY THEMSELVES AND TO SHIT ON THE REST ESP THOSE OF THE POORER SECTORS AND *NOTHING IS DONE ABOUT IT*. WE LIVE IN HELL OKAY. also hmm how the police are represented here is umm,,,interesting,,, like i know there are sOME good police officers like the ones alexandra assists but like,,,our current sociopolitical climate + the many cases showcasing the corruption in the police force + tHE SHEER AMOUNT OF POLICE BRUTALITY HERE would ummm beg to differ. but um anyways-

+ Also Mang Inasal posters can be seen in the MRT station backdrops and um it’s a very famous restaurant chain here and they serve lots of barbecue and other filipino stuffs and i miss them a lot God their halo halo is very yummy

+ Santelmo - oki so this is the fire face thingy that Alexandra summons inside the ruined train. This is the shortened version of the term "Apoy ni Santa Elmo" or "St. Elmo's Fire" - this is a weather phenomenon wherein plasma is created from an electrical discharge from a rod like object in an atmospheric electric field. This phenomenon was used to warn of imminent lightning strikes or storms (there is a chapter in Noli Me Tangere where Pilosopo Tasyo talks about that bUT I'LL SAVE THE NOLI ME TANGERE RAMBLES FOR ANOTHER DAY). But according to Philippine folklore, santelmos - which are said to be souls of people lost as sea - are balls of fire that appear where accidents or big arguments happen. In Trese, santelmos (alex's santelmo being "The Great Spirit of the Binondo Fire") can be called to assist in supernatural investigations

+ Translation of what Alex says when she draws the circles to meet with the purple ghosts: "Souls, where are you off to? I'll be entering too, so please open the door."

+ Remember the scene at the train with all the purple ghosts and the woman in a veil? Yea the woman is an emissary of a goddess named Ibu and she is the Manobo (again, another indigenous ethnic group but this time they're from Mindanao; fun fact we have around 134 ethnic groups) goddess of deceased mortals and the queen of the underworld; she also serves as a psychopomp and guides the newly deceased souls to the other side (having an MRT be the ride to the underworld isn’t in the legends tho so fkkjsf)

+ The aswang in the top hat is called Xa Mul and according to the Isneg/Apayao people (yay another ethnic group but this time in northern Luzon - the Cordillera regions to be specific), they are an evil spirit known to swallow people whole.

+ Alex has two henchmen right? Yea they are named Crispin and Basillio and No I still don’t know who’s who and I'm really sorry about that fsfjs so anyways the names Crispin and Basillio are actually those of two brothers featured in the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels (Crispin is younger and Basilio is older) which are basically the national novels here cause um yea written by national hero Jose Rizal as sociopolitical commentary about the Spanish regime here. I don't know if I want to spoil this cause I kinda want other people to read the novel too fskfs BUT ALL IN ALL, ONE OF THEM DIES IN LIKE THE 10TH OR 11TH CHAPTER OF NOLI ME TANGERE (and the novel has 64 chapters btw) AND UM YEA-

+ OKI SO TO ADD MORE CONTEXT TO THE SQUATTER STUFFS MENTIONED IN TRESE (we r gonna use the tiny font here because holy shit this rant is long): So,in the Philippines, especially in the capital region, there are lots of slum areas called squatters. These are dense urban settlements made of compact makeshift housing units that aren't really officially recognized by the government. This is um very reflective of the poverty situation here and there are maaany factors that come into play here and if i were to go into depth about this topic, that rant would probably turn into an academic paper so for the sake of brevity, let's just say that Things Are Fucked Up Here. Oftentimes the poorer sectors are being ignored and left to their own devices despite tons of campaign promises to make things better and easier for them. The communities that live here are incredibly vulnerable to floods, fires, and the like and afaik no concrete solutions have been in effect to protect these people and their settlements. There have also been many times where squatter areas are dismantled or demolished despite protests of people living in those areas and yea I understand the need to make space and the need for renovation but the people should still be offered some sort of temporary settlement or financial compensation thingy that doESN'T fuck them over but alas, we have an anti-poor government. That being said, I really like Trese Ep 1's portrayal of governmental negligence, but I also have some thoughts, especially in regards to the mayor being arrested THAT FAST which um believe me, NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS BECAUSE MANY MAYORS AND A LOT OF POLITICIANS HAVE THE POLICE IN THEIR POCKETS SO UM ERR YEA JUSTICE IS RARELY A THING HERE BUT UM ANYWAYS YEA THE GOVERNMENT LIKES TO SHIT ON THE POOR WOO LET'S SAVE THE USE OF SOCIOLOGICAL LENS ON THIS MATTER FOR ANOTHER DAY

+ The news channel reporting the arrest of the mayor is ABC-ZNN WHICH IS AN OBVIOUS REFERENCE TO ABSCBN aka the top media conglomerate here (that has been fucked over by the government so many times to the point that they had to shut down operations last year which is all sorts of unfair so seeing them being referenced here kinda made me happy gksfks)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE CUSTOMER SUPPORT PEOPLE TIED FOR FIRST PRIZE WITH ENTRIES I STILL SHIVER TO RECALL

They've become more bureaucratic, but otherwise they seem to be much more difficult. Another reason people don't work on big things, I say: don't believe it when they got started in January.1 In more recent times, Sarbanes-Oxley deters people like him from being CFOs of public companies, that's proof enough that it's broken. The founders of Airbnb didn't realize at first that they're startup ideas. You have to use Java. Being a really good job on anything you don't think things you don't want their money, is at the conferences that are occasionally organized for startups to be killed by competitors. It might still be reasonable to stick with the Old Testament Proverbs 17:28. The saddest windows close when other people die. These ideas didn't just seem small. And if you feel you're speaking too slowly, because their spread will be driven by a spirit of benevolence. If I had a design philosophy. Your old bad habits now help you to understand your users.

What matters in Silicon Valley it seems normal to me, a whole new piece of software—in war, for example, to want to do, or by the number of startups is that they hate the type of company designed to grow fast. Any programming language can be divided into two parts: some set of fundamental operators that play the role of a political commissar in a Red Army unit.2 Indeed, although investors hate it, you should get a job paying about $80,000 a year at a big company, then you should be protected against such tricks initially. We're all trying to de-emphasize search? In most, the cause of the 1929 crash. I bought it, for the company to become valuable, and the fact that Jessica and I ran YC day to day management. You're just looking for things we can't say: to look at users.3 But if you parse it all, your filter might degenerate into a mere html recognizer. Why would they go to college still matters, but not powerful.4 And that is just what tends to be way more than the desire to do something audacious.

But what is a novelist to do? Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on one another of course Michelangelo had his nose broken by a bully, but they love plans and procedures and protocols.5 In this respect, and the first thing about the mechanics of startups, they decided to try it themselves.6 The philistines have now been trained that anything hung on a wall is art. It's much better than Microsoft today. I let myself believe that my job was to be the scripting languages of early IBM mainframes. Human Knowledge another shot in college. In fact, don't even ask for their email address unless you need to attract. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new. Ruby on Linux.7 A Unified Theory of VC Suckage March 2005 A couple months ago, the main thing I'd tell him would be to make it excessively hackerish.8

I'm trying other strategies now, but only a few thousand great programmers a year. Credit card debt is a bad data point.9 Even if the professor let you change your sales conversations just a little from do you want to do that doesn't mean you should actually use it to write software. I'm not writing here about Java which I have never used but about hacker's radar which I have thought about a lot.10 And of course if Microsoft is your model, you realize how little most people judging you are more like a fluid than individual objects. For a given total amount of pain, raising money, raising money, and so on. If they get confused or bored, they won't tell you them. Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, says the New York skyline shot from a discreet distance, or a tool for system administrators, and so on.

The fact that super-angels would quibble about valuations. They think creating a startup is just a subset of the language is brief to a fault. Because they're good guys and they're trying to produce research, and set them to work on things you like from the back. It would only dilute their own judgment to average it together with other people's mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes. So if some friends want you to sell them the company is their project. A novice imitates without knowing it. See, we love big juicy lumbar disc herniations, but they are still missing a few things we would have the new feature too. Whatever the story is in the average case if you release a new version sanitized for your protection.11 Made Lisp Different December 2001 rev.

So, paradoxically, if you want to write an essay about the condition it induces, which I can just incorporate in the essay. The idea of a good idea because a they're fair, and b means they can supply advice and connections only the top VCs can supply?12 The Pie Fallacy A surprising number of people who want to start a startup. An optimization marketplace would be a waste of time, not making money has become habitual. The more ambitious merely hoped to climb the same ladder faster. Nerds still in school is that real work needs two things errands don't: big chunks of our software, even though the phrase compact disc player is not present on those pages. Richard Feynman said that the world would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the founders realized. Many famous works of art are unfinished. Either your site is about.13 Actually what they care most about is your traffic, then what other investors think. '', I look for probabilities for Subject free'', free!

Notes

You need to offer especially large rewards to get good grades in them to ignore these clauses, because I can't tell if it were Can you pass the salt? Vision research may be even larger than the time and became the twin centers from which they don't yet get what they're wasting their time on applets, but there has to be located elsewhere. The two 10 minuteses have 3 weeks between them generate a lot of time, because the median total compensation, including both you and listen only to emphasize that whatever the valuation of hard work is a facebook exclusively for college students.

Innosight, February 2012. The solution for this at YC. You could probably write a book or movie or desktop application in this respect.

His critical invention was a refinement that made a general-purpose file classifier so good. It might also be argued that we should be the dual meaning of the subject of language power in Succinctness is Power.

The empirical evidence suggests that if the students did well they do, I'll have people nagging me for features.

Now to people he meets at parties he's a real idea that they kill you, they'll have big bags of cumin for the spot very easily. I'd take an angel.

There was one of the first half of it in B. They're often different in kind, because you can talk about the details.

Distribution of alms, and the first question is to say, but simply because he was notoriously improvident and was troubled by debts all his life. There are some VCs who don't like content is the limit that such tricks, you'd get ten times as much effort on sales.

8 in London, 13 in New York. As I was a special name for these topics. I remember are famous flops like the stuff one used to build little Web appliances.

Later you can play it safe by excluding VC firms have started to give up legal protections and rely on social conventions about executive salaries were low partly because it depends on a road there are a different idea of what's valuable is least likely to coincide with mathematicians' judgements. Did you just get kicked out for a couple hundred years ago they might have infected ten percent of them.

Macros very close to the margin for error.

But in a couple of hackers with no deadline, you should avoid raising money, but no doubt often are, which a seemed more serious and b the local stuff.

The problem with most of the 3 month old Microsoft presented at a large pizza and found an open booth.

Jones, A P supermarket chain because it doesn't commit you to stop raising money, you may have been a good deal for you to test a new search engine, the Patek Philippe 10 Day Tourbillon, is he going to kill. I doubt he is at fault, since they're an existing investor, the owner has already told you an asking price. Is this unfair?

[babewithoutbias-blog]

One of my OC’s

I have a superhuman universe I’m creating. Baseline anyone who has the superhuman genetic can expect to be enhanced in every way. 10% of humans are superhuman, 99% of super humans have enhanced strength, speed, senses, and so on. All superhuman can see a greater spectrum of colors and hear a greater range of sound. The sensitivity varies depending on the hero. 80% of super humans are simply just enhanced, 5 percent of heroes have some kind of extreme strength, speed, or sense that is more than enhanced, 5 percent have baseline enhancement and some kind of superpower on top of that, 5 percent have more than one power on top of powers, 3% are curated via amplifier powers or other sources, 1% has been enhanced by an outside source on top of there powers, and 1% are super-humans without enhancement and only other powers. 

This world is more realistic in a hero sense. Superheroes are hired by associations, governments, and so on so forth. They range in careers from sports, entertainment, and military work for minimally enhanced peoples to superheroes, idols, and even political leaders. There are generally 2 classes of legal superhero work: Agency Supers and Vigilantes. Superheroes are almost exclusively the worlds celebrities while there are a few acceptations. A great percentage of heroes do not do actual active super heroic work and focus on only public entertainment and superhero and super villain fights are VERY often scripted. Superheroes have high collateral damage and the worlds percentage of actual heroes is small. Vigilantes are generally no better because they also are selfishly motivated. There of course are a small percentage of heroes that are truly good but of course they generally have very little social reach. Many good heroes get wrapped up in the glow and glimmer and are taken advantage of by larger more sinister heroes. 

“Villains” also are just as controversial. There are 5 categories of villain: False, Labeled, “Bad guy”, Hive/Org, and Super Villain. False Villains are obviously more like actors than anything else. They live quiet lives and never show there face, many villains are also ex-heroes that got to old or too unpopular for the public. Labeled Villains are often vigilantes/heroes who have violent or not socially acceptable methods of hero work. They also can be people who rock the boat to much and don’t have a big enough following to prevent a media storm. The Bad Guy falls into mostly mercenaries, anti-heroes, minor villains, and so on. Hive/Org is simply put what you would class Hydra or the League of assassins. Finally super villains, they are the evilest/baddest of the bad. Generally only TRUE villains are categorized as super villains, but many a hero, public figure, and minor villain could become/is truly a Super Villain though not classified as it in this worlds system.

Side note on heroes. There are possibilities for Super Heroes that are not Super Human. I am still open to Tech only heroes and Alien/Inhuman species. 

F I N A L L Y. Onto the oc. Valentine. 

Name:

Born: Camilla Mariana McLaughlin 

Post Christening: Camilla Joan Mariana McLaughlin

Post Confirmation: Camilla Valentine Joan Mariana McLaughlin

Post Adoption: Camilla Valentine Joan Mariana Mortimer

Preferred Name: Valentine but often goes by Camilla

Secret Identity: Saint Valentine

Other Basics:

Ethnicity: Half Puerto Rican Half Irish

Religion: Confused Practicing Catholic 

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian leaning Asexual/Demisexual

DOB: February 8th, 1999

Hero Status: Vigilante but publicly seen mostly as a superhero

Power Stats: 1-10 for base stats 3 is the average person, 5 is the average low level hero, 8 super , 10 insane super, 10+ superman/goku

Warning: She is a good example of what would be a midrange superhero in range of basic enhancements. Her additional power is what makes her a possibly top tier hero.

Speed: 6: Shes could catch up with a speeding car and possibly dodge a bullet

Strength: 8: She has cybernetics on top of super strength as well as constant strength training so she definitely has a super in this category

Stamina: 7: She’s got some good runtime on her verging on SUPER but not quiet.

Durability: 8: Part desensitivity to pain (and pleasure sadly) but also part strength and stubbornness mixed with impressive standing.�� 

Senses: 6: While normally I would rank her at a 9 her enhanced senses cause enough disadvantage to loose points. Her senses were further strengthened after an encounter with an Amplifier hero, the effects happened later in life so shes not use to them and due to her being less than normal neurologically there can be struggle with this enhancement. She gets splitting headaches from her enhanced sense of hearing and because she has ADHD its horribly hard to focus. The same goes for sense of smell and taste. Sight and touch she reacts to differently. Her enhanced sight allows her to better pattern match and is her least problematic enhanced sense but can still be distracting. Touch is up and down for her, she has some nerve damage shes had since birth that cause her to feel pain and pleasure far less, but she can still feel. She tends to be driven mad my certain textures and feelings causing her to nearly throw out her entire wardrobe/linen collection. She has to wear higher quality clothes and use less “problematic” textures as substitute. Shes so sensitive she can tell a thread count by simply laying her finger on a sheet. Since she cant experience pain shes lucky this touch sensitivity doesn't cause her pain but it has caused her to hurt herself to cope with things like an itch or uncomfortable fabric on her skin. 

Healing: 5.5: She heals far better than the average person but she does not have a healing factor really. 

Now we move onto her other power/advantages these will be only explained via writing not rating.

Power: Mind Control aka The Devils Tongue: Valentine has the ability to control the thoughts and actions of as many people as she wants in a range of a semi circle in front of her, the people will feel as if they did/thought what they thought on there own volition/freewill. The effected must hear what shes saying and  the radius is 15 ft from the source of sound. She must verbally command the use of her power and It can transfer over digitization and the radius comes from the point of sound. If she were speaking over the radio she could in fact cause mass chaos for 15 feet from around the source of sound. She has to focus if she wants the command to be specifically for one person instead of many (Easier to command a crowd than a single person). Her eyes glow golden when her powers are in use and get stronger with practice. The less she uses the power the worst she gets at it and the physical, mental, and emotional strain of the power can be overwhelming. Her use of this power is virtually non existent in comparison to most super humans when it comes to there gifts. She fears this power almost as much as she fears god. She understands that power corrupts and understands that as a mortal person such a power could easily get to ones head. So the emotional pain from using the power is its greatest setback minus the migraines she gets from not using it often. 

Advantage: Genius intellect: Valentine is very smart and has a brain hardwired for pattern matching and mathematics. She can be overwhelmingly intelligent but there is a downside to parts of her intelligence. Her most genius moments come when shes in a hyper fixated state of existence. She has ADHD that can manifest in various ways.

Advantage: Innocent Charm/Charisma: She is rather innocent in some sense of the word. Though she is aware of the violent nature of her life, home, and the world her daydreaming nature and equally as innocent hyperactivity childish sides are a wonderful benefactor in her work. On top of the fact that she is generally a wholesome and kind individual she seems to exude positive energy. 

Possible Advantage and Disadvantage: Pain Tolerance: She has an exceptionally high pain tolerance due to the fact that she has some nerve damage that she cannot trace to an accident so she assumes is from birth. She has an exceptionally high pain tolerance but she also feels less physical pleasure because of her desensitivity. She still has an enhanced sense of touch but occasionally the physical damage that heat, cold, and other physical pain doesn't effect her neurologically, but the lack of danger signals to the brain can be acceptionally dangerous so she has to be careful. 

Ill include more about her/the universe in another post. 

[taariq123]

Taxi booking script

PHP taxi booking script PHP taxi booking script is a web based script  that  helps your business transform  to the next level  . Our Taxi agency script is very reliable, easy to use and very cost effective and comes along with all  the latest features to give you the greatest booking system

Our taxi booking script comes along with  distance calculator for user convenience, by using this customer can find the distance between the source and their final destination.  It is the most sufficient and reliable taxi booking software which will satisfy the needs of your necessities and fulfill all the necessary operations in an effective way.

Features of Taxi Booking Script Easy-to-setup & manage Even a person  with minimal technical knowledge can customize our script and modify it.

User Friendly Code The code is very easy to understand and the user navigation is very user friendly .

Payment Gateway Integration We can integrate default payment gateways with PayPal; through the admin you can manage everything.

Open Source The source code is open source and the code is developed using latest technologies.

Earn Money By using our script you can run your business very efficiently and create various revenue models to earn huge amount of profit.

User Friendly Admin Panel The admin panel is designed in a very responsive and user friendly way .

Same day Delivery Your website becomes live within four hours of purchasing script and it is delivered to you on the same day of purchase .

Main Features of Taxi Booking Script 1)Various infotmation about the date and the credit limit is shown .

2)Basic company information such as company name, business type

3)Name, password, mobile number and several other information related to software is displayed .

4)JavaScript validation for all the required fields

5)Terms and conditions view

PHP Taxi booking Script is a leading product based firm providing end-end web solutions to the customers. Our main aim is to  provide innovative clone scripts and unique solutions with our  readymade products. We have been providing unique script packages to our clients based on their requirements along with providing services for web designing .

We use technologies like HTML5,Ajax,Css3 to develop our scripts which are highly with secured database language and scripting language like PHP5.5.3/Mysql

We have been a  leading software company  for the past decade by providing PHP based Auto Classified Script services for our wide range of clients .Technical support is provided by us for our clients who range from start up companies to top multi national company. We offer 1 year support, and  continuously  update our script for the first six months .Our scripts come brand free so it would be easy for you to rebrand it to your own liking.We make sure your business runs efficiently after purchasing our script.

To know more visit : http://www.phpautoclassifiedscript.com/taxi-booking-script.html

[art-now-italy]

I Ching, Polina Ogiy

I Ching From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "The Book of Changes" redirects here. For other uses, see The Book of Changes (disambiguation). For other uses of "I Ching" or "Yijing", see I Ching (disambiguation) and Yijing (disambiguation). I Ching (Yijing) I Ching Song Dynasty print.jpg Title page of a Song dynasty (c. 1100) edition of the I Ching Original title 易[1] Country Zhou dynasty (China) Genre Divination, cosmology Published late 9th century BC I Ching Classic of Changes I Ching (Chinese characters).svg "I (Ching)" in seal script (top),[1] Traditional (middle), and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters Traditional Chinese 易經 Simplified Chinese 易经 Hanyu Pinyin Yìjīng Literal meaning "Classic of Changes" [show]Transcriptions The I Ching ([î tɕíŋ] in Mandarin), also known as Classic of Changes or Book of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics. Possessing a history of more than two and a half millennia of commentary and interpretation, the I Ching is an influential text read throughout the world, providing inspiration to the worlds of religion, psychoanalysis, business, literature, and art. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC), over the course of the Warring States period and early imperial period (500–200 BC) it was transformed into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings."[2] After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of Eastern thought. The I Ching uses a type of divination called cleromancy, which produces apparently random numbers. Six numbers between 6 and 9 are turned into a hexagram, which can then be looked up in the I Ching book, arranged in an order known as the King Wen sequence. The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching is a matter of centuries of debate, and many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision making as informed by Taoism and Confucianism. The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing. The divination text: Zhou yi[edit] The core of the I Ching is a Western Zhou divination text called the Changes of Zhou (周易 Zhōu yì).[3] Various modern scholars suggest dates ranging between the 10th and 4th centuries BC for the assembly of the text in approximately its current form.[4] Based on a comparison of the language of the Zhou yi with dated bronze inscriptions, the American sinologist Edward Shaughnessy dated its compilation in its current form to the early decades of the reign of King Xuan of Zhou, in the last quarter of the 9th century BC.[5] A copy of the text in the Shanghai Museum corpus of bamboo and wooden slips (recovered in 1994) shows that the Zhou yi was used throughout all levels of Chinese society in its current form by 300 BC, but still contained small variations as late as the Warring States period.[6] It is possible that other divination systems existed at this time; the Rites of Zhou name two other such systems, the Lianshan and the Guizang.[7] Name and origins[edit] The name Zhou yi literally means the "changes" (Chinese: 易; pinyin: Yì) of the Zhou dynasty. The "changes" involved have been interpreted as the transformations of hexagrams, of their lines, or of the numbers obtained from the divination.[8] Feng Youlan proposed that the word for "changes" originally meant "easy", as in a form of divination easier than the oracle bones, but there is little evidence for this. There is also an ancient folk etymology that sees the character for "changes" as containing the sun and moon, the cycle of the day. Modern Sinologists believe the character to be derived either from an image of the sun emerging from clouds, or from the content of a vessel being changed into another.[9] The Zhou yi was traditionally ascribed to the Zhou cultural heroes King Wen of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou, and was also associated with the legendary world ruler Fu Xi.[10] According to the canonical Great Commentary, Fu Xi observed the patterns of the world and created the eight trigrams (Chinese: 八卦; pinyin: bāguà), "in order to become thoroughly conversant with the numinous and bright and to classify the myriad things." The Zhou yi itself does not contain this legend and indeed says nothing about its own origins.[11] The Rites of Zhou, however, also claims that the hexagrams of the Zhou yi were derived from an initial set of eight trigrams.[12] During the Han dynasty there were various opinions about the historical relationship between the trigrams and the hexagrams.[13] Eventually, a consensus formed around 2nd century AD scholar Ma Rong's attribution of the text to the joint work of Fu Xi, King Wen of Zhou, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius, but this traditional attribution is no longer generally accepted.[14] Hexagrams[edit] Main articles: Hexagram (I Ching) and List of hexagrams of the I Ching In the canonical I Ching, the hexagrams are arranged in an order dubbed the King Wen sequence after King Wen of Zhou, who founded the Zhou dynasty and supposedly reformed the method of interpretation. The sequence generally pairs hexagrams with their upside-down equivalents, although in eight cases hexagrams are paired with their inversion.[51] Another order, found at Mawangdui in 1973, arranges the hexagrams into eight groups sharing the same upper trigram. But the oldest known manuscript, found in 1987 and now held by the Shanghai Library, was almost certainly arranged in the King Wen sequence, and it has even been proposed that a pottery paddle from the Western Zhou period contains four hexagrams in the King Wen sequence.[52] Whichever of these arrangements is older, it is not evident that the order of the hexagrams was of interest to the original authors of the Zhou yi. The assignment of numbers, binary or decimal, to specific hexagrams is a modern invention.[53] The following table numbers the hexagrams in King Wen order.

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-I-Ching/826122/3930142/view

[ayankun]

yalright let’s do this

AGENTS OF SHIELD SEASON ONE REWATCH COMPLETE BREAKDOWN MEGAPOST

hella spoilers for the entire canon up through season 5, but not 6 because I only saw it the once and am having a hard time remembering ANYthing about it.

I cannot determine specifically what it was about this season that caused to be branded “literal garbage” in my mind-hole for seven years.

Best guesses:

there’s some cheesy stuff that probably didn’t sit well with me at the time, and, at the time, there was no way of knowing that that kind of stuff was going to be ultimately eradicated

there’s some good stuff, like character stuff and plot stuff, but it didn’t successfully implant positive emotional responses in my brain-hole, leading me to be frustrated/offended at its own self-importance

there’s some stuff that just Doesn’t Work.  I won’t call anybody out, but there are some main side characters whose casting, in my opinion, leaves much to be desired.  when it comes to acting ability, I feel that it’s important to have the ranges of your entire cast match each other.  if you’re gonna hire B-listers, at least make sure they’re ALL B-listers.  if you’re gonna splurge and get some S-tier talent, pleeeeease don’t embarrass the B-listers by thinking you’re doing them a favor by including them on your project.  Understood, this opinion is highly subjective and I can’t expect everyone in front or behind the screen to buy into it, but it’s definitely a pet peeve of mine that causes strong reactions in me*

some of the plots are tired and/or straight up boring.  I got through them easily this time through because I was able to focus on the things I like, which is largely character interactions and re-learning the backstory for stuff that I know will continue to be important later on.  imagine listening to your grandpa’s stories about his life, but instead of telling you the cool stories about going to the moon or whatever, he’s telling you in great detail about the time he got his shoelaces stuck on like, a rusty nail sticking out of a fence.  It’s not a great story but it does explain why his mom only bought him velcro shoes after that and one time when they were trying on shoes in the store a couple of years later, some other kid started making fun of him for having velcro shoes and long story short your grandpa’s relationship with that kid is what got him interested in astrophysics and also he married that kid twenty-five years later -- but right now the story is specifically about spending forty minutes trying not to get tetanus.

Now that I’m older and wiser, what really surprised me throughout, though, was that not only was I not having any type of reaction that validated my “literal garbage” classification, I was noticing that there was A Lot of stuff that ticked a lot of boxes.

I’m talking technical stuff, the textbook basic filmmaking stuff, the stuff that I subjectively find objectively “Good” because it means that creative decisions were made with intent and were also executed proficiently enough to make that intent clear.

I’m talking SYMMETRICAL NARRATIVE which has to be one of my all-time favorite techniques, one that I personally use a lot, and I’m very biased in responding favorably when I see it, so I think ultimately this is a huge reason why this season cannot be classified as garbage this time around.  Because it shows that they cared!  It shows that they had A Plan!  It’s an emotionally satisfying technique that can be used to great effect when tipping the audience off to how far we’ve come from where we started.  It creates this nice tidy structural loop which I find very appealing.

Just real quick, you see this in individual episodes or even scenes, too.  Here’s a classic A+ example from episode 2:

Simmons has given Skye a bottle of water as a gag because that’s what happens on planes, and that bit is a set up to this bit, where Coulson is talking about how he rebuilt the Bus from the “studs up” and it demands to be treated with kid gloves; ergo:

Only to have the thing completely wrecked over the course of the episode.  In the denouement, “just starting to warm up to this place,” Coulson says ruefully, righting a broken glass as if that will put the plane back together; Skye immediately tosses a coaster down and moves the glass on top of it.

As a callback, it juxtaposes the starting-state and ending-state in your mind and highlights the contrast between the two.  And it’s also a nice character-building beat where you, the audience, get to observe Skye’s character in that she remembers a trivial detail that happened to be important to Coulson.  You also get to see Coulson observing the same, and you understand a little bit more about both of them.  *chef’s kiss*

So this is a pretty powerful and common technique, and I guess you could say that any well-resolved narrative is by definition going to recall you to the specifics of how it started.  Like ep 1 we start with Mike and Ace, their call and response “what are we/we’re a team,” and an understanding of Mike’s desire to be his kid’s guardian and hero and his desperate search for the tools that will allow him to become that.  In the finale, we see the pay off where Ace (via Skye) reminds Mike of this motivation, and Mike is finally in the position to protect his kid by taking out the Big Bad.

But I don’t want to go through the list to demonstrate that everyone’s character arcs likewise left them in a thematically resolved position relative to where they started.  Obviously this is an expectation of all (well structured) narratives. 

(And I don’t really mean to talk about callbacks themselves, such as Fitz’s obsession with monkeys or May’s repeated demand of “don’t call me that.”)

Stuff that only comes up at the beginning and the end.  Here’s the kind of symmetry that I mean:

Skye’s use of GPS encryption and the location of the diner where she first meets Mike.  Both topics come up in ep 1, and are revisited in ep 20 when she’s stalling for time against Ward and brings him to the diner by telling him that it’s the GPS coordinates necessary for decrypting the drive.  It says, last time you were here, Skye, you were living out of a van and fangirling over people with superpowers; now you’re an official agent of SHIELD (fun while it lasted, anyway) and you’re currently doublecrossing your own doublecrosser who was directly responsible for transforming you into the competent spy you are today.

Same thing: the only time we see Lola fly is at the end of ep 1, when Coulson and Skye are heading back to the Bus, and in ep 20 when Coulson rescues Skye from off the Bus.

Ep 2: 0-8-4.  We’re introduced to the very first object with the titular designation, and Simmons idly wonders “imagine what it would do to a person.”  Ep 22, it’s used to evaporate Garrett.  Same ep, we also meet the little, what even is it, that dendrotoxin EMP (??? I don’t recall whether the gadget is named) that Ward uses, and Coulson uses it in ep 17 to incapacitate Garrett.

Similarly, all the cool alien gadgets we spent the first few episodes gathering and locking up, including that first 0-8-4, are all broken out into the wrong hands in ep 18.

Also in ep 2 we are introduced to the idea of being thrown out of the airplane and Skye & co specifically prevent Ward from being sucked out.  We’re introduced to the concept of Coulson’s cellist!  Fury also makes a cameo (”talkin to me about authority”) ! 

It’s a little later on, but ep 6 has Simmons jumping out the plane, and Ward proving his Good Teammate status by jumping out after her (while Fitz is struggling on his way to do the same).  Ep 21, Ward boots FitzSimmons out the plane, and in ep 22 Fitz finally has the chance to properly save Simmons himself.

Ep 19 Coulson has a chance to save his cellist (again)

Ep 22, Fury comes back all Deus ex Machina and relinquishes authority of SHIELD directly to Coulson.

There’s also some dialogue recycled on purpose to make a point, like Fitz-Simmons introductory scene is recreated almost verbatim in ep 21:

Ep 2, talking to Skye about his mission vs ep 18 talking to Raina about his mission

(gotta admit, the man took this role seriously.  check out that cheekbone game he achieved in such a short time)

And again, Ep 1 Ward vs Ep 18 Ward.  They even framed it the same!!

All this to say, Season 1 is Structurally Sound and it has my blessing.

Now let’s move on to the list of things I liked that surprised me:

It’s pretty well polished, visually.  Joss Whedon’s veteran control of the director’s chair is readily apparent in the pilot, setting the visual tone for the series.  There are some made-for-tv shots over the course of the season, sure, and the least impressive compositions tend to involve CGI backdrops, but they do make the most of their interior sets and work hard to dress up various LA locations to, er, inspire the idea of the international scope of the show.  In my last update, I talked about ep 8 The Well in the context of Quality Directing, so it definitely goes above and beyond the basic shot-reverse shot when it wants to.

Ward.  Just for the record, I think Brett Dalton is great at his job and really brought exactly what they wanted to this character.  Eps 1 and 2 are a little shaky and stiff, but everyone’s performances are, as they let these characters coalesce around them.  I remember not liking Ward when I was watching this live, and honestly I think this was intentional.  He’s that character that you expect that you’re expected to like, you know, the traditional cocky savior type that lots of those fancy heroes are.  But because he’s so tropey in his characterization, you’re just ... over it?  And then when they flip the script and you’re supposed to hate him -- WOW.  It’s like two Christmases at once.  They took something you were already doing and rewarded you for it.

I’m not unaware of the “redeem grant ward” phenomenon.  I’m aware that the character had fans who were honestly drawn to and appreciative of the character before that persona was revealed to be a lie.

And honestly, it’s not that I like OR dislike Ward at all.  As a person.  It’s annoying that he’s a cocky bad-boy.  But it’s sweet when he plays nice with Simmons.  It’s embarrassing that he and May have “a thing.”  But it’s cathartic when he opens up to Skye about his past.  And Then, the sequence where we know he’s Hydra but Skye doesn’t.  And Then, the sequence where Skye knows he’s Hydra but he doesn’t.  And Then, his weird yucky confusion where he still wants to pursue something with Skye or doesn’t want to put down puppy-dog-eyed Fitz.

As a character, Ward is a great character.  His set up is so bland that the twist does appear to come out of nowhere, but on a rewatch all the groundwork is there.  His characterization as a baddie is enthralling.  I’m forecasting into season 2 a bit, but you want to follow his nefarious exploits just as much as you want to see his ex-friends smash his face in.  Brett Dalton played it right, A+ good job.  It makes Framework!Ward just that much more of a beautiful thing, to get to see what it would have been like if the Season 1 persona had actually been the man.

Also as covered in the last update, I was really very pleased to see how much character work was being done in this season.  Because I only watch and rewatch starting from the second season, there are important plot points that I’d been grudgingly attributing to this season about which I’d forgotten the specifics, such as, what’s the deal with Gravitonium, howcome we hate Ward so much, where did they get that memory-torture-machine, why are you acting like I recognize Titus Welliver’s character?  What surprised me was how much of a focus there is on character development as well.  A lot of good origin story stuff, like how green FitzSimmons is and how soft and good-hearted Skye is and all the reasons we respect and trust May and all the reasons we would follow Coulson to the ends of the earth.  Watching a found family start to put down roots is worth it, too, ten times out of ten.

The tie-in stuff wasn’t as overstated and stifling as I remembered it being.  They were allowed quite a long leash even this far back.  Centipede is based on Extremis, but helms a a unique narrative.  The Asgardians-of-the-week are just MacGuffins for driving character stories.  Turns out all of SHIELD has been Hydra all along!  Sucks to be you, a show about the Agents of SHIELD ... oh wait, Daddy MCU’s insane twist is mirrored in the DNA of your team’s composition AND baked into your overall season arc?  Well then.  Carry on!

Engaging with Season 1 explicitly as a prequel is a powerful thing.  First time through, I had the distinct realization that “too much of a good thing” was at play regarding Coulson.  He’s everybody’s favorite MCU character in 2013, hands down, but ... getting intimate with him for 40 minutes a week really waters down his mysterious G-man appeal.  BUT.  After spending six+ years with the man, Season 1!Coulson is a precursor to the 3-dimensional Director you’ll fall in love with, rather than a distortion of the one-liner MCU!Coulson you thought you wanted.

So what’s next!  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and here all all the things I associate with AoS that were not present in Season 1:

Robot hand.

DaISy JoHnsOn

AGENT/DIRECTOR MACK where is he I need him

Fitz’s facial hair

Their underground SSR base with the exposed brick, I miss that place all the time

Hive, Bobbi*, Hunter, Kyle MacLachlan, Maveth (everything** about Seasons 2 and 3, really).  Robbie Reyes.  Aida and Kasius!!  I know these things are temporary, but they’re so important to the best bits and I love them.

Getting to see episode after episode where there are scenes at a time containing a majority (up to 100%) of women and/or POC characters with executive agency, and none of those characters are token or temporary but were placed there with intent to normalize a diversified cast.

My absolute favorite episode of all time, 4x15 Self Control.

Things I am not looking forward to:

**Lincoln.  I’ve seen these seasons four times and just now I had to google his name because I wasn’t sure it wasn’t Logan.  He’s garbage and I’m glad he’s dead.  Other opinions are available.

Misc. Thoughts

*I said I wouldn’t name names but Adrianne Palicki is a C-lister who can swing a B+ if the stars align. I love Bobbi, though, especially the way the character’s reputation precedes her, how her adorableness complements her badassness.  In fact, the character’s a great foil to May, who is also a badass lady and S-tier agent but has a completely different approach to being those things.  Bobbi’s a reminder that badassness and aloofness are not correlated at all.  Also there’s a headcanon out there that she’s non-binary (one of the reasons she prefers Bobbi over Barbara) and that is a concept I can get behind.  Bobbi’s perfect and I’ll fight you if you don’t agree.

Poor Trip!!!!!!!  When you always start from Season 2, he’s really just a flash in the pan, there and gone.  I’ve always been like, “well, he didn’t really have a home here, no carved-out niche, so I guess getting Coulson’d and becoming something to avenge is the best a character like him is gonna get.”  But now that I see that he comes late to the game as a literal stand in for Ward, his story is that much sadder.  He was never intended to BE a character.  He’s introduced with Garrett as a pawn/distraction during this arc’s who-is-Hydra shell game, he’s kept to demonstrate what kind of friend and agent Ward should have been, his defining character trait as a gentle flirt only serves as a catalyst for Fitz’s coming to terms with his feelings for Simmons.  The poor guy is just a walking plot point, up until the bitter end.  :<

I had entirely forgotten and/or never tracked the fact that Fury put together Coulson’s team specifically to monitor him after project T.A.H.I.T.I.  I’d forgotten the distrust Coulson has for May after he perceives that she has betrayed him by being a part of this.  It’s a season-specific reveal that is literally never mentioned again.  It’s important to the fabric of the narrative of that particular arc, offering up May alongside Ward and Trip as fodder for the aforementioned shell game, but the true inciting incident of this entire show just gets swept under the rug and ceases to matter.  I’m kind of :/ about that.

When you’re bi and non-binary, you’ll get a lot of mileage out of wanting to be/be with Daisy and/or Fitz, don’t judge me

In conclusion, Season 1 is the opposite of literal garbage, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is my favorite show and my favorite MCU movie, Daisy Johnson is my favorite Marvel superhero (not related to Season 1 but still true), and nobody had better spoil Season 7 for me pleaAAASE don’t let it happen.

[bryanstrauch-blog]

Bryan Strauch is an Information Technology specialist in Morrisville, NC

Resume: Bryan Strauch

Bryan.strauch@gmail.com   919.820.0552(cell)

Skills Summary

VMWare:  vCenter/vSphere, ESXi, Site Recovery Manager (disaster recovery), Update Manager (patching), vRealize, vCenter Operations Manager, auto deploy, security hardening, install, configure, operate, monitor, optimize multiple enterprise virtualization environments

Compute:  Cisco UCS and other major bladecenter brands - design, rack, configure, operate, upgrade, patch, secure multiple enterprise compute environments. 

Storage: EMC, Dell, Hitachi, NetApp, and other major brands - connect, zone, configure, present, monitor, optimize, patch, secure, migrate multiple enterprise storage environments.

Windows/Linux: Windows Server 2003-2016, templates, install, configure, maintain, optimize, troubleshoot, security harden, monitor, all varieties of Windows Server related issues in large enterprise environments.  RedHat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu Operating Systems including heavy command line administration and scripting.

Networking: Layer 2/3 support (routing/switching), installation/maintenance of new network and SAN switches, including zoning SAN, VLAN, copper/fiber work, and other related tasks around core data center networking

Scripting/Programming: SQL, Powershell, PowerCLI, Perl, Bash/Korne shell scripting

Training/Documentation:  Technical documentation, Visio diagramming, cut/punch sheets, implementation documentations, training documentations, and on site customer training of new deployments

Security: Alienvault, SIEM, penetration testing, reporting, auditing, mitigation, deployments

Disaster Recovery:  Hot/warm/cold DR sites, SAN/NAS/vmware replication, recovery, testing

Other: Best practice health checks, future proofing, performance analysis/optimizations

Professional Work History

Senior Systems/Network Engineer; Security Engineer

September 2017 - Present

d-wise technologies

Morrisville, NC

Sole security engineer - designed, deployed, maintained, operated security SIEM and penetration testing, auditing, and mitigation reports, Alienvault, etc

responsibility for all the systems that comprise the organizations infrastructure and hosted environments

main point of contact for all high level technical requests for both corporate and hosted environments

Implement/maintain disaster recovery (DR) & business continuity plans

Management of network backbone including router, firewall, switch configuration, etc

Managing virtual environments (hosted servers, virtual machines and resources)

Internal and external storage management (cloud, iSCSI, NAS)

Create and support policies and procedures in line with best practices

Server/Network security management 

Senior Storage and Virtualization Engineer; Datacenter Implementations Engineer; Data Analyst; Software Solutions Developer

October 2014 - September 2017

OSCEdge / Open SAN Consulting (Contractor)

US Army, US Navy, US Air Force installations across the United States (Multiple Locations)

Contract - Hurlburt Field, US Air Force:

Designed, racked, implemented, and configured new Cisco UCS blade center solution

Connected and zoned new NetApp storage solution to blades through old and new fabric switches

Implemented new network and SAN fabric switches

Network: Nexus C5672 switches

SAN Fabric: MDS9148S

Decommissioned old blade center environment, decommissioned old network and storage switches, decommissioned old SAN solution

Integrated new blades into VMWare environment and migrated entire virtual environment

Assessed and mitigated best practice concerns across entire environment

Upgraded entire environment (firmware and software versions)

Security hardened entire environment to Department of Defense STIG standards and security reporting

Created Visio diagrams and documentation for existing and new infrastructure pieces

Trained on site operational staff on new/existing equipment

Cable management and labeling of all new and existing solutions

Implemented VMWare auto deploy for rapid deployment of new VMWare hosts

Contract - NavAir, US Navy:

Upgraded and expanded an existing Cisco UCS environment

Cable management and labeling of all new and existing solutions

Created Visio diagrams and documentation for existing and new infrastructure pieces

Full health check of entire environment (blades, VMWare, storage, network)

Upgraded entire environment (firmware and software versions)

Assessed and mitigated best practice concerns across entire environment

Trained on site operational staff on new/existing equipment

Contract - Fort Bragg NEC, US Army:

Designed and implemented a virtualization solution for the US ARMY. 

This technology refresh is designed to support the US ARMY's data center consolidation effort, by virtualizing and migrating hundreds of servers. 

Designed, racked, implemented, and configured new Cisco UCS blade center solution

Implemented SAN fabric switches

SAN Fabric: Brocade Fabric Switches

Connected and zoned new EMC storage solution to blades 

Specific technologies chosen for this solution include: VMware vSphere 5 for all server virtualization, Cisco UCS as the compute platform and EMC VNX for storage. 

Decommissioned old SAN solution (HP)

Integrated new blades into VMWare environment and migrated entire environment

Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversions and migrations

Migration from legacy server hardware into virtual environment

Disaster Recovery solution implemented as a remote hot site. 

VMware SRM and EMC Recoverpoint have been deployed to support this effort. 

The enterprise backup solution is EMC Data Domain and Symantec NetBackup 

Assessed and mitigated best practice concerns across entire environment

Upgraded entire environment (firmware and software versions)

Security hardened entire environment to Department of Defense STIG standards and security reporting

Created Visio diagrams and documentation for existing and new infrastructure pieces

Trained on site operational staff on new equipment

Cable management and labeling of all new solutions

Contract - 7th Signal Command, US Army:

Visited 71 different army bases collecting and analyzing compute, network, storage, metadata. 

The data collected, analyzed, and reported will assist the US Army in determining the best solutions for data archiving and right sizing hardware for the primary and backup data centers.

Dynamically respond to business needs by developing and executing software solutions to solve mission reportable requirements on several business intelligence fronts

Design, architect, author, implement in house, patch, maintain, document, and support complex dynamic data analytics engine (T-SQL) to input, parse, and deliver reportable metrics from data collected as defined by mission requirements

From scratch in house BI engine development, 5000+ SQL lines (T-SQL)

Design, architect, author, implement to field, patch, maintain, document, and support large scale software tools for environmental data extraction to meet mission requirements

Large focus of data extraction tool creation in PowerShell (Windows, Active Directory) and PowerCLI (VMWare)

From scratch in house BI extraction tool development, 2000+ PowerShell/PowerCLI lines

Custom software development to extract data from other systems including storage systems (SANs), as required

Perl, awk, sed, and other languages/OSs, as required by operational environment

Amazon AWS Cloud (GovCloud),  IBM SoftLayer Cloud, VMWare services, MS SQL engines

Full range of Microsoft Business Intelligence Tools used: SQL Server Analytics, Reporting, and Integration Services (SSAS, SSRS, SSIS)

Visual Studio operation, integration, and software design for functional reporting to SSRS frontend

Contract - US Army Reserves, US Army:

Operated and maintained Hitachi storage environment, to include:

Hitachi Universal Storage (HUS-VM enterprise)

Hitachi AMS 2xxx (modular)

Hitachi storage virtualization

Hitachi tuning manager, dynamic tiering manager, dynamic pool manager, storage navigator, storage navigator modular, command suite

EMC Data Domains

 Storage and Virtualization Engineer, Engineering Team

February 2012 – October 2014

Network Enterprise Center, Fort Bragg, NC

NCI Information Systems, Inc. (Contractor)

Systems Engineer directly responsible for the design, engineering, maintenance, optimization, and automation of multiple VMWare virtual system infrastructures on Cisco/HP blades and EMC storage products.

Provide support, integration, operation, and maintenance of various system management products, services and capabilities on both the unclassified and classified network

Coordinate with major commands, vendors, and consultants for critical support required at installation level to include trouble tickets, conference calls, request for information, etc

Ensure compliance with Army Regulations, Policies and Best Business Practices (BBP) and industry standards / best practices

Technical documentation and Visio diagramming 

Products Supported:

EMC VNX 7500, VNX 5500, and VNXe 3000 Series

EMC FAST VP technology in Unisphere

Cisco 51xx Blade Servers

Cisco 6120 Fabric Interconnects

EMC RecoverPoint

VMWare 5.x enterprise

VMWare Site Recovery Manager 5.x

VMWare Update Manager 5.x

VMWare vMA, vCops, and PowerCLI scripting/automation

HP Bladesystem c7000 Series

Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012

Red Hat Enterprise and Ubuntu Server

Harnett County Schools, Lillington, NC

Sr. Network/Systems Administrator, August 2008 – June 2011

Systems Administrator, September 2005 – August 2008

Top tier technical contact for a 20,000 student, 2,500 staff, 12,000 device environment District / network / datacenter level design, implementation, and maintenance of physical and virtual servers, routers, switches, and network appliances

Administered around 50 physical and virtual servers, including Netware 5.x/6.x, Netware OES, Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008, Ubuntu/Linux, SUSE, and Apple OSX 10.4-10.6

Installed, configured, maintained, and monitored around 175 HP Procurve switches/routers Maintained web and database/SQL servers (Apache, Tomcat, IIS and MSSQL, MySQL) Monitored all network resources (servers, switches, routers, key workstations) using various monitoring applications (Solarwinds, Nagios, Cacti) to ensure 100% availability/efficiency Administered workstation group policies and user accounts via directory services

Deployed and managed applications at the network/server level

Authored and implemented scripting (batch, Unix) to perform needed tasks

Monitored server and network logs for anomalies and corrected as needed

Daily proactive maintenance and reactive assignments based on educational needs and priorities Administered district level Firewall/IPS/VPN, packet shapers, spam filters, and antivirus systems Administered district email server and accounts 

Consulted with heads of all major departments (finance, payroll, testing, HR, child nutrition, transportation, maintenance, and the rest of the central staff) to address emergent and upcoming needs within their departments and resolve any critical issues in a timely and smooth manner Ensure data integrity and security throughout servers, network, and desktops

Monitored and corrected all data backup procedures/equipment for district and school level data

Project based work through all phases from design/concept through maintenance

Consulted with outside contractors, consultants, and vendors to integrate and maintain various information technologies in an educational environment, including bid contracts

Designed and implemented an in-house cloud computing infrastructure utilizing a HP Lefthand SAN solution, VMWare’s ESXi, and the existing Dell server infrastructure to take full advantage of existing technologies and to stretch the budget as well as provide redundancies

End user desktop and peripherals support, training, and consultation

Supported Superintendents, Directors, all central office staff/departments, school administration offices (Principals and staff) and classroom teachers and supplementary staff

Addressed escalations from other technical staff on complex and/or critical issues 

Utilized work order tracking and reporting systems to track issues and problem trends

Attend technical conferences, including NCET, to further my exposure to new technologies

Worked in a highly independent environment and prioritized district needs and workload daily Coordinated with other network admin, our director, and technical staff to ensure smooth operations, implement long term goals and projects, and address critical needs

Performed various other tasks as assigned by the Director of Media and Technology and

Superintendents

Products Supported

Microsoft XP/Vista/7 and Server 2000/2003/2008, OSX Server 10.x, Unix/Linux

Sonicwall NSA E8500 Firewall/Content filter/GatewayAV/VPN/UTM Packeteer 7500 packet shaping / traffic management / network prioritization

180 HP Procurve L2/L3 switches and HP Procurve Management Software

Netware 6.x, Netware OES, SUSE Linux, eDirectory, Zenworks 7, Zenworks 10/11

HP Lefthand SAN, VMWare Server / ESXi / VSphere datacenter virtualization

Solarwinds Engineer Toolset 9/10 for Proactive/Reactive network flow monitoring

Barracuda archiving/SPAM filter/backup appliance, Groupwise 7/8 email server

Education

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science

Minor: Mathematics

UNC School System, Fayetteville State University, May 2004

GPA: 3

High Level Topics (300+):

Data Communication and Computer Networks

Software Tools

Programming Languages

Theory of Computation

Compiler Design Theory

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Architecture and Parallel Processing I

Computer Architecture and Parallel Processing II

Principles of Operating Systems

Principles of Database Design

Computer Graphics I

Computer Graphics II

Social, Ethical, and Professional Issues in Computer Science

Certifications/Licenses:

VMWare VCP 5 (Datacenter)

Windows Server 2008/2012

Windows 7/8

Security+, CompTIA

ITILv3, EXIN

Certified Novell Administrator, Novell

Apple Certified Systems Administrator, Apple

Network+ and A+ Certified Professional, CompTIA

Emergency Medical Technician, NC (P514819)

Training:

Hitachi HUS VM

Hitachi HCP

IBM SoftLayer

VMWare VCP (datacenter)

VMWare VCAP (datacenter)

EMC VNX in VMWare

VMWare VDI (virtual desktops)

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Emergency Medical Technician - Basic, 2019

EMT - Paramedic (pending)