#also while cusps exist they aren’t marked down as cusps in AN

[clockworkreapers]

question! you mentioned that purplebloods can be assistants to tyrians and that’s is a fairly recent thing; would an indigo/purple cusp also be eligible or would they be considered too low on the spectrum?

I did? (if I did I can’t remember where tbh that sounds too specific to single out one blood color) sure purples can, so can violets or indigos or cerulians even as low as teal. Depends what type of assistant though and what the individual trolls actual job is.

Domestics are always given to trolls lower down the spectrum and might not actually do much in the sense of interacting with Tyrians other than being servants or hive keepers.

Little bit higher up you could be in security or organization or doing more hands on things for them like styling or scheduling events.

Then if you have the background and prior knowledge for it you could be an assistant like an advisor or one that helps handles the governmental and corporate side of things. Those are usually the highest bloods since that usually is their neich in the social structure and what jobs the majority of them are already set up to do.

Either way you need the right skills and background to be able to be in a Tyrians inner circle when it comes to an actual job position under imperial. That and well you need to be loyal and actually good at your job and even then you might not be interacting with them 95% of the time, only when they need you.

[giftofshewbread]

REPENT, The End is Near!

By Lynda Janzen    Published on: May 9, 2021

“Jesus said, ‘But unless you repent, you too will all perish'” (Luke 13:5, NIV).

“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14, NIV).

“Devote yourselves to prayer…” (Colossians 4:2). “Pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). “The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind that you may pray” (1 Peter 4:7).

A few years ago, I gave myself a nickname: Mrs. Jeremiah. It has nothing to do with Rev. Dr. David Jeremiah but everything to do with the Old Testament prophet. When the LORD led me to Bible Prophecy and opened my eyes to what was happening in the world, in light of both O.T. and N.T. prophecy, some of my messages, as Jeremiah’s, weren’t exactly comfortable for people, or for me either. Jeremiah wasn’t exactly popular in his day, and this message today probably won’t win me any popularity contests. But these messages open our eyes to see what is happening in the world so that we will not be caught in the darkness of ignorance of the signs of the times (1 Thess. 5:4).

In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24), Jesus prophesied that when the nation of Israel – the fig tree – would blossom once more, it would be a sign that the end was coming near (24:32). Israel roared back into existence on May 14, 1948 – 73 years ago. Psalm 90 tells us a human lifespan is about 70 years – 80 if we are blessed with stamina. Jesus said the generation that saw the re-budding of the ‘fig tree,’ or Israel, would witness all the prophecy of Matthew 24 (24:34). According to God’s Word, then, that would be us!

Let me just pause here to say, if you haven’t read Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 lately, go immediately to a Bible near you and do so.

Earlier this week, I had a dream. “Oh boy!! An old woman dreaming dreams … here we go …” Please, just bear with me. Before dropping off to sleep, I had asked the LORD that, if it be His will, to send me a dream about the Rapture and to let me remember it. Well, He did send me a dream, and I remembered it in great detail. And although I’m not prepared to go into all the details of the dream at this time, let me say it sure shook me up and got me thinking about how very close we are to the end of the age. Not that I didn’t have an inkling about the imminence of the Rapture and tribulation before. But, in the vernacular – Hold onto your hats, folks!

The dream illustrated how our modern nations, especially the U.S., are barreling headlong toward destruction. Nations seem to follow, blindly, a minority of political influencers, while the majority sit back meekly doing nothing, saying nothing, or saying very little. We watch as all our time-honored institutions are crumbling before our eyes. Like deer caught in headlights, it is as though we are mesmerized by the audacity of those taking us increasingly to the left, politically. Young people, who aren’t being taught Judeo-Christian values, are screaming for change without understanding where those changes will lead.

And, of course, there are plenty of seasoned politicians who have been trying for years to pull us away from God and all things moral and life-giving, and who are ready to fuel the rebellion with money, encouragement and a platform.

While those of us who are Bible-literate understand what’s happening, there are many who do not.

They surely do not understand that it is all part of God’s Plan for the end of the age … and here’s the kicker … and you’re not going to like this … THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT ANYMORE! Oh, yes, you can pray … and, indeed, I urge you to pray with all your heart for the many who are not saved.

But Christians, please be ready. For the Church Age is coming rapidly to a close, and it is all happening in God’s Will, and God’s Timeline.

The hymn is: IF MY PEOPLE’S HEARTS ARE HUMBLED

1st Verse:

If My people’s hearts are humbled, If they pray and seek My face; If they turn away from evil, I will not withhold My grace. I will hear their prayers from heaven; I will pardon every sin. If My people’s hearts are humbled, I will surely heal their land.

2nd Verse:

Then My eyes will see their sorrow; Then My ears will hear their plea. If My people’s hearts are humbled I will set their nation free. If My people’s hearts are humbled, If they pray and seek My face; If they turn away from evil, I will not withhold My grace.

THE SCRIPTURE READING IS JEREMIAH 14:11-16

“Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not pray for the well-being of this people. Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry; though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will destroy them with the sword, famine and plague.’

“But I said, ‘Alas, Sovereign Lord! The prophets keep telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine. Indeed, I will give you lasting peace in this place.’

