#Variant: Unclassified

[thegreenhordes]

Blood-stained Diary - Mother's Woes

TW: Blood, mentions of self-harm, violence, untreated injury

The First Entry: My husband brought me a Diary. He said I need something to occupy my fading thoughts. Orient my fragmented mind. I think I will write, yes. To pass the time... To ignore the hunger and pain. I feel numb. The green flows through my veins and lights me up like a beacon in the night. My legs hurt, my head hurts, and I almost bit my husband in a fit of blind hunger. What is happening? I don't understand. I'm so scared, so confused. My children comfort me from beyond the bedroom door but my focus fades and all I understand is the sound of their voices, not their words. I beat at the door in the dead of night until exhaustion locks my limbs and I can rage no more. I know he keeps me here for everyone's safety. So why do I feel so angry? Why does the night awaken such beastly wrath? I'm scared. Everything hurts and I am so very, very scared. The Fifth Entry: My love feeds me all the things I used to love, all things that now make my stomach turn. Sometimes I hurt myself just to smell the blood. Sometimes he leaves a goblet of thick red on the bedside table as I sleep. I don't know where he gets it... I don't care. I'm so hungry. So hungry. My little boy spoke to me this morning. I begged him to come in, to see Mother, to hold me and to let me see him once more. I miss him, so very much. I want to tear out his throat and watch the green destroy him like it destroys me. No. No I can't think like this. I'm so tired, so hungry, so thirsty. I want to tear at the bars that keep the window sealed shut. I broke the glass, the shards still stuck in my legs. My love tried to remove them, but I couldn't control myself and I kept lunging and snapping my jaw like a rabid beast. I plucked some out myself, but I am already in so much pain that I couldn't bear it. I'm going to sleep. I'm so exhausted. The Twentieth Entry: I smell them I smell them I smell them I smell them- They're so silent, why? Why do they cower from my calls? Why do my sons not answer, why does my husband no longer visit me while I wake? The gift, the gift- I have to share the gift. They just don't understand! They would if they let me OUT. LetmeoutletmeoutletmeoutlETMEOUT. I just want to see my boys again. I'm so hungry. The Twenty-Sixth Entry: My youngest came. I stayed quiet this time. I gave him the gift, he screamed so much. He'll understand soon.. then we can spread the gift together. The Last Entry: I'm so scared of what I have become. What have I done?]

[natalieironside]

"To investigators of this sort, recurring similarities seem specially important. So much so that students of folklore are apt to get off their own proper track, or to express themselves in a misleading 'shorthand': misleading in particular if it gets out of their monographs and into books about literature. They are inclined to say that any two stories that are built round the same folklore motif, or are made up of a generally similar combination of such motifs, are 'the same stories'. We read that Beowulf 'is only a version of Dat Erdmanneken'; that 'The Black Bull of Norrroway is Beauty and the Beast', or 'is the same story as Eros and Psyche'; that the Norse Mastermaid (or the Gaelic Battle of the Birds and its many congeners and variants) is 'the same story as the Greek tale of Jason and Medea'. Statements of that kind may express (in undue abbreviation) some element of truth; but they are not true in a fairy-story sense, they are not true in art or literature. It is precisely the colouring, the atmosphere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story, and above all the general purport that informs with life the undissected bones of the plot, that really count."

--J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories

[usafphantom2]

AIM-174B Loadout Brings Back U.S. Navy’s Cold War Roots

The U.S. Navy's return to VLRAAMs offers a glimpse into the envisioned strategy to overcome the 'tyranny of distance' in the Pacific.

Carter Johnston

AIM-174B

Another sighting of the AIM-174B, this time at Point Mugu Naval Air Station, is offering a look at what the future of naval aviation air warfare operations could look like in a high intensity conflict, bringing back hints of the U.S. Navy’s past in great power competition.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet from Test and Evaluation Squadron 9 (VX-9), the primary test squadron for the AIM-174B, was spotted by father-son Instagram duo Mark and Taj of @point_mugu_skies. Fully loaded, the F/A-18F was carrying four CATM-174Bs, three CATM-120Ds, two CATM-9Xs, and a centerline fuel tank with the IRST-21 infrared-search-and-track system.

Operationally, this would offer a Super Hornet unparalleled capabilities for long-range engagements with four AIM-174Bs, backed up by AIM-120Ds that are reportedly approaching the threshold range for AIM-260 JATM range requirements–potentially up to 190 kilometers (120 miles).

The U.S. Navy’s investment into these advanced capabilities and longer ranges is another example of the evolving Carrier Air Wing concept heading into the late 2020s. Naval News previously reported on concept that was highlighted at this year’s Rim of the Pacific Exercise. The debut of operational AIM-174Bs in the U.S. Navy, which received significant press coverage during their appearance at RIMPAC 2024, marks a significant change in carrier air power.

Air Wing Of The Future

A VFA-97 ‘Warhawks’ F-35C Lightning II and VAW-113 ‘Black Eagles’ E-2D Advanced Hawkeye prepare for flight operations aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) during Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC). The F-35C and E-2D provide the backbone of sensor coverage to the USS Carl Vinson and all of Carrier Strike Group One.

Return of the Outsized Giants

Through the mid-2010s and early 2020s, the U.S. Navy worked on a viable return to the fleet defense fighter concept, this time centered around the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Testing of an airborne RIM-174 ERAM may have started as far back as 2015 under the ‘Future Capability Demonstration’ (FCD) testing program. There are no public details of FCD but it featured captive carried airborne and land-based tests.

Testing continued through the 2010s under the same name, likely part of a larger Special Access Program (SAP). A captive carry RIM-174 was first spotted in 2021 painted in an orange test scheme, flying with a VX-31 Test and Evaluation Squadron Super Hornet. It was spotted again in early June 2024, this time flying with a VX-9 Test and Evaluation Squadron Super Hornet.

Naval News was first to break the story on the missile’s operational capacity in the U.S. Navy. On July 4th, a U.S. Navy Spokesperson declared the AIM-174B ‘SM-6 ALC’ as “deployed in the Navy today”. In the following days, the missile had a very public debut at RIMPAC 2024 with VX-9 and the USS Carl Vinson‘s CVW-2 Advanced Air Wing.

The AIM-174B likely boasts a range exceeding 400 km given the size of the missile itself alongside the unclassified performance numbers of the surface-launched RIM-174 ERAM. It is the first dedicated VLRAAM in U.S. Navy service since the retirement of the AIM-54C Phoenix in 2004.

The U.S. Navy also has another up-and-coming long-range AAM, the AIM-120D3 AMRAAM, the latest AMRAAM variant in the family. According to an Air and Space Forces interview with John Norman, Raytheon vice president for requirements and capabilities for air and space systems, the AIM-120D3 is approaching threshold range for the AIM-260 JATM program, specifically that it is “beyond parity” with the AIM-260.

The VX-9 Super Hornet spotted near Point Mugu would offer four missiles, AIM-174Bs, that could hit targets 400+ kilometers (248+ miles) away with an additional three missiles, AMRAAMs, that could hit targets 200+ kilometers (124+ miles) away. All seven of those missiles having a longer range than the Cold War’s AIM-54 Phoenix.

History of the U.S. Navy’s Very Long-Range Air-to-Air Missile (VLRAAM) Family

Upon the cancellation of the U.S. Air Force XF-108 and YF-12 high-altitude interceptors and their unique long-range AIM-47 Falcon air-to-air missiles, the United States was faced with a critical range gap against up-and-coming threats from Soviet bomber regiments and their advanced anti-ship missiles going into the 1960s.

The U.S. Navy was working on their own fleet defense fighter, the Douglas F6D Missileer, alongside a dedicated air-to-air missile, the AAM-N-10 Eagle. Both programs were shuttered in late 1961 following arguments against the aircraft due to system complexity, lack of self-defense capabilities, and impending budget cuts.

An artist rendition of the Bendix AAM-N-10 Eagle fired by a Douglas F6D Missileer. Both were cancelled in December 1961. U.S. Navy Naval Aviation News.

Despite the loss of the Missileer, the U.S. Navy still wanted a carrier-based, fleet defense oriented fighter aircraft with long reach and very long-range air-to-air missiles. One that could engage large, non-maneuvering targets from outside the range of opposing escort aircraft. To meet the need, the developer of the AIM-47 Falcon, Hughes, pitched the missile to the U.S. Navy as the AAM-N-11 Phoenix. The dedicated radar needed for the missile, the AN/ASG-18, was also modified and pitched to the U.S. Navy as the AN/AWG-9.

Many eyes looked to the TF-X program and F-111B to fill the role of a fleet defense fighter. That development effort also ran into obstacles through the 1960s. The F-111B was plagued by excessive weight, poor performance on carrier takeoffs and landings, and lack of engine power. It was cancelled in May 1968 and only seven aircraft were delivered.

The first two U.S. Navy General Dynamics/Grumman F-111B fighters (BuNo 151970, 151971) in flight over Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts (USA). 151970 made its first flight on 15 May 1965 and was stricken on 3 December 1969. 151971 crashed on 11 September 1968 into the Pacific Ocean 160 km west of Point Mugu, California. The test pilots Barton Warren and Anthony Byland were killed. U.S. Navy photo.

The U.S. Navy’s decade long effort to extend their fleet defense envelope ended with the rapid development and introduction of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. The fighter came with its own problems, partially due to the requirement of the large AN/AWQ-9 and outsized AIM-54 Phoenix, but also due to the TF30’s turbine blade reliability as and a compressor stall risk at high angles of attack.

The F-14 served into the 2000s, with iterations throughout its life that made the F-14 more reliable and made the AIM-54 even more potent in long-range engagements. The AIM-54 was retired in 2004 with the U.S. Navy’s AIM-120C AMRAAM entering widespread use. The F-14 retired two years later in 2006 after 32 years of flying, replaced by the Super Hornet.

20 years after the retirement of the AIM-54, the U.S. Navy has returned to its former days of long-range air-to-air missile concepts and practices. The culmination of AIM-174B development has brought that capability back to the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Air Wings into the late 2020s and 2030s.

@NavalAirNews.com

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

Why are languages similar to each other?

Let's talk about the way languages are connected to each other!

First, the obvious one...

Language families!

Languages with a common origin form a language family. Language evolves and changes over time, so populations speaking the same language in different places will over hundreds of years form different languages since they evolve in different ways. Now imagine one of those daughter languages splitting again and again... Soon there's a whole family of related but mutually unintelligible languages!

So, are all language families big? And how many are there?

We have two giants with over a thousand languages each: Atlantic-Congo languages and Austronesian languages. Some families have a couple hundred languages, like the famous prototypical examle Indo-European languages. Most families have lots fewer though, only a sixth of all 237 language families contain more than ten languages.

Some languages don't have any relatives and they're called isolates. At present, 184 languages count as isolates, among them Basque and Sandawe.

Some languages are unclassified, as there's too little data to draw conclusions. Family membership is based on comparing cognates, words that have the same origin and whose sound changes can be reconstructed back to the origin (like English 'two', Swedish 'två' and German 'zwei'). It's also common for close relatives to have similar grammar or other features. An example is that Austronesian languages often have fewer consonants.

Language contact!

Two languages meet. What happens? Loans, probably.

Languages borrow things from each other all the time. Words, sounds, grammatical structures and features (like prefixes or suffixes), changing the meaning of something, literally translating words and making up words in the style of another language are all things that happen. Fun loan word facts might be its own post as there's a lot to say about them, for now I only need to establish the fact that language contact probably leads to borrowing stuff and that you can borrow more than words.

Did you know that English didn't have the sound v until it borrowed too many French words with v? Before that, v wasn't recognised as its own sound, just a variant of f that happened sometimes. That's why knives are a thing. Knifes.

There are more levels of similarity due to contact! In areas where languages from different families or different branches from the same family meet and mingle for a long time, they might evolve to become more similar and share some features that might be uncommon globally or uncommon among closer relatives in other areas. These unrelated (or not very closely related) languages share some features, like certain scounds and grammar things. This is called a Sprachbund with a German word. It's possible to say 'linguistic area' or something like that, but it's not as well established and in my opinion sounds worse.

Certain features of a language can also be common in some areas, but not in others. One example is tone; it's very common in sub-saharan Africa and southeastern Asia, but only exists sporadically in other parts of the world. Why? Related languages tend to share features, but language contact definitely plays a role, as unrelated languages have tone. It's language contact!

The point is: Languages that have lots of contact might be similar because of that. Languages are usually influenced both by family origin and by the languages they come into contact with, which makes things interesting.

Onto the last thing I wanted to discuss:

Contact languages!

These arise when speakers of vastly different languages meet and have to communicate, but there isn't a lingua franca. There are two major reasons why this happens: either for commerce or because of slavery or other colonialistic practices.

Anyways, they're pretty interesting! The first kind of contact language that forms is called a pidgin. Its vocabulary is limited and the grammar is simple. There are no native speakers and you can only use it in a few domains (like being able to talk about commerce but not politics).

Now, imagine a community of people speaking this pidgin, made by improvising until something sticks. There are words and a little bit of grammar. Over time it will get a bit more complex, but still no native speakers. Then some of them form families and have children, who grow up speaking the pidgin.

And this is where the magic happens: children have an amazing ability to invent language by making generalisations and improvise until they can speak about anything. There are examples of children deprived of language coming up with entire languages if left alone (like the Deaf school in Nicaragua which tried to teach lip reading and not sign language, but the children came up with a sign language on their own that they started teaching instead). Children will fill in the gaps in the pidgin and give it a more complex structure.

After some time of this the pidgin turns into a creole. The line between them is blurry and unclear, but a creole is a fully realised language that you can speak about anything in, just like all other languages. It also has native speakers.

There's a common way pidgins and creoles are structured: usually one language is used as the base for words, but they're changed and reanalysed to mean something else. This language has often been the colonial power's language: there are a number of English and French based creoles for example.

The grammar on the other hand is usually taken from the other language(s). In the slavery cases, slaves were often taken from many different ethnic groups that might speak similar but mutually unintelligeble languages, or just very different languages, which means that those creoles draw on features from many languages. Of course, words can be based on any of the involved languages, but it's common that one makes up an overwhelming majority. The creoles are still unintelligible for speakers of the language it's based on.

This was all for now! Languages interact with each other in interesting ways and similarities can have many reasons.

[sonicasura]

Funny idea came mind as I'm rewatching Trollhunters.

Troll Jim but it's Devil Fruit flavored.

Let me explain, in an anime/manga called One Piece there's a type of treasure known as Devil Fruits. Fruit said to be enchanted by sea devils and grant unique powers to whoever eats them. Well, at the cost of not being able to swim again.

There are three types: Paramecia, Zoan and Logia. Zoan is the main focus as those who eat this Devil Fruit can transform into different living creatures. Animals, human, prehistoric life, gods and most importantly mythical creatures like trolls. Every Zoan has a set of three different forms. Their normal form, beast form and hybrid which is a combination of the former two.

Now I got different examples of this idea: human Jim who ate a Troll based Devil Fruit and a Full Troll Jim who ate a Human based Devil Fruit.

Let's start with human Jim.

When he was 7 years, he ate the Troll Troll Fruit Model Oni (a Japanese variant of trolls). The fruit looked like an odd blue cherry with spirals all over it so he thought nothing of it. Barbara definitely gotten a major fright as her son shifted into his hybrid form.

Now unlike Merlin's spell, the Devil Fruit doesn't transfer over any myth based weakness like trolls turning to stone in sunlight. Clothes also shift to fit the fruit's different forms. Jim is an Oni, not a unclassified troll species like with Merlin's spell, which means he can essentially gain power related to them such as lightning manipulation.

Our dear Jimbo is quick to control and master this power mainly for his mother's sake. Toby doesn't find out until the events of Trollhunters begins. Now this leads to some canon divergence.

Jim saves Kanijar by hurling him into the shade of the bridge but the Trollhunter still receives sunburned injuries from Bular. His dominant hand and left leg had been shattered into pieces as it was a think fast or regret moment. (Jim was on an early run in Oni form at that time so he witnessed the commotion. Kanijar ain't angry about the strange troll breaking his limbs as he would've been dead otherwise.)

Jim leaves once he knows the injured troll is safe, well, not without giving the Trollhunter a huge shock as the teen runs off into the sunlight completely unharmed. Draal becomes the next Trollhunter as the Amulet deems itself too dangerous for Kanijar to wield in his current state.

Blinky and AAARRRGGHH do seek Jim out but for a different reason. A troll capable of walking in sunlight would be a huge target especially if Bular is roaming around. They don't find Jim until Toby and him get chased like in canon. Our Devil Fruit user had shifted earlier so he could carry his friend on his back.

Although the two didn't expect the large troll to change into a human clearly without magic. Team Trollhunters still forms but how it happens is completely different. Do know that Vendel is gonna get a shit ton of headaches from the incoming shenanigans.

Now for Troll Jim.

He's the nephew of Deya the Deliverer who gotten separated from everyone during the Battle of Killahead Bridge. A whelp that would later on eat the Human Human Fruit Model Surya (a Hindu Sun God) outta starvation. The fruit giving him a human(oid) appearance alongside an immunity to sunlight in every form.

Jim learns to master his powers as he travels around the world until settling down in Arcadia, a few years before the events of the show. The teenage Troll had planned for it to be a temporary stay if it wasn't for a certain Barbara Lake. She gotten into an accident when trying to avoid hitting a deer one night. Jim saved her and tends to her injuries.

It was hook line n sinker even before Barbara found out he's a teenager in troll years. Jim got adopted pretty quickly especially when he calls her mom multiple times outta habit. Like in the opposite scenario: Kanijar is saved but still injured alongside only Barbara knowing about Jim's inhuman nature until Bular chases him and Toby.

It takes a bit longer for Trollmarket to find out he is Deya's missing nephew. And oh boy does everyone freak out as they thought he was dead or had been kidnapped. How is Jim able to turn into a human(actually a god yet they don't know) but also immune to sunlight even in troll form??? Overall absolute chaos and confusion yet still welcomed.

A certain wizard isn't gonna have it easy with either Jim if you're wondering. Jimbo is more blunt than in canon and ready to call someone out on their bullshit. Learning to master the powers of a cursed fruit will do that to someone. Trollmarket got a full blown taste at just how vindictively blunt Jim is.

That's it for now! Until next time folks, I'll see you back in Arcadia.

[oberons-ghost]

On Currency

[A photograph of a ₽10 coin. It features a Nidoran.] I do not travel (aeroplanes are too anxiety-inducing) so I do not have much use for international currency. However I do maintain a small collection of pyen coins which I find nice. I thought I would use this as an opportunity to 'infodump'!

The pyen coin was first minted in 1997 in Kanto, Japan as an east asian equivalent to the euro - a locally international currency for ease of conversion

Galarian speakers, especially from the unovan states, often call it a pokédollar because the coins exclusively feature pokémon, but the official name is pyen

The etymology is similar, however, as it is short for ポケモンの円玉 or 'yen coin featuring pokemon'

Pokémon were chosen as the faces of the coins due to uncontroversial and international appeal, which eventually led to worldwide adoption as a secondary currency in 2011

Pyen coins come in ₽1, ₽10, ₽25, ₽50, ₽100, ₽250, and ₽500 denominations

The pokémon featured depends on where the coins were minted or intended for. Chinese ₽500 coins feature pangoro, while Unova State often has braviary on its ₽500 coin.

Pyen banknotes come in ₽1,000, ₽5,000, and ₽10,000 denominations and feature legendary pokémon such as cobalion, calyrex, or rayquaza

Lower denominations generally feature smaller or unevolved pokémon, with larger or evolved ones reserved for larger denominations (e.g. joltik is on a ₽1 coin, and galvantula is on a ₽50 coin. Comfey is also on a ₽1 coin, and turtonator on a ₽100 one)

Although one place may have a 'standard', or most common variant, this is by no means exclusive

There are approximately 2 million lines of pokémon and potentially even 8 million including unclassified, pyen are known to feature 1 million

Coins featuring steel-types are particularly popular among collectors

1 Pyen is worth 1.5 unovan cents

Pyen is the favored currency of travelling trainers due to it being accepted everywhere

The Nidoran♂ coin I showed above was one of the earliest, being japanese 1998 minted! It was a very lucky treasure.

[trashmenofmarvel]

Always Will Be - Ch 7

Pairing: Loki x TVA Agent!Reader

Series Warnings (18+ Only): Eventual Smut, Slow Burn, Violence, Time Shenanigans, Enemies to Friends to Lovers

Chapter Summary: Laufeyson's first day as a TVA consultant makes you grateful you don't age. The grey hairs would have been just another target of his mockery.

AO3

You didn’t see Laufeyson again until the following day. The internal TVA portal had deposited him, not into the intake process of before, but into the TVA Worker Orientation Program.

It would go over all of the TVA’s history (that which was unclassified) and would walk the new employee through the protocols and procedures of healthy timeline maintenance.

It should have taken Laufeyson a full three days. Instead, when you returned from your noon lunch, there was a tall demigod sitting in your chair, feet up on your desk, as he thumbed through your bird watcher’s magazine.

You snatched it out of his hands.

“Hey!”

Laufeyson spun in the chair, frowning like a petulant child.

“I was reading that—oh, it’s you.”

His eyes widened into the pantomime of a now scared child as he said, “Please, don’t send me back.”

“Did you… did you skip your orientation?”

Laufeyson winced, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, leaning forward in your chair so much you took a step back and glanced around nervously.

“It was so boring I could feel the will to live escape from my body. What have I done wrong to deserve such torment?” he asked, staring up at you with wide, doe-y eyes.

Unfortunately for him, you knew every trick in his playbook, and even a few that weren’t included. He wasn’t the only Loki variant you’d studied.

“Don’t give me that look,” you hissed through your teeth. “That wasn’t torture, that was a tutorial! All of the new members of the TVA have to go through it!”

“Including you?” For some unfathomably reason Laufeyson kept up the act, trying to garner sympathy where he would find none.

“Including me.”

You huffed, uncurling the magazine in your hands, and tried to smooth it out. It was the only one you had, a gift from Mobius on one of his missions. You frowned at a crease in the corner, unhappy when you couldn’t fix it completely.

“How did you get out, anyway?” You moved past him to put the magazine away in a drawer, trying to do the same mentally and storing away your anger over Laufeyson bending the cover.

“Asked for a moment to relieve myself and never returned. You TVA fools are far too trusting. Why do you have that?” He indicated the drawer.

You ignored the question and leaned on the desk, crossing your arms as you glared.

“You need to start taking this seriously.”

“I am!”

He sat up straight, smoothing down the tie that lay across his chest. As part of the orientation, Laufeyson had received the standard issue of his temporary station as agent. The pale blue shirt, brown pants, and black loafers were meant to be nondescript and unnoticeable, and yet, the way he wore them would never allow him to blend into a crowd. He was too tall, too broad in the shoulders and slim at the waist, and he cut an impressive figure.

For a variant.

You forced your eyes away to the other side of the room, focusing on the watercooler rather on the demigod sitting in your chair.

“I am,” he insisted when you still hadn’t responded. His tone was surprisingly diplomatic. “I read all the course material, listened to that insufferable little widget droll on and on about the Sacred Timeline, and I guarantee I understand more about temporal fluctuations than most of your fellow drones. Go on, test me. Ask me anything.”

Against your better judgement, you met his eye. Laufeyson managed to keep a straight face for several seconds before the corner of his lips turned upward. A close-mouthed smile that somehow felt more warm and sincere than when he showed teeth.

He was attempting to lure you in with his charm, and you needed to teach him why that wasn’t going to work.

“All right.” You stood up from the desk and walked past him. “Follow me.”

“What? Really?” Laufeyson was out of his seat and following close at your heels, excitement in his long stride. “Are we finally going to hunt down the lesser Loki?”

“Not yet.”

That was all you said on the matter as you led him down two sets of hallways, remaining on the same floor but in a part of the level that the desk clerks rarely visited.

This was where the Hunters and the Minutemen spent their free time.

You reached your destination and stepped into the room, looking up at the tall variant at your side as you stuck your hands in your pockets.

“You wanted to be tested, Mister Laufeyson? Here’s your chance.”

The variant smirked at you, the warmth of his previous smile gone.

“Mister Laufeyson? What happened to our informal, intimate use of our first names? Of course, that would require you telling me your first name, which you have yet to… do…”

Laufeyson trailed off as four Minutemen and a Hunter entered the room. This was B-15’s unit, and her eyes held a glint of satisfaction as she spotted the variant at the threshold of the sparring room.

As were the rules during sparring matches, they wore only their athletic shirts and fatigues, no body armor permitted during the fights. Equipment lined the room to build strength and mass, but the middle was cleared and lined with mats. A place for the soldiers of the TVA to test their ability in one-on-one combat.

A brief flicker of uncertainty passed over Laufeyson’s face, but he rallied so quickly no one noticed but you.

“Now, this is more like it. Who knew you stuffy bureaucrats knew how to have a bit of fun?”

You pulled a hand from your pocket and indicated the sparring ring.

“By all means. Enjoy yourself.”

The variant did a double take, studying your face for what he probably thought was a joke, but you merely stepped back to the edge of the room to watch. B-15’s fighting style was take-no-survivors, and it was wise to not be anywhere near the fight when it commenced.

A wolfish grin spread on his lips.

“Oh, I will.”

Laufeyson turned to the sparring ring and rolled up his sleeves to the elbows as he approached.

The soldiers of B-15’s unit looked just as eager, as did the Hunter herself, and why wouldn’t they? They’d personally known some of the units who’d been killed by the other Loki variant. It was unprofessional for them to allow their emotions to dictate their actions, but it might serve a purpose now.

A lesson the demigod was going to learn quickly judging by the hungry glint in the eyes of the TVA soldiers.

“Who wants to go first?” Hunter B-15 asked with a lift of her chin, her right hand gripping for a baton that wasn’t there.

“One at a time?” Laufeyson scoffed. He walked the edge of the sparring mats, his tone light and mocking, but his poise spoke of a trained readiness for combat. “That’s a bit insulting. Come, have at me. All at once.”

B-15 smiled without humor.

“All right. You four. Remind the variant of what he is, in case that new outfit is causing any confusion.”

“Are you not going to test your mettle against me yourself?” Laufeyson smirked at her even as he kept an eye on the approaching Minutemen.

“Oh, don’t worry, Variant. You’ll get your shot.”

“I do hope so. You and I have unfinished business.”

“We sure do.”

B-15 smiled wider; she was enjoying herself, and the fight hadn’t even started yet. You hadn’t seen her so happy.

It was a bit unsettling.

Laufeyson and the four Minutemen circled each other slowly, gauging up and sizing up the competition, and when the first soldier threw his fist at the variant, he was more than ready.

The soldier went sailing over Laufeyson’s back, landing outside of the ring.

“Come on,” he said, extending his arms in a mocking gesture of grandeur. “What did you expect?”

A second Minutemen went for him, but she was smarter, feigning at the last second as the third rushed in. Laufeyson dodged their kicks and hits, sometimes deflecting them when they got too close.

His fighting style was familiar to you, one you’d witnessed many times in the sparring pits on Asgard. Laufeyson hadn’t participated in them, his interests were always in expanding his knowledge and skill in magic, but he’d watched. He’d listened. He’d practiced enough to emulate Thor, and was skillful enough to survive the wayward adventures with his brother.

It was only when talk of Thor taking the throne became more serious that Laufeyson had focused more of his time into combat with daggers. An untrained agent would have thought it meant Laufeyson would one day betray and attempt to murder his brother.

The real answer was much more complicated. It had been a mixture of envy, jealousy, grieving their diverging paths, and loneliness. Laufeyson had been bored, and unhappy, so he’d taught himself to fight for when Thor wasn’t there to guard his back.

It had paid off—Laufeyson was a formidable enemy even without the use of his magic. The three Minutemen who were left, while coordinating together with much more skill and finesse than the first soldier, were eventually tossed from the circle of mats.

Laufeyson turned to you, grinned, and bowed in a flourish. He hadn’t broken a sweat.

You tilted your head toward B-15 as she walked onto the mats, a silent don’t get cocky in your expression. But Laufeyson dismissed it with a wave of his hand, turned to the Hunter, and gave a swaggering: “Looks like you kept your promise after all—”

B-15 hit him in the stomach so hard his breath cut out as he doubled over. She followed up with a fist crashing down onto his back, and Laufeyson hit the mat with an abrupt wheeze.

He leaned up on his elbows as she circled him, and he flipped the hair out of his face. Laufeyson gave her a glare as he rose onto his hands and knees, and attempted to cloak his bruised ego (and kidneys) with a laugh.

“You caught me by surprise, that’s all. Not very sportsmanlike, but I will find it in my heart to forgive you.” Laufeyson dusted off the front of his shirt and adjusted his tie. “Otherwise, that never would have worked. I’ve had bears swipe at me with more—”

The variant released a choked noise when B-15 kneed him in the groin, grabbed him by the back of his hair, and threw him back down onto the mat.

You involuntarily winced at the impact. Hunter B-15 showed no mercy as she circled him like prey.

“All right, I think that’s enough.” You pushed yourself off the wall. “He got his exercise for the day.”

“You sure?” she asked, still smiling down at the variant as if this was the most fun she’d had in months. Probably was. “I can tenderize him for you, ma’am.”

“No, that’s fine, thank you.”

B-15 shrugged and walked away, back to her unit who seemed much better off than the variant. He stared at the Hunter’s retreating figure as he slowly rose to his feet, rubbing the top of his thighs.

“What do you feed those soldiers?” he wheezed, his breath not altogether back.

“Same food as the rest of us.”

“Then why does she hit like a Frost Giant?”

“Well.” You adjusted your jacket to avoid his stare. It was distracting when he was still panting for breath. “We’re each created with our own set of skills. The Minutemen and Hunters are built for combat. The clerks are designed to notice patterns and deviancies.”

“And what about the agents?”

At his mildly playful tone you did meet his gaze, a ghost of a smile tugging on his lips.

“The analysts solve problems that might arise within the Sacred Timeline that call for a more… creative perspective.”

“Truly? How fascinating. Little drones that can think for themselves.” He paused for dramatic effect; brows creased severely as if he’d just had an epiphany. “Do you know how to fight?”

“That’s not my specialty.”

Laufeyson frowned with comical exaggeration.

“You chase dangerous variants and don’t know how to defend yourself?”

You met his frown with one of your own, this one entirely serious.

“I chase variants through time, not through a battlefield. You’ve been watching too many Earth movies.”

“Hey.”

Now your frown did hold a light edge to it. The variant’s indignity was blatant and altogether funny, and he didn’t seem to enjoy that you knew about the times he’d stolen away onto Midgard just to watch something in the theater. The God of Mischief was a patron of the arts, even if those arts were cheesy action flicks that he would deny he’d ever deign to watch.

“Don’t worry, Mister Laufeyson, your secret is safe with me.”

You turned toward the door, but a hand around your forearm stopped you. First you looked at the offending hand, then met his eye, but the variant seemed to hardly notice the line he crossed, and you didn’t reprimand him. The concerned slant of his brows preoccupied your attention.

“Jest if you will, but hunting down another version of… well, me, without proper training is, frankly, suicidal.”

You pulled your arm from his fingers and immediately smoothed down the wrinkles in your jacket.

“I appreciate the concern, Mister Laufeyson, but—”

“Loki.” There was an amused glint in his eye as a smiled teased his lips. “We’re to be partners, after all.”

Partners.

You opened your mouth to deny the ridiculous claim, and then closed it. Laufeyson was cooperating, even if it was on his own annoying terms, but still. He was willing to do what he’d been asked.

Maybe Hunter B-15 had knocked some sense into him. Judging by the light dancing in his eyes, you guessed it was less sense and more mischief.

“Mister Laufeyson,” you continued onward, “your concern is appreciated, but I can handle myself with a baton and a TemPad. Nothing else is required in order to catch this variant.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t need me.”

For the second time in so many minutes, you opened your mouth, and nothing came out. The flash of playfulness on his expression was quickly replaced by eagerness.

“But I’m here now, and I can properly train you in the art of combat. Who better to teach you to fight a Loki than another Loki? Especially when this version is, clearly, the inferior one.”

He took a step closer, and you were once again reminded of his taller stature. He placed a hand on your right shoulder, the heat of his palms penetrating even your jacket.

“With me as your teacher and your partner, you’ll be well-equipped to handle this variant. He won’t lay a finger on you.”

It wasn’t his words that gave you pause, it was the absolute certainty as he dropped his voice into a smooth, silky tone. As if you could put all your faith and trust in him, and he would never let you down.

Meeting his eye without blinking, you reached up and placed your hand over his. Then you gripped his fingers and bent them backwards nearly all the way to the knuckles in a painful fingerhold. Laufeyson gave a surprised noise as you pried him off with ease.

“I’m not worried about his fingers,” you said in that same smooth, silky tone. “But you can keep yours to yourself.”

The variant winced when you let go and rubbed his sore joints with the thumb of his other hand.

You turned on your heels and left the sparring room, trusting the variant would follow after you. You should have been proud of your show of skill, the variant knew you weren’t helpless at the very least, but all you could think about later that night was the expression on his face when your fingers had briefly touched the back of his hand.

Laufeyson’s eyes had widened, his mouth slightly ajar. He’d looked for all intents and purposes as if the touch shocked him. Not the fingerhold, that he had reacted to predictably, but the ghost of a touch beforehand. As if he’d not been touched like that before.

The guilt of you inadvertently exploiting that moment of weakness was what led you to agree to Laufeyson meeting you in the sparring room the next day.

And you were probably going to regret it.

Next Chapter

[graphicpolicy]

Bedlam's Identity is Revealed in Venom #9

Bedlam's Identity is Revealed in Venom #9 #comics #comicbooks #venom

Revealed in this week’s Venom #9, Bedlam, the bloodthirsty symbiote behind Eddie and Dylan Brock’s recent troubles, is none other than Eddie Brock at his worst. Prepare to learn more in Venom #10. Check out the unclassified variant cover by Paulo Siqueira and pick up Venom #10 on September 14. Venom is written by Al Ewing, with art by Bryan Hitch, and a main cover by Hitch.

[mariacallous]

A Russian military bomber engineer drove up to the U.S. Southwest border in late December, asking for asylum and offering to reveal some of Russia’s most closely guarded military secrets, according to an unclassified Customs and Border Protection report obtained by Yahoo News.

The man and his family arrived in an armored SUV and asked to be admitted into the U.S. because he feared persecution for participating in anti-Putin protests in support of Alexei Navalny, an imprisoned Russian dissident. He then told CBP officials that he had information wanted by the U.S. government.

He said he was a civil engineer and that “his past employment had included working ... from 2018 to 2021 in the making of a particular type of military airplane at the Tupolev aircraft production facility in the city of Kazan in west-central Russia,” according to a Jan. 11 unclassified CBP report obtained by Yahoo News.

“He described the aircraft type as ‘an attack jet’ and said it ‘was called White Swan-TU160, the largest military aircraft.’”

The CBP report is a daily roundup of items compiled by the agency’s National Border Security Intelligence Watch and is produced to highlight emerging trends or notable events for leadership. The agency added a comment in bold italics after the paragraph detailing the engineer’s arrival and employment and explaining why his information could be valuable.

“The TU-160 White Swan, also known by the NATO reporting name ‘Blackjack,’ is reportedly the most advanced strategic bomber in the Russian inventory and has been also used in a tactical airstrike role in the Ukraine war. According to open-source reporting, a major new construction program of an improved version of the aircraft as well as an upgrade program of existing aircraft got underway at the Tupolev facility during the past few years,” according to the unclassified “CBP Indications and Warnings Daily.”

CBP declined to answer Yahoo News’ questions or otherwise comment, citing agency policy “to neither confirm nor speak to potentially improperly disclosed internal documents marked as law enforcement sensitive or for official use only.”

Russian military expert Michael Kofman said he had no independent knowledge of this Russian engineer but spoke generally about the kind of information someone in his position could provide.

“An individual working at a defense industrial facility such as Tuplov could have access to a range of information on defense industrial production, specifications related to the Tu-160 bomber and its more recently developed modernized variant, various production processes, dependencies and where their limitations lie,” said Kofman, director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses.

“Someone in such a position could accumulate knowledge by virtue of the types of information they’re exposed to on the job, some of which could prove valuable,” he told Yahoo News.

As the U.S. continues to lobby allies to send military equipment to Ukraine, details about this particular fighter jet, which underwent reproduction and upgrades during the time of the engineer’s stated employment, would constitute valuable information, said a senior military intelligence official.

“Would a site manager know if they modified the remodeled bombers to shoot hypersonic missiles? He might. And that would be a really big deal, if the White Swan was retrofitted to fire hypersonic missiles. They are fast and launched from much farther away,” the official explained. “We don’t have anything that can defend against hypersonic missiles — meaning, Patriot systems and all the rest of what we are supplying Ukraine, it’s useless.”

[melyzard]

X-WINGS

A bit ago, @mosylufanfic​ asked my thoughts on the operational design and tactical deployment of X-Wings, and since studying fighter craft for these exact things is a large part of my job (and a thing I really like to do), I jumped at the invitation to geek out for a bit. Thanks, you’re the best.

So let me start this with two very important notes/disclaimers:

1.       No information in this commentary is meant as a direct reflection of the opinions or values of the United States Armed Forces, and absolutely nothing in here is Classified or FOUO. It is entirely my (somewhat curated for security) opinions based on my personal experience.

2.       Credentials: My platform is the F/A-18F (Navy variant, AESA loaded):

I have multiple combat tours and over a thousand hours in type. I also did a tour as a flight and tactical instructor for the Advanced Aviation Training pipeline, so I’m reasonably qualified to discuss the (again, UNCLASSIFIED) tactical deployment of the X-Wing in the Star Wars universe. I am NOT, however, officially trained as an astronaut or aeronautical engineer with any emphasis on space, I just think it’s neat and have done my own casual reading on the subject. So if I screw up my tactics based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the phenomena of space might affect the materials/individuals involved, that’s on me.

General platform commentary first:

Let me just start with the most important thing: The X-Wing looks sexy as hell.

 Yes, it matters. (a)

Good, that’s out of the way. Now for functionality:

PROS: It’s fast, light, maneuverable (more so than the TIE, we’re told), and apparently has a cockpit designed to closely resemble the most common civilian interfaces in the galaxy (barring, I hope, the weapons systems). This helps the Alliance take, say, a random farmboy from an Outer Rim territory and plunk him down in the X-Wing without having to worry that he won’t know the throttle from the stick, so there is that. It also seems to have a decent layout inside, with a nice big screen right up in front of the pilot (some Real World craft put the screen down sort of between the knees and behind the control stick, which is…annoying).

I don’t know what all these switches and buttons and lights are supposed to be, because honestly I’m almost sure most of these things are here to look cool on screen and no one thought through what they actually do. I assume the row of buttons at the top are circuit breakers, though (which yes, we have the in Super Hornet cockpits too).

Further explanation of this image (and other panels in the cockpit) is here if you’re interested. (Yes, real cockpits can be just as busy and confusing as the ones designed simply to look neat.)

So anyway, looking at this X-Wing cockpit, I don’t know what any of this stuff does, or why they have a screen that seems to function purely as a Windows Media Visualizer of the pilot’s personal theme music, but it looks really neat and implies that the X-Wing has a multitude of functionalities AND probably looks pretty as Christmas morning in the dark of space.

CONS: First, a gripe that may or may not be relevant: No ejection seat. I mean, one might exist, there might be a system of escape for the pilot in the event of catastrophic failure (reasonable headcanon ideas: the cockpit is itself a sealed escape pod, the helmets/orange suits have space-worthy sealing that pops on when they eject, the seats have some sort of space-worthy life support system…). If there is, I’ve never seen anyone in the movies use it, however. Sure, you’re thinking “who ejects in the middle of combat? Won’t they just get shot down? But consider this: how fast are those TIE going? Think they can get a lock on a slow, randomly moving, tiny target like a single person? Think they’ll even bother, especially with other rebel craft trying to blow them out of the sky? Highly unlikely that they even can lock on a soft target, anyway, let alone actually have the time to aim and fire. Plus, that argument is essentially “stay in the exploding craft because outside might be dangerous.” Uh, no.

Anyway, if there really is no ejection seat, then you’re just expected to go down with your craft, even if it’s some kind of mechanical failure or you take a bird down the engine intake or something (b). Really? You’re just expected to die with the craft? Nonsense. Utter nonsense. The Alliance in particular needs to fix that problem ASAP if it’s the case, because they absolutely do not have the human resources (c) to just let their trained, experienced, dedicated and morally-aligned pilots die the way the Empire does.

So that sucks.

But here is the biggest issue/confusion I have with the X Wing. I will admit, and this is probably going to shock anyone who knows how much I love the look of the X-Wing - I don’t understand the point of wings being able to open and close like this. The closest thing we have IRL is the sweep wing:

This is the F-14 TOMCAT, now retired from the force, but the idea is not uncommon. (d) That’s done for variations in maneuverability, speed, and fuel efficiency. It is 100% designed around the principles of in-atmosphere flight, however. So what does the X-Wing’s iconic open/closed wing configuration do for it? Well, I speculate that the closed configuration has more to do with hyperspace than anything, since we usually see them popping out of hyperspeed with closed wings, and opening them of course signals that Some Shit Is About To Go Down. I do know, however, that this open/close design makes it incredibly hard to hang any ordnance on those wings. The wings are, traditionally, where the bombs and missiles go.

The open/closed configuration makes this style of loading pretty much impossible (it would ruin the wings, throw the balance wildly off in atmosphere, and probably cause all kinds of launching problems with the ordnance itself), which is probably why we see no equivalent of the Sparrow or the AMRAAM, and nothing like a LGB or JDAM (e). No, all we ever see from the X-Wing are the fun (but very distinctly short range) pew-pew lasers coming from the wingtips and the “proton torpedoes” launched from the fuselage. From the fuselage.

Let me just say, for the record, that there is a bloody reason we don’t put explosive ordnance in the fuselage of a fighter. It’s not just that there’s hardly any room, when you consider all the avionics and mechanical bullshit needed to make the thing go, but honestly, would you like to be sitting a mere inch from the top of a small (probably unpadded) compartment full of explosives when you throw the throttle forward and dump a ton of fuel directly into the giant engines right next to it? Would you like to be sitting on a pile of boom while putting ~9 Gs on it and praying those cheap hooks don’t break off under the pressure? NOPE. You want that shit as far from you as you can get. (f) Also, most air to air missiles and most guided air to ground bombs have little rockets that launch them forward. How’s it supposed to do that from inside the fuselage?

But we’re going to call it “space science” and claim that the engines of an X-Wing don’t use flammable fuels, they use…I don’t know, fusion? Is that better? It doesn’t sound better. And I’m just going to headcanon that the “proton torpedoes” are more like semi-autonomous chaff/flares, they just spill out and then ignite and lock the target. Which is a terrifying idea if I examine it too close, but since the X Wing seems to only be used by desperate rebellion forces…alright. Take what you can get. Just be super careful not to drop more proton torpedoes than there are targets for them to lock on, because what if one of those things comes out and there’s nothing for it to latch on to when it goes live? Does it just…fizzle out? Dive for the dirt, and any friendly forces/civilians that might be milling about down there? Find a new target - like, for example, the X-Wing that launched it?

Also, while we’re on the subject, how the actual fuck does the X-Wing target those wingtip lasers? Consider the sight lines from the wingtips:

 See how they are all facing dead ahead? If you fired something from those wingtips, you would expect them to fire four straight lines out in front of the craft, like a box. 

But in the movies/comics/whatever, when the pilot hits the button, we always see the enemy fighter centered in the screen, and then all four lasers flash out from those wingtips, pew-pew! they hit the TIE in the dead center! But look at the sightlines! It doesn’t work! Are the wingtips bent inward to focus on a point directly in front of the craft? How does that affect in-atmo flight? Do they rotate during combat to follow the target lock? If so, do X-Wing pilots ever worry those lasers will rotate the wrong way, or too far inward? Is wingtip-laser drift a problem in the X-Wing community, one of those things they monitor and tell the crew chief when they land (“Yeah, Chief, the upper left wingtip laser over-rotated again, nearly shot my own head off, I’m writing it up in the gripe sheet and I’m not taking her out again until someone replaces the damn servo.”)

I have a lot of questions about ordnance in the X-Wing, by the way, and definitely not just the short-range weaponry. I don’t know if this is a design flaw, a tactical oversight, or just some kind of deliberate “movies don’t even care” thing, so I won’t list this as a pro or con, just a straight up ???????:

(If you’ve ever watched Rogue One with me before you know exactly what’s coming, I think.)

That’s right, where the hell is the long-distance combat in this franchise? (g) Because the X-Wing is built for “dogfighting and long missions” (h), but those missions might not be so long or so fraught with danger if they could just…shoot from a distance? I’ll be real with you, folks, dogfighting (knows as BFM in the real world) is considered an emergency procedure. You’re only doing it when something has gone wrong. (i) I know, for movie purposes, that no one wants to watch someone launch-and-leave at 50 miles (or whatever the distance equivalent is in Star Wars), no one wants to watch a real air battle because they are kind of boring from the outside, right until someone blows up. Or, if no missiles hit and defense tactics are successful, everyone gets into the tangle in the middle and it becomes dogfight territory. But dogfights are messy, burn through fuel like you would not believe, and gives the enemy an honest shot at you. (j)

But ejection seats and weird firing angles and long range deficiencies aside, at the end of the day this is a a light, relatively cheap, fast and durable combat craft that stands as a symbol of resistance and hope to the oppressed people of the Empire, and it can usually take a hell of a lot of punishment, serves as both long range transit and short range combatant, and frankly, I would fly it in a heartbeat, given the chance.

Overall evaluation: 10/10, someone get my helmet and DAMN THE TORPEDOES, FULL HYPERSPEED AHEAD!

 NOTES:

(a)    And not just for Cool Points (which are absolutely a thing in the fighter community – I once heard a dude complain that the F-16 Falcon couldn’t be painted bright red, which went into the “Cons” category of a comparison between the F-16 Falcon Fighter Jet and some muscle car. Seriously? What was that guy smoking? But I digress.) We’re talking a recognizable profile on a platform that has always been a Symbol Of The People’s Hope, which matters.

(b)    Look, FOD (Foreign Object Damage) is no joke, and it isn’t always “big rock went down engine blades,” or “guy hit a deer on the runway,” sometimes it’s just “penny fell out of pocket and jammed the controls, and the pilot had zero control so the plane flew into the dirt.”

(c)     Or alien resources. Sentient resources. You know what I mean.

(d)    By the way, in the fighter world we call the Tomcat “the big fighter” and make fun of the old guys who retreaded from it to the newer craft like Hornets and Supers. Probably because they always tend to start stories with “when I was in the Big Fighter” like it was Ye Olden Glory Days Gone By, and conveniently leave out the part where the Big Fighter used to do weird shit, like spontaneously explode. 

(e)    No, I’m not going to explain what all this ordnance is, it’s either classified or boring, or both. The names and basic specs are pretty easy to find on Wikipedia or Jane’s or something.

(f)      Admittedly, not far. But shit. Farther.

(g)    Even the big ships do this in the movies, they wait until they are within spitting distance to open any fire. Why? Have they not heard of ranged offensive capabilities? But I’m getting off topic.

(h)    Thank you, wookieepedia, for all the many hours of my life that you have filled.

(i)    Your long range missiles failed to hit the enemy craft, the enemy ambushed you from low ground cover, the enemy ambushed you via scrambled sensors, the enemy evaded all your support missiles (ie from the carrier/destroyers/cruisers that are usually in your vicinity), and so on.

(j)    Why would I give the enemy an honest shot at me? This isn’t dueling pistols at dawn, this is a fight for the galaxy!

[craigbrownphd-blog-blog]

If you did not already know

Distilled-Exposition Enhanced Matching Network (DEMN) This paper proposes a Distilled-Exposition Enhanced Matching Network (DEMN) for story-cloze test, which is still a challenging task in story comprehension. We divide a complete story into three narrative segments: an \textit{exposition}, a \textit{climax}, and an \textit{ending}. The model consists of three modules: input module, matching module, and distillation module. The input module provides semantic representations for the three segments and then feeds them into the other two modules. The matching module collects interaction features between the ending and the climax. The distillation module distills the crucial semantic information in the exposition and infuses it into the matching module in two different ways. We evaluate our single and ensemble model on ROCStories Corpus \cite{Mostafazadeh2016ACA}, achieving an accuracy of 80.1\% and 81.2\% on the test set respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that our DEMN model achieves a state-of-the-art performance. … Truncated Variance Reduction (TruVaR) We present a new algorithm, truncated variance reduction (TruVaR), that treats Bayesian optimization (BO) and level-set estimation (LSE) with Gaussian processes in a unified fashion. The algorithm greedily shrinks a sum of truncated variances within a set of potential maximizers (BO) or unclassified points (LSE), which is updated based on confidence bounds. TruVaR is effective in several important settings that are typically non-trivial to incorporate into myopic algorithms, including pointwise costs and heteroscedastic noise. We provide a general theoretical guarantee for TruVaR covering these aspects, and use it to recover and strengthen existing results on BO and LSE. Moreover, we provide a new result for a setting where one can select from a number of noise levels having associated costs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm on both synthetic and real-world data sets. … Proportional Degree Several algorithms have been proposed to filter information on a complete graph of correlations across stocks to build a stock-correlation network. Among them the planar maximally filtered graph (PMFG) algorithm uses $3n-6$ edges to build a graph whose features include a high frequency of small cliques and a good clustering of stocks. We propose a new algorithm which we call proportional degree (PD) to filter information on the complete graph of normalised mutual information (NMI) across stocks. Our results show that the PD algorithm produces a network showing better homogeneity with respect to cliques, as compared to economic sectoral classification than its PMFG counterpart. We also show that the partition of the PD network obtained through normalised spectral clustering (NSC) agrees better with the NSC of the complete graph than the corresponding one obtained from PMFG. Finally, we show that the clusters in the PD network are more robust with respect to the removal of random sets of edges than those in the PMFG network. … Non-Stationary Streaming PCA We consider the problem of streaming principal component analysis (PCA) when the observations are noisy and generated in a non-stationary environment. Given $T$, $p$-dimensional noisy observations sampled from a non-stationary variant of the spiked covariance model, our goal is to construct the best linear $k$-dimensional subspace of the terminal observations. We study the effect of non-stationarity by establishing a lower bound on the number of samples and the corresponding recovery error obtained by any algorithm. We establish the convergence behaviour of the noisy power method using a novel proof technique which maybe of independent interest. We conclude that the recovery guarantee of the noisy power method matches the fundamental limit, thereby generalizing existing results on streaming PCA to a non-stationary setting. … https://analytixon.com/2022/11/27/if-you-did-not-already-know-1895/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[usafphantom2]

USA wants to limit the flight tracking of its military aircraft

Diego Alves By Diego Alves 07/29/2023 - 11:00am Military

Earlier this year, we reported on the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command making a drastic change to its fleet of cargo and tank aircraft, removing all identification markings, including tail numbers, ???? unit markings and the iconic writing of the U.S. Air Force usually found on the fuselage.

The decision, which left the aircraft with a smooth gray paint with a small U.S. flag on the tail and the low-visibility USAF roundels, was attributed to operational safety reasons.

Since then, several AMC aircraft have been sighted without markings, including several C-130 and KC-135. Now it seems that other aircraft are losing their markings, since the C-32A executive transport jets and the "secret aircraft" for personnel transport C-32B Gatekeeper, both military variants of the Boeing 757, were photographed without serial numbers.

Last month, a C-32A was photographed first at Phoenix airport and then during landing at Yokota Air Base, Japan, and the lack of the serial number painted on the tail, just below the U.S. flag, immediately caught the attention of airplane observers. Even if the serial number was removed, observers were still able to find it, along with the flight code, using open source flight tracking (ADSB system).

The same has happened at least since April with the C-32B, which was photographed with the serial number, usually painted near the passenger's rear door, replaced by a small US flag. Once again, flight trackers were still able to determine through open source data the identity of what would otherwise be a "ghost aircraft", with its completely white paint.

The C-32A is used for the U.S. vice president, the secretary of state and the first lady or gentleman, but on some rare occasions it can get the role of Air Force One and transport the president where the VC-25 is not a suitable option. Your highly visible painting makes it immediately noticeable wherever you go, so removing the serial number may not seem so useful.

A C-32A photographed last month, serial number still visible on the tail. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

The C-32B, on the other hand, is used to transport U.S. Department of State's emergency support teams (FEST), which unfold in response to terrorist incidents around the world, but can also fly in support of the CIA's "dark" special activities, according to some sources. In this case, the "anonymization" of the aircraft may make more sense, because the special operations assets can be moved without everyone knowing that the American forces are in the city, but a completely white aircraft without markings also attracts a lot of attention.

The C-37 VIP jets also appear to be among the aircraft with their serial code removed, with the C-37B used by the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., photographed without the tail number. The C-37A and B models are twin-engine, VIP turbofan transport and special air transport aircraft built by Gulfstream Aerospace and usually employed in the transport of high-ranking government and military officers. While some C-37 exhibit the classic blue and white painting, some are painted in a more discreet white painting, with only a horizontal golden stripe from the radome to the tail.

Although these measures have complicated the visual identification of the aircraft, the military is making arrangements to move around discreetly without being immediately identified by airplane trackers. Last week, the Joint Special Operations Command released its annual unclassified document identifying the technologies that the military may be looking for, a kind of technological "wish list" for the defense industry that could develop new products.

With this document, it seems that the military is recognizing what aircraft trackers are capable of doing using simple methods of open source intelligence and are looking for ways to better "mix" with air traffic and hide in plain sight, without being exposed quickly. The document also includes an example scenario in which this tool can be used:

"SOF seeks to carry out the movement of personnel and assets to an area of interest with a reduced profile. When determining whether the planned movement is adequate and appropriate, the "Aircraft Combat Profile Management Database Tool" reveals that the aircraft is mainly associated with a distinctly different geographical area. In addition, "spotters" post on social networks photos of aircraft at various airfields. Based on the available information, the commander decides to use a different aircraft for the mission.”

JSOC aircraft are already quite difficult to identify, because they usually fly with paintings and civil records. However, some of them are identified by experienced spotters using all the tools available for free on the web. Given the "unofficial" nature of many of the missions carried out by JSOC, having your identity revealed on the web can be a serious problem.

A Beechcraft King Air "ghost" set up with Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance equipment photographed in Somalia in 2021 and possibly operated by JSOC. (Photo: USMC)

The U.S. Senate is also trying to bring the matter to the table, with senators asking the Secretary of Defense to resolve the situation as soon as possible with a policy throughout the Department of Defense to apply the operational risk reduction tactics of joint transponder/interactions/aircraft, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that have been developed to prevent the tracking of military flights. Here is an excerpt from the Congressional orientation presented last week:

"The Department of Defense (DOD) confirmed in briefings that it has developed a series of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), which it calls Joint Transponder/Interagency/Aeral Operational Risk Reduction, which aim to mitigate the threats to operational security represented by third parties by tracking DOD aircraft through open source data transmission by dependent surveillance automatic transmission transponders [ADS The Department also confirmed that it has tested these TTPs and that they can be effective against tracking.

Tags: Military AviationUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

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MILITARY

Russian fighter damages a second MQ-9 over Syria

07/29/2023 - 09:00

MILITARY

Italy will send F-35 aircraft to Japan for the first time next week

28/07/2023 - 18:00

MILITARY

Successful test of the B-21 brings bomber closer to the first flight

28/07/2023 - 16:51

MILITARY

Software failure during turbulence caused Air Force F-35 to fall in Utah

28/07/2023 - 10:30

MILITARY

Japan "landes" Ospreys fleet amid concerns about U.S. accident investigation report

07/28/2023 - 09:51

MILITARY

Why did the Iran-Russia jet agreement fail?

27/07/2023 - 18:00

[craigbrownphd]

If you did not already know

Distilled-Exposition Enhanced Matching Network (DEMN) This paper proposes a Distilled-Exposition Enhanced Matching Network (DEMN) for story-cloze test, which is still a challenging task in story comprehension. We divide a complete story into three narrative segments: an \textit{exposition}, a \textit{climax}, and an \textit{ending}. The model consists of three modules: input module, matching module, and distillation module. The input module provides semantic representations for the three segments and then feeds them into the other two modules. The matching module collects interaction features between the ending and the climax. The distillation module distills the crucial semantic information in the exposition and infuses it into the matching module in two different ways. We evaluate our single and ensemble model on ROCStories Corpus \cite{Mostafazadeh2016ACA}, achieving an accuracy of 80.1\% and 81.2\% on the test set respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that our DEMN model achieves a state-of-the-art performance. … Truncated Variance Reduction (TruVaR) We present a new algorithm, truncated variance reduction (TruVaR), that treats Bayesian optimization (BO) and level-set estimation (LSE) with Gaussian processes in a unified fashion. The algorithm greedily shrinks a sum of truncated variances within a set of potential maximizers (BO) or unclassified points (LSE), which is updated based on confidence bounds. TruVaR is effective in several important settings that are typically non-trivial to incorporate into myopic algorithms, including pointwise costs and heteroscedastic noise. We provide a general theoretical guarantee for TruVaR covering these aspects, and use it to recover and strengthen existing results on BO and LSE. Moreover, we provide a new result for a setting where one can select from a number of noise levels having associated costs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm on both synthetic and real-world data sets. … Proportional Degree Several algorithms have been proposed to filter information on a complete graph of correlations across stocks to build a stock-correlation network. Among them the planar maximally filtered graph (PMFG) algorithm uses $3n-6$ edges to build a graph whose features include a high frequency of small cliques and a good clustering of stocks. We propose a new algorithm which we call proportional degree (PD) to filter information on the complete graph of normalised mutual information (NMI) across stocks. Our results show that the PD algorithm produces a network showing better homogeneity with respect to cliques, as compared to economic sectoral classification than its PMFG counterpart. We also show that the partition of the PD network obtained through normalised spectral clustering (NSC) agrees better with the NSC of the complete graph than the corresponding one obtained from PMFG. Finally, we show that the clusters in the PD network are more robust with respect to the removal of random sets of edges than those in the PMFG network. … Non-Stationary Streaming PCA We consider the problem of streaming principal component analysis (PCA) when the observations are noisy and generated in a non-stationary environment. Given $T$, $p$-dimensional noisy observations sampled from a non-stationary variant of the spiked covariance model, our goal is to construct the best linear $k$-dimensional subspace of the terminal observations. We study the effect of non-stationarity by establishing a lower bound on the number of samples and the corresponding recovery error obtained by any algorithm. We establish the convergence behaviour of the noisy power method using a novel proof technique which maybe of independent interest. We conclude that the recovery guarantee of the noisy power method matches the fundamental limit, thereby generalizing existing results on streaming PCA to a non-stationary setting. … https://analytixon.com/2022/11/27/if-you-did-not-already-know-1895/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[somethingclevermahogony]

Day 10 Kobani Worldbuilding Question

Pictured Above: Apunian Scribes

https://www.imagineforest.com/blog/world-building-questions/

10.How do people communicate in this world?

1. Language and the written word

 The languages of the Green Sea can be split into the following eleven families;

Shabalic: Kishetal( Kishic, Nabic), Shabala( Shabalic, Akashadic, Daruzi), Unarta( Many languages many with influence from both Shabalic and Makoric languages), and Nabara( Many languages many with influence from both Shabalic and Makoric languages, Makoric influences tend to be stronger in Nabaric tribes compared to Unartic tribes)

Apunic: Apuna(Western and Eastern Apunic, Sacred Apunic Tongue(used solely by priests of Apunic temples)), Pyria( Pyrian languages have heavy Amishigic influence, Imogozat, Fonishic, Jubanic), and Namut( Namutian languages have heavy Upper Puric influence, Upper Namutian, Abishic, Puntilic, Khartic)

Baalic: Baalkes (Baalic, Tarqic, Turanic), Satabul(Satabish and Saratian), Knosh (Knoshic)

Western Macur: There are over 46 distinct languages spoken throughout the Western Macur. The most common languages spoken in the western forests and plains are Armahi and Massa’akic.

Jezaai: Jezaan( Jezic, Rechiru, Jothic)

Upper Puric: Namut(Coastal Namutian, Panadic, Xahadic, Ogarobtic)

Amshigic: Amshigara(There are roughly 23 languages spoke in the lands of Amshigara and North-western Pyritia, the most commonly spoken languages are Ljakuric and Mzuri)

Arkodic: Arkodai( These languages are functionally extinct though still used in some academic and religious environments), Korithia( Korithian and Arkoditekic)

Makoric: Makoric languages are spoken throughout Makora and Etusia, the most commonly spoken languages are Esirian and Kratisic

Konic: Konlun ( Jonnish, Larsi, Rotic, and Bocic), Ikeni and Dirsia (Dirshic/Montic Teannach, and Dokic)

Unclassified: Ikopeshi Languages, Kulayic, and various Forestfolk languages

Written language has existed in various forms in most of the lands of the Green Sea for approximately two thousand years. Written script however has not been firmly established in the north of the Green Sea in regions like Makora, Etusia, and Konlun.

Scripts can be roughly split into three families, Apunic, Shabalic, and Baalic. Language family and script family do not need to be related. The lands of the southern continent, Pyritia, have traditionally used a pictographic script in which symbols may represent both individual words and sounds. The scripts of northern Pyritia fall into the Apunic family of scripts.  The first and oldest of these is the Apunian script, which is in turn split into two variants, a western and eastern dialect. The Imogozat script of the Pyrian tribes descends from the western Apunian script with influence from the Knoshic alphabet. Namut’s Yetaka’zi language uses the eastern Apunian script with additional symbols added to account for additional sounds native to Namut.

Shabala, Ikopesh, and Kishetal all use scripts which fall into the Shabalic family. Shabala uses the Neduzian logo-syllabic script. Ikopesh uses the Ikuric script, which is the earliest alphabetic script in the Green Sea. Kishetal utilizes two scripts, the newer alphabetical Shekop script inspired by the Ikuric script, typically used for more descriptive writings. The older and more commonly used script is the logo-syballic Mikosh script, descending from the Neduzian script. Mikosh is favored for use in business and matters of counting.

 The majority of the island regions including those of Knosh, Korithia, Satabul, and Baalkes, use the same Baalic script, called Turanic, first being developed for use with the Turanic language. Turanic is a syllabic script which has replaced the older logographic Arkodian script.

Pictured Above: The planet of Kobani, The Green Sea lies between the super continent of Kalimacia, the continent of Pyritia, and the Kronatic Ocean

2. Travel and Moving Messages

The Green Sea and Kobani as a whole, at the time of Narul, is a world before the creation of quick or instant communication. Messages are typically sent and carried by messengers or diplomats, sometimes traveling on donkey or horse. The most sought after messagers are from Pyria and Satabul do to their perceived speed and stamina, Ikopeshi sailors are lauded for similar reasons when it comes to sending messages over sea. Messages and the written word are recorded on stone, clay, Apunic paper, and tanned hide. Official messages and records are kept on clay tablets. Less important or larger messages may be recorded on paper or hide. Some regions of Kishetal have mastered the art of communication via birds, typically doves and ravens. Some Ikopeshi groups use dolphins to communicate messages, particularly between ships. 

It possible for particularly powerful sages/seers to use the aid of spirits to communicate over wide distances, though this is very rarely used as it requires near exact knowledge of the location of the recipients which a message is meant to be sent to. Few if any sages attempt to send messages over more than a few miles. Magical communication is far more practical on the battlefield where sagecraft is used to communicate orders and reports from commanders to the frontlines. 

[daniloqp]

Loki has always been the weirdest Marvel character

Loki has always been the weirdest Marvel character

https://theministerofcapitalism.com/blog/loki-has-always-been-the-weirdest-marvel-character/

In the second episode of the latest Disney + Marvel series, Loki, the title character pulls off his most illustrious trick to date: getting to know himself. Working under the auspices of the authority of the variation of time, the mysterious organization that guarantees that everything happens in the multiverse-eliminating the Sacred Chronology: Loki traces another version, or “variant” of the God of Mischief to a Middle American mall. The goal is to undo the universe of this alternate deception, and after meeting three people that this other Loki has embodied, our antihero comes face to face with the main form of this new variant. She takes off her hood, revealing the blond hair, horns, and green dress Loki has worn in several Marvel movies. He then follows her to a portal and the credits are thrown away.

Yes, she.

For months, after photos of actress Sophia Di Martino in green and gold dresses appeared online, fans have been speculating on Disney + The show could feature the character known as Lady Loki. As the character played by Tom Hiddleston in the MCU, Lady Loki is the God of Mischief. But unlike him, she is a woman. Except this doesn’t look like Loki at all. “Anyone who knows Loki’s mythology,” says Kieron Gillen, who spent years writing the Marvel Comics character, “knows what a weird Loki figure is.”

Throughout Marvel history, Loki has taken many forms: snakes, women, Captain America. According to original Norse myths, she once became a mare and was the mother of one eight-legged horse this became Odin’s steed. In the comics, the cheating god became Lady Loki following Ragnarok, essentially taking Lady Sif’s body. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.fluid”: It is a deliberate gesture towards the past of the God of Mischief. “Our show is really about identity,” says director Kate Herron. “We are really delving into what makes Loki score. Recognizing that Loki is gender fluid was very important to me. ”

To be clear, making Loki appear as a woman does not make any (anti) hero queer. It says nothing about the sexual orientation or gender identity of the character. But the fact that Hiddleston’s Loki has no reaction to seeing his female self does acknowledge that the character has always known this part of his unclassifiable legacy. To Gillen’s Young Avengers, Loki’s plan tells David Alleyne / Prodigy: “My culture doesn’t really share your concept of sexual identity. There are sexual acts, that’s it. In fact, I am the patron god of certain people, believe it or not. Loki has lived many lives in many ways; the only rainbow he cares about is the Bifrost.

Still, in Marvel movies so far: the Thor movies, the Avengers titles: there has always been something inescapable in his presence. Not in terms of acts or presentation, per se, but in the details of their magical powers. Loki is someone whose talents and goals were not always in sync with what the world wanted him to be. When you transform your appearance or behavior to escape a precarious situation (something queer people have been doing for centuries) it’s called trick. But it really is a tool of resistance. He is the half-brother of the ice giant Thor who has been conflicted for his place in Asgard since his birth. (Remember: Odin literally turned his son’s skin from blue to white when he was a baby and saved Loki’s language until he was an adult.) To have an intersection about it, Loki is a biracial fluid and gender. who tries to both mix and be seen by who he really is. “For queer people, growing up knowing that others are waiting and assuming you’re right and having to negotiate that expectation to survive or make your way in the world, we all become cheaters,” says Anthony Michael D’Agostino, professor from Fordham University who has studied queer identities in comics. “Loki is quirky and almost down. Queer people will identify with him, no matter who he shoots, because of the way he negotiates the world. ” That is, a parasocial relationship, based on a shared sense of alienation.

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[moleculardepot]

Developing pathways to clarify pathogenicity of unclassified variants in Osteogenesis Imperfecta genetic analysis. A new interesting article has been published in Mol Genet Genomic Med. 2019 Dec; 7(12):e912. doi: 10.1002/mgg3.912.