“Then the Lord said to me, ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. Therefore this is what the Lord says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them, yet they are saying, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ Those same prophets will perish by sword and famine. And the people they are prophesying to will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them, their wives, their sons and their daughters. I will pour out on them the calamity they deserve.”

Let us bow to Almighty God in prayer:

Dearest Heavenly Father,

Your Word in the Book of Jeremiah tells us of a time when You had had enough of wickedness in the land of Judah. Though people sacrificed to You and prayed for You to relent in Your wrath, You knew that only total destruction would be the catalyst to bring them back to You. Father, we are at a time now where, according to Your Holy Word, it looks as though there is no turning back. Our nations are wicked, through and through. They practice the black arts of abortion and sexual depravity. Our scientists are meddling with Your original design, trying to improve on it! Their hubris, LORD God, is beyond imagining.

LORD, today we pray for those who are genuinely Yours, who have surrendered their lives to Jesus, that we will trust in You, in Your promises to protect us and keep us from the Evil One. We pray also for any who might be on the cusp of coming to You, that they will see Your Light of Life and Love very soon and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. And we pray, Father, that those who are blind to Your holiness and even to Your existence will have a chance to call on Your Name, and so be saved. These things we pray in the sure, strong and Holy Name of Yeshua Ha’Maschiach. Amen.

By God’s own Word, we know there was a beginning to this age, and there is an end, planned by the LORD God Himself, and over which we have no control whatever. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Even the Son of God, Himself, prayed that very prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He died on the cross. “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Yours be done.” If we haven’t yet learned this principle in our Christian walk, we need to do so, and do it NOW.

This world is not about us, beloved Christians. It is about God’s glory in His creation. We are His creation, made to reflect back to Him His glory. Jesus did that, and He did it every day of His earthly life. Though Jesus was fully God, He was also fully man. His humanity was not less than our own. Jesus laughed, cried, celebrated, mourned, ate, slept and did all the things human beings do. He knew pain. He knew sorrow. He knew joy and laughter. But all of His life He gave to the Father and did nothing outside of the Will of Almighty God.

So, saying all that, how does it fit with our Scripture verses from Jeremiah?

Well, for one thing, the people of Judah in Jeremiah’s day certainly were NOT living in the Will of the Creator. In the space of just a handful of generations away from King David, the Jews (as well as the Israelites) had turned away from Almighty God, had lusted after pagan gods and their detestable practices. And let me just say here that this present generation, with all science’s monkeying around with the human genome, has likely far surpassed the evil done in Jeremiah’s generation … the evil which brought down God’s wrath on the nations of Judah and Israel.

Many in the Church cite the 2 Chronicles prayer as being a means of saving our nations. I hear pastors invite their congregations to say it with the expectation that God stands ready to hear it and, PRESTO, make all things the way they were. Really? What about the “humble hearts” part? If every person in the world, every man, woman and child, called upon the Name of the LORD, and humbled him- or herself before Him, and turned from their wickedness, I strongly suspect our world would indeed be healed by God’s hand. But I also strongly suspect that the LORD God knew there would be a tipping point, beyond which there was (is) no going back.

The tipping point in Jeremiah’s day was the deceit of the prophets. Jeremiah tells the LORD, “The prophets keep telling them they will not see the sword or suffer famine, and that You, LORD, are going to give them peace in the land.” But the LORD God says, “The prophets are prophesying lies in My Name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divination, idolatries, and the delusions of their own minds.”

Let’s bring that to the present age. One thing we keep hearing constantly these days is, “Fake News!” There is little doubt that politicians lie with straight faces to the cameras and to our faces. They call evil for good and good for evil (Isaiah 5:20). They tell us a global pandemic is so dangerous that we must ruin our national economies to deal with it. There is so much deceit in our world today that it has become almost impossible to know what is real and what isn’t.

False visions are leading us away from the One Source of love and protection human beings have ever had – God! Western nations are worshiping at the altars of demons and false gods once again. For heaven’s sake, there is a sneaker for sale that celebrates Satan and even contains a drop of real human blood!! Really.

Divinations? Well, daily newspapers have been running horoscope columns for almost a century. But much more than that, today we have ‘prognosticators’ of everything under the sun, from weathermen to stockbrokers, even to medical people. So-called ‘experts’ in every field sway your brain daily to buy stuff you don’t need and adopt habits that are bad for your soul. This is done through non-stop advertising.

Idolatries? How about the worship of sports figures and Hollywood ‘stars’? Kids today know way more about movie and sports stars than they do about Jesus Christ. “God? Oh yeah … the sky fairy who grants all your wishes – NOT!” (That was a real post I read on a news website not long ago.)

Delusions of their own minds? How about this one? “There are 382 genders!” or “A man can give birth.” or “Love is love no matter who it is with.”

And what does the LORD God have to say about all this depravity? “I will pour out on them the calamity they deserve.”

Now, this is Old Testament. Jesus went to the cross so that we wouldn’t end up with the calamity we deserve … BUT ONLY IF WE REPENT, TURN FROM OUR INIQUITY, AND LIVE THE REST OF OUR LIVES FOR AND IN HIM. What percentage of the world’s people have actually done this?

Can the LORD bring revival at this late date? Of course. The question is: How many would turn to Him? A few million? There are seven, almost eight billion people on the planet today. Believers, we are way past the tipping point. It is a great tribute to Our God that His patience hasn’t run out yet. As Apostle Peter says, “People will say, ‘Where is this coming He promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.'”

“But do not forget this one thing, dearest friends: With the LORD a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The LORD is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the LORD will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare” (2 Peter 3:4, 8-10)

There is an end, my friends. I don’t write this to scare you but to make you see that it is inevitable and that you have no control over it. It is the LORD God’s domain. Therefore, trust in Him. Do His Will. Love Him, and keep His commands, and there will never ever be a need to fear anything. Jesus has said, “Since you have kept My command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth” (Revelation 3:10).

Repent! The end IS near! Hallelujah, Amen.

Heavenly Father: All glory and praise to You for loving us so much that You sent Your One and Only Son to earth to redeem us from original sin, open the gates of eternal life, and restore all things. Please open hearts and minds today, Father, to the urgency of claiming Christ as our Saviour. This we pray through Him, Yeshua Ha’Maschiach, our LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.

This devotional, based on God’s Holy Word, was written by Lynda Janzen, Kincardine, ON Canada, with the inspiration of God’s own Holy Spirit. All glory to God.

If anyone reading this email has not yet received Jesus as their Saviour, but God has touched your heart by His Holy Word, please email me (amadea649@gmail.com) or find a Bible-believing local church and ask the Pastor what you must do to be saved in Grace. In the meantime, please consider the ABCs of Salvation:

Salvation as simple as ABC:

A: Admit that you are a sinner. This is where Godly sorrow leads to genuine repentance for sinning against a righteous God, and there is a change of heart; we change our mind, and God changes our hearts and regenerates us from the inside out.

Romans 3:10 – “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.'”

Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Romans 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

B: Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and that God raised Jesus from the dead. This is trusting with all of your heart that Jesus Christ is who he said he was.

Romans 10:9-10 – “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

C: Call upon the name of the Lord. Every single person who ever lived since Adam will bend their knee and confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord of lords and the King of kings.

Romans 14:11 – “It is written: ‘As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.'”

Romans 10:13 – “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

[thoughtfulfangirling]

I keep seeing these posts going around about queer books, but my problem is that nowadays, I struggle to sit down with books and primarily consume them via audibooks. A lot of the recs are ones I haven’t found in audiobook format using my usual routes. For this reason, let me start a post that I hope y’all will add onto that has LGBTQ+ folks in them that I know exist in audiobook format. For reference, I’ve used for my audiobook consumption Audible, Libro, Overdrive, and Scribd, so each of these will have been found by myself in one of those places.

Nemesis Series by April Daniels trans wlw MC | Superhero | coming of age | YA The First book is Dreadnought followed by Sovereign and follows Danny, a trans girl whose body is transformed to the one that matches her vision of herself after a superhero falls and passes his powers on to her. All at once, she has to face the coming out this forces on her and new powers all at once. The books are intense and doesn’t pull its punches on the things Danny goes through, but her journey is beautiful and I love her so much.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray  Various MCs | Drama | Humor | YA This is an ensemble cast and includes a wlw couple and a trans girl, all of whom are pretty damn cool. On their flight to their next competition, the plane these beauty queens are on crashes, and those who survive get stranded on a totally-supposedly-deserted island. This is a fun novel that had, to me, a very Hitchhiker’s Guide sort of humor to it. It was a really fun read, and the author narrates herself and is really fun.

Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden wlw mc | contemporary | coming of age | YA The good kid becomes good friends with a girl she met outside of school, but she begins to realize she has more than just friendly feelings for the girl. Being in the 90s, she finds it’s not so easy to be the good kid and pursue this interest.

Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins bi MC | Contemporary | Romance | Class Romance | YA MC leaves Texas, USA to finish her last year of high school in a prestigious Scottish school where she ends up being roommates with an actual princess with whom she doesn’t start the year out on good terms with.  

Ash by Malinda Lo wlw MC | Fantasy | Coming of Age | YA Cinderella retelling where the fairies aren’t guaranteed to help and the prince just might not be who Cinderella wants after all. A very internal journey, quite enchanting. I really need to go back and revisit this soon.

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera Lesbian MC | Coming of Age | YA Juliet leaves home for the summer to spend in Oregon with a writer who inspired Juliet’s journey into feminism and helped her embrace her lesbianism. She learns along the way though that adults are not infallible, and that this writer has a large blind spot when it comes to Juliet’s culture and the intersection of race and feminism. All this after having come out to her family and dealing with the fallout of that far from home.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell mlm MC | Fantasy | Romance | YA This story feels like a sort of ‘What if the Harry Potter books were more inclusive and also had some parody in its magical world’ story. But it jumps right to the last book and the good stuff. This felt like fanfiction in the best way (and is appropriate given that it was written after the book Fangirl wherein the MC is writing fanfiction of this universe kinda. It’s complicated but good!)

Kushiel Phedre Series by Jacqueline Carey bi MC | Fantasy | Epic Fantasy | Kink | Political Intrique A woman born with a flaw that set her on the path of being indentured as a child to a man who sees love and sex as another means to gather political intel. Down this road lies intrigue, betrayal, and love.  

Nevernight Chronicles by Jay Kristoff bi MC | Fantasy | Revenge  Worth mentioning is that the author does not ID as any kind of LGBTQIA+ and in my opinion, that especially shows in the last installment of the series. I would suggest trigger warnings for the entire series if you have any as there is sex and violence. In a world with three suns and almost never night, a girl with a kinship for shadows seeks out the skills to kill those who destroyed her family.

Her Body and Other Parties by Maria Carmen Machado Various | Short Stories | Surreal | Contemporary   Don’t know how to summarize well given they are a series of short stories, but they are haunting and telling and beautiful, and even though I rarely do short stories, I absolutely fell in love with these.

The Night’s Watch by Sarah Waters Various | Ensemble Cast | Period Drama English WWII  Unfortunately, I read this in 2017 and it follows the stories of four different characters, two of whom are lesbians. I don’t remember their archs well enough to provide a proper summary. This story tends to be a more internal character study of each of the characters and what it might have been like living at the time they did. It was really good though if you like that sort of thing! 

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters Lesbian MC | Period Drama | Romance | Coming of Age Taking place in the Victorian era, Nan leaves her coastal, oyster fishing home after becoming infatuated with Kitty, performer who sings dressed as a man. She discovers herself in the big city as she works as Kitty’s attendant, but nothing ever stays the same, and when she finds her and Kitty’s desires on how to handle their feelings differ errevocably, Nan is suddenly left adrift.

The above are all focused in one way or another on the LGBTQ+ character in a prominent way where the character’s queerness is made explicit in the text. Below is going to be the audiobooks I’ve read/listened to where I have felt there is strong evidence that a character is portrayed as LGBT+. Some will have been made canon by the author after the fact, others have been widely regarded as portrayed that way, and a couple are just how I interpreted them.

Trouble with Kings by Sherwood Smith Fantasy | Romance | Slow Burn | YA A princess of fortune who has been courted for her wealth all her life, Flian is quite done with dalliance. But that doesn’t mean others are done with her. Caught in the middle of a political intrigue between two... maybe three... possibly four??? rivaling kingdoms, she finds her wealth pursued in less than ethical manners and ends up a player herself on the field of political import. Is it even possible in the chaos of all this to find love along the way? Flian herself repeatedly shows no interest in romance and while able to remark upon attraction, never seems to have any herself until she realizes she has fallen for someone, someone she realizes a bit late she’s had a coming together of the minds for. For this reason, my personal interpretation of this character is demi-sexual. 

The Protector of the Small Series by Tamora Pierce Fantasy | Coming of Age | YA  Keladry of Mindelan wants to become the second lady knight in history. The trainer at the castle doesn’t believe girls are cut out for it, and the boys don’t seem the most ready for a lady knight in training either. But Kel is determined to make her place in the world. Throughout the course of the series, while she engages in some light dalliances, she finds herself disinterested in relationships and has been confirmed by the author since the series was published to be asexual. 

The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon Fantasy | D&D-esque | Epic Fantasy | Coming of Age  Paksennarrion, a sheep farmer’s daughter, rebels against her father upon hearing of the engagement he made for her and runs away to a local contract militia company to start her career as a warrior. Strength and strategy aren’t the only things she’ll need on this life’s path, but also a faith she didn’t know she was capable of. I don’t know that the author has ever said anything on the matter, but in most circles you will find that Paks is generally regarded as aro/ace and is pretty explicitly stated several times throughout the series that she simply has never had the compulsion. 

A Beautiful Poison by Lydia Kang Period Drama/Mystery (early 1900s) | Coming of Age | Mystery Three people on the cusp of adulthood, with a complicated history of friendship from different stations in life, come together to try to unravel the mystery of strange deaths happening around them while trying to navigate what shapes the rest of their lives will take. Of the two man lady characters, one repeatedly struck me as bisexual, and the other as asexual. This is one where I’m brining my own lens to the story, and I don’t know that the author did this with intent.

There’s a fair chance that I am forgetting some audiobooks and haven’t included all I’ve read. I would also say that anything not marked with a YA may have want of some trigger warnings. If someone wants to know, just let me know which warnings you have need of and I’ll try to do my best to remember if that content is included in the book. I of course cannot remember everything and don’t know everyone’s limits, but I can try. But for certain the non young adult stories have content that can be heavy or dark or twisted. 

[thebourbontruth]

2019 Fathers Day Bourbon Buying Guide/List

Here is my 2019 Fathers Day Bourbon Buying Guide/List. It’s somewhat an “evergreen list” though that should hold up for a bit. Its also a “Reality List”. Its my belief that a Whiskey favorites buying list is worthless if you can’t buy it. For this reason, I’m leaving off things that are too limited to buy at a reasonable price, poor value, over rated or unfortunately not distributed to enough places to make it easy to find.

1792 Barton Small Batch, Single Barrel and Full Proof Bourbon’s are all good buys for their respective taste and price of $30-$50

Angels Envy Bourbon I’m not a big fan of wine barrel finishes but this is a rare exception. The Port is well balanced and doesn’t try to compete with the Whiskey. It’s especially nice for a before/after dinner sip and for the novice as it’s not an “in your face” high proofer. At $50-$60 it’s a fair value and makes a nice gift.

Barrell Bourbon These have been coming out regularly the past few years. Alternating or blending Dickel and MGP barrels these are well aged and range from good to great. Currently up to around Batch 20. Bottled at barrel proof. They have been experimenting with various barrel finishes but I’m happy to stick with their regular Straight Bourbon. Gift one or bring it to a party to look like an expert since this isn’t a common bottle. $80-$90

Basil Hayden Bourbon Its weakness is its strength. It’s one of the only low proof (80) true premium brands. My recommendation for the novices and beginners. This is not however something you want to mix or put ice cubes in. It’s from the higher rye recipe so it will be a bit spicier but not hot. It will get easily diluted and lost. $40-$50

Blanton’s This is really a Mirage and not a recommendation but a explanation. Too hard to find, hefty price increases and slipping quality put this once list contender off the island.

Bookers Bourbon This one can at times be “batchy” in good or bad ways. On average it’s a great whiskey that’s the original mass marketed almost barrel proof. Best to read up on some of the highly rated batches and look for those. When it’s a good one, its good but when its average or worse it can be nasty and bitter. Its high proof holds up to water and ice well but too strong for most cocktails. Some batches will blast you out of your seat while others can be so smooth the actual proof will shock you. Again, IS NOT for a novice or a beginner. It’s a lot to handle if you’re not prepared and it WILL fuck you up quickly if you treat it like Kool-aide. $60-$80 this one has a “Price Creep” and is going up little by little. Beam sees it at $100 a bottle in the not to distant future. If you find a good batch at the lower price, stocking up isn’t a bad idea.

As a side note speaking of barrel proof/high proof whiskey. I avoid gifting or bringing over 100 proof to people that aren’t used to it. It can easily sneak up on them. Same goes for people newer to Bourbon. I’m puzzled when I see newbies go for high proof and things like barrel proof Willett that is not only way past their capability to taste and enjoy but it is jumping off the deep end of the whiskey pool before they can swim. Same goes for starting the journey with expensive and rare things they haven’t learned to taste or appreciate. Work up to them eventually. I’m not a happy camper when friends are over that are Jack drinkers and go right for the Van Winkle because they saw it on TV. Same thought process goes for gifting at Fathers Day etc. Don’t over do it, most likely you’ll waste your money and they won’t enjoy it.

Buffalo Trace Bourbon the same mash bill as so many more expensive and limited options from the distillery. Good value for the price. One note of caution is that this one seems like its getting batched and bottled younger than it has been. It can show up like Pee Wee Herman, a bit light and wimpy. Younger Whiskey also has more flaws too. Short or bitter finishes and chemical notes. I wouldn’t call these common but more so than what they had been. $25

Cleveland Whiskey --Just kidding! Buy this only to disinfect toilets at the train station, NOT your own as it might strip off the enamel. Good for keeping Coyotes away from campsites and vermin out of your garden. ONLY bring this to a home you never want to be invited back to! ONLY regift it to someone actually sitting in a good Emergency Room. As for Straight Up gifting for Fathers Day, I guess there are Fathers that deserve this stuff but chances are they haven’t been seen in 40 years or they are in jail where they cant have toxic chemicals. $30-$40 (if you hate money).

Eagle Rare no longer single barrel but still 10 years old. A very good buy for this standard Buffalo Trace Mash Bill. Pretty consistent and makes a nice gift. $30-$35

EH Taylor Small Batch and Single Barrel Solid choices although the Single Barrels can be off at times. Makes a nice gift due to presentation but the quality can back this up which I cant say with many cool looking bottles. This is the standard familiar Buffalo Trace Mash Bill. $40 for Small Batch, $60 for Single Barrel.

Elijah Craig Small Batch Until recently this one had an age statement of 12 years. With the age statement now gone its still up there in the perfect age range of 8-12 years. This has been one of my long time ultimate favorites due to its consistent quality and being underpriced. It’s my first recommendation for a Bourbon and a great option at a bar when your watching your pennies. A very respectable 94 Proof. It’s a shame its Cask Strength brother isn’t something you can easily find at the retail price in a store. Wishing for the day they make the Barrel Proof available as a private pick. Until then this is a best buy at $25-$35 depending what state and if it’s on sale.

Evan Williams White Label Bottled in Bond ---Possibly the best Bourbon out there when your broke. Its 100 proof and at least 4 years old. Ice and Coke is its friend and good for a party without Whiskey snobs. At $15-$20 you won’t find anything better.

Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage Bourbon Historically a good buy year after year. Although it has gotten younger, still a solid single barrel at the price point. $26-$35

Four Roses Small Batch one of the best small batches for the price. Some prime barrels go into this one. $30

Henry McKenna Bottled in Bond Single Barrel this has been scooping lots of awards in blind tasting competitions. At 10 years and 100 proof you won’t find a better bottle with such a good mix of what you want in a bourbon. My two concerns however are the price increases by brand and stores and some inconsistency in some bad and average barrels getting to the shelf in bottles. $30-$40

IW Harper 15 Year one of the few decent older options at a fair price. Consistent quality and makes a nice gift. Fair warning that the price of this keeps going up. I’ve seen it around $100 which is too much and $65 which is a steal. I still have a hard time recommending a Diageo Bourbon implying something is made at the long-closed Stitzel Weller Distillery. Dishonesty aside, this one is still a good buy.

Larceny Small Batch Bourbon Its always nice to have an accessible Wheated Bourbon at a great price and good quality. 92 proof helps this one too. $22-$28

Makers Mark Cask Strength Another Wheated Bourbon that is more often then not a good pour. Can get batchy which stands out more at high proof. I wish the brand stopped the nonsense about not believing in overaging its Bourbon. Makers is around six years old and with another 2-4 years it could be really good. In the meantime you’ll usually get a good batch and a nice bourbon. A tad pricey at around $60.

Noahs Mill The Flagship of Willett’s regular offerings. At or near barrel proof this has lots in common with Bookers at a much better price. The high proof and longer aging make this a good value for the Whiskey Veteran. Holds up well to ice and a splash of water but can be over powering in a cocktail. $50

Old Forester Signature 100 A solid buy with good consistency at 100 proof. Little brother of Woodford at half the cost. $20-$25

Old Forester 1920 one of my favorites. Good consistency and very tasty. Seems stronger than its 115 proof so this is not for the faint of heart or the beginner. A nice ice ball will help. Priced on the high end of being fair at $55-$60.

Old Grand Dad 114 This is a higher rye recipe Bourbon which will be a bit spicier less sweet. Long time bargain best buy of many. This heritage brand wont let you down at near barrel proof. A good bottle to bring to a party with people that can handle high proof. Even with the price inching up to around $30, it’s still a bargain.

Rowens Creek little sister to Noah’s Mill from Willett. At 101 proof still holds up well to just about anything and a bit younger than Noah’s. At around $35 its priced right as a nice gift.

Russell’s Reserve 10 Year Bourbon very solid and a great price for a 10 year old from Wild Turkey and the Father and Son Master Distiller Team at Wild Turkey. This one is a hidden gem that should get much more attention than it does. $30-$35

Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel Pretty much everything I wrote above at 115 proof non-chill filtered. $55- $65 on the cusp of being over priced.

Wild Turkey Rare Breed at Barrel Proof this is another hidden gem and perhaps the most under appreciated American Whiskey in existence. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of Bourbon for the veteran whiskey people. Great whiskey, Yes. Great gift, yes. Made by the most experienced Master Distillers in America, Yes. Holds up to ice, water, strong cocktails and blind tastings, Yes Yes Yes Yes. 6-12 years. As past barrel entry proof of this brand has gone up the bottling proof has also risen over the last several years. Keep an eye out for older bottlings with old labels 108.2 proof, 112.8 proof, newest is 116.8 proof. The older bottlings might be dusty, but they are around, often with old price tags and I prefer the older softer ones. $45-$50

Woodford Reserve The extensions of this brand are getting a bit out of hand, confusing and too pricy. I like the good old original. Very well blended for consistency year after year. You’ll get what you expect. I’m not sure what some Whiskey geeks see wrong with this one as its one of the most easy drinking pleasant pours going. Easy to find at stores and bars for a decent price. Makes a nice gift, works as well by the glass as it does in a cocktail. $32-$38

[yesterdanereviews]

Power Rangers (2017)

Film review #347

SYNOPSIS: 65 million years ago, Rita Repulsa attempted to take the powerful Zeo crystal from Earth and destroy all life on the planet. She was sealed away by Zordon, leader of the Power Rangers, who are the guardians of life. In the present day, Rita is released from her prison, and the powers of the the rangers find their way into five new teenagers. They learn that Rita will destroy their hometown of Angel Grove in search of the Zeo crystal, and must find a way to overcome their personal troubles and learn to work as a team and unlock the full might of the Power Rangers.

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Power Rangers is a 2017 sci-fi film that is a re-imagining or reboot of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers franchise. The film starts off 65 million years ago, with the Power Rangers defeated and their leader, Zordon, deciding to seal away their powers along with Rita Repulsa to stop her getting her hands on the Zeo crystal and destroying all life on Earth. In the present day, we see high school student Jason and his friends pulling a prank that goes wrong, leading to Jason crashing his car (also, the opening joke with the cow just feels completely out of place). Cut to a few weeks later and Jason is now tagged after being arrested, his car is ruined, and his dreams of getting a scholarship are over. He starts going to detention where he meets Billy and Kimberley, who are also stuck there. After Jason stops a bully from picking on Billy, he offers to hack his tag so he can stay out after curfew. Billy then makes him an offer for him to drive him to a local mine in return for using his van, to which Jason agrees. They arrive at the mine and Jason leaves Billy to go and do whatever he came to do. Jason also runs into Kimberley and some other teenagers who are hanging around the mine, as Billy uses some explosives to blast some strange rocks out of a wall. Each of them takes one of the stones and escape the mine with security in pursuit. The opening of the film really focuses on exploring the different origins and personalities of the five teenagers, and how they start off from not knowing each other to developing a common bond. It’s a little slow to start off with, and you don’t see much of the typical Power Rangers action, but there’s enough to keep things interesting, with each of the characters making a unique mark on the film. There’s also a decent amount of effort taken to provide more of a backstory and make it more clear, such as the Zords forms being taken from the dominant lifeforms on the planet 65 million years ago, and Zordon being the previous red ranger and their leader, with Rita also being a power ranger that betrayed them.

The original premise of the Power Rangers was that they were five “teenagers with attitude”, but given that it was a children’s show, that “attitude” was rather muted and ineffectual. This film changes that, by allowing the teens to act like teens, and to have the sorts of issues and difficulties that teenagers have. Each of them has a unique problem in their life, and everyone can probably relate to at least one of them. Their characters are based on the original series, but there’s enough difference to make it feel fresh and different. When the group finds Zordon and Alpha 5, they learn they must learn to work together to unlock their full potential as Power Rangers, and try to figure out what they are missing. In the camp fire scene, which is probably one of the highlights of the film, they all share their secrets and despite they are all messed up in their own individual ways, they can still support each other and work together to protect what is important to them. Again, this is something you don’t expect from a film based off a kid’s TV series: the film takes nothing and turns into something, and that is an accomplishment. Perhaps the direction it goes in turning it into a teen drama would not appeal to some people, but it had to do something different to hold the film together and justify its existence. The rest of the characters, such as  Zordon, Alpha 5 and Rita Repulsa all have a familiar look and feel to them, but also are different enough to offer a fresh take on their characters, with Zordon previously being the red ranger and getting his team killed, he displays regret, but also has his own motives, which makes him a much more dynamic character rather than just the benevolent overlord of the original. Alpha 5, who was arguably the most annoying character in the series, is toned down, and feels more like an exasperated administrator rather than the squealing worrier he was. Rita’s character too is toned down, and is a lot more menacing, while still having enough of the dramatic deliveries that made her so iconic. Sadly, the characters of Bulk and Skull, the school bullies aren’t present in this film, probably because they were so slapstick and silly that it would have been out of place, and bullies really don’t go around wearing leather jackets and pulling pranks anymore (although the bully that goes after Billy does wear a leather jacket, probably as an homage to the two).

Eventually, the power rangers are able to morph into their iconic suits, and it certainly takes a long time to get to it. As a consequence, there isn’t much time to showcase them fighting, but at this point you’ll be too invested in the characters to be concerned about it. It is a shame we don’t get to see more of the suits and Zords fighting, but one of the mistakes the previous films did was prolonging the fights to the point that made them boring to sit through, and drew attention to the fact that there was little substance underneath it all. This is quite a long film, coming in at just over two hours, and overall I think it does justify that screen-time through the way it develops its characters and backstory. The build-up to the final battle and the fight itself goes through all the stages you’d expect, so there’s no big surprises, but it keeps to the power rangers formula and gives you what you would want to see. In particular, the scene with the Zords rushing into battle and the original TV theme accompanying it exactly what you would want to see.

So who is this film aimed at? The focus on teenage drama obviously points to an older audience than the TV series, and that is further supported by the language and some of the jokes being a little more adult-oriented. For people who grew up watching the TV series as a kid this would be a decent nostalgia trip, while also being fairly entertaining. Kids who are also on the cusp of getting too old for the TV series might find this film would appeal to them, but I’m not sure if someone who had never seen anything power rangers related before would appreciate it as much. Again, the characters are very well developed, and stand on their own so you can invest in their stories no matter how much you know about the power rangers, but fans of the franchise will definitely appreciate some of the details thrown in. One such detail is how Rita seems to use a green power stone, which presumably means she was once the green ranger, a character which was a big part of the original series as it went on, and the mid-credits sequence hints that Tommy Oliver, the green ranger will show up in a sequel. I certainly hope that a sequel would get made: there’s a lot of investment in setting up these characters, and I would be interested in where they could be taken. The issue is Power Rangers is being released into the cinematic medium where superhero films are prevalent and all-consuming, and there’s really no room for something like the power rangers anymore, and so is going to struggle to offer anything exceptional in the genre.

Overall, I enjoyed Power Rangers more than I thought I would. I’m not a huge fan of the franchise, but I do remember watching the original series as a kid, and there’s enough nostalgia in here to make things familiar and also to overlook some of the nonsensical story elements in keeping with it. Giving the main characters a lot more depth and their own individual problems and dilemmas is the film’s main strong point, and creates some surprisingly emotional moments. I wouldn’t say they were groundbreaking, but they were very good. Even though it takes a large portion of the film to get to the power rangers morphing, the film fills its runtime with plenty of drama and story that means it’s never really boring. Some of the jokes are a bit out-of-place or just fall flat, and the effects are not overly special (although fairly decent), but I think the film overall retains enough entertainment, fun and drama to make it worthwhile to watch. It’s never going to compare to the vast library of superhero films it has to compete with nowadays, but it’s a fun nostalgia trip and one that gives the source material much more of an edge than one might expect.

[agwitow]

5, 13, 35 and 39 for the writer's ask please 😊

eee! Thank you for asking :)

#5 - How much writing do you get done on an average day?

Lately, it hasn’t been much.

Averaged out, I get about a couple hundred words a day. But that’s mostly because there are an awful lot of days where I’m not able to write. On the days I am able to write, I usually write in the 2-3k range.

#13 - Describe your writing process from idea to polished

So I get ideas all the time. Like…all the time. Most of them are just parts of a story, such as a character or setting idea, maybe a scene or plot twist. I like to let these little ideas stew and rarely bother writing them down. After they’ve simmered for awhile (or, on the rare occasion they first pop up fleshed out) I’ll generally get a flash of inspiration that fleshes the idea(s) out. Sometimes a couple of little ideas combine into a big one, and sometimes a little idea just grows itself.

Big ideas are the ones I write down. Depending on how fleshed out they are, it might just be a sentence or two in my bullet journal, or it might be something longer that I type up, or I’ll have a small stack of notes and such for the story. Sometimes, if the story is very vivid, I’ll write the first couple thousand words and then save it for later. I’ve made myself stop working on a million different projects at once. Now I try to keep it at 3 or fewer projects at any given time.

Once I start actively working on a project I make a notebook full of maps, world building details, outlines, character profiles, and all the other little notes that go along with writing. A lot of time, they start out fairly sparse and become more full as I work my way through the first draft.

Once the first draft is finished, I let it sit for a little, and then dive in to the second draft. If I haven’t developed a proper outline by this point, I’ll write one now. The second draft is where I turn a “for me only story” into a proper “I’m telling it to the world” one. Depending on how satisfied I am with my second draft efforts, I may do a third draft, or I’ll move on to the next stage.

Next, I find critique partners and/or beta readers.

Once I’ve gotten some feedback, I start doing another round of revision/edits. Depending on how much I need to change/correct, I may bounce it back for another round with CPs or BRs.

Next comes formatting, the bane of my existence. When that’s done. I print it out at home and do a couple rounds of proofreads. I have developed several tricks to help with this, as I’m broke and can’t afford to hire someone to do it for me. With the proof copy all marked up in red, I then go in to the files and make the necessary changes.

Then I upload the files to the appropriate sites and hit publish :)

(Also, cover design happens somewhere in there, as, once more, too broke to hire someone)

#35 - What scene/story are you least looking forward to writing?

This is a hard one. There are scenes coming up that are going to be emotionally hard to write (*spoilers*Calista confronting the ghost of the first person she ever loved, Atalanta giving birth, Eryx having to tell Hector and Daniella that Ata/Dam aren’t coming back…*end of spoilers*), but they’re also important scenes.

I guess I’m not really looking forward to…ugh…every scene I think of, I’m like “well, it’ll be hard, but it’ll also be fun.”

Maybe Eloise, just because I feel there’s so much pressure to live up to the expectations of everyone who read the short stories that started the whole thing.

#39 - Weirdest character concept you’ve ever had

There are so many! There’s the exiled minotaur prince who broke out of prison to rescue (and then adopt) a young human girl. Or what about the lesbian witch cursed into being the first vampire, while her princess lover was cursed to an eternal sleep? Maybe the schizophrenic witch who can’t differentiate between her hallucinations and the actual voices of sleeping gods? How about the young woman who becomes an apprentice to Death, and then has to solve his murder?

I think my favourite weirdest character concept would have to be the magic-phobic stripper who gets pulled into an alternate reality where she’s a princess betrothed to the prince of a country plagued by harpies and on the cusp of war… *cough* Chesnia’s Princess *cough* :P

Thanks for asking @bluenightfire :)

If anyone else would like to play, you can find the ask game here.

[architectnews]

"Multiform is the architectural manifestation of our present moment"

As architecture transitions from being dominated by modernist ideals to being determined by automation a transitional style dubbed Multiform has arisen, says Owen Hopkins.

Economics is often talked about in terms of cycles. There are periods of economic growth followed by stagnation and recession. Then after a time the economy starts growing again and the cycle repeats. It's the natural ebb and flow of macroeconomics.

Every so often, however, there's a 'supercycle'. This is when technological innovation reaches a critical mass and sets off an explosion leading to a new phase of long-term economic growth. The usual business cycles still play out, but do so within the encompassing supercycle, which over time reshapes almost every aspect of the economy.

Modernism was a supercycle, setting the architectural agenda for half a century

Architecture follows a similar pattern. This is partly due to the close relationship between construction and the broader economic situation. But architectural cycles also emerge through changes internal to the discipline, as we develop new ways of thinking about and responding to the material and cultural changes of the world in which architecture is practised.

By this definition, modernism was a supercycle, setting the architectural agenda for half a century. Post-modernism is usually seen as marking the end of the modernist supercycle, but could instead and rather more interestingly be seen as the start of the next – a supercycle that has also lasted nearly half a century and is now coming to an end.

Today, the question is what comes next. If modernism emerged in response to the advent of the production line, electrification and the motor car, and postmodernism was the architecture of cable TV, de-industrialisation and consumerism, then the next supercycle will be driven by what is sometimes called the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

This is the new world of automation, the 'smart city', the Internet of Things and the total erosion of the distinction between the digital and physical worlds.

Although the pandemic has certainly accelerated many of these trends, we aren't there yet. Instead, the present moment is one of transition.

 The next supercycle will be driven by what is sometimes called the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Looking back, we see such transitional moments manifested architecturally in aesthetic and ideological pluralism, as the unravelling of the previous supercycle allows new ideas to break free. This was the case with modernism, whose early history saw a battle between different 'isms', and it also characterised the competing ideas and ideologies of postmodernism's early 'radical moment'.

And so it is the case with Multiform – the name I use to describe a new and vital sensibility emerging in contemporary architecture and design. Multiform is not a style, but the architectural manifestation of our present moment of profound political, economic and cultural flux.

It is hard to define something that in its very nature is marked by hybridity, heterogeneity and multiplicity. Multiform quite literally takes multiple forms, but can be loosely characterised by design tactics such as collage, reference, quotation, and the bold and expressive use of colour, ornament and materials.

This has led the Multiform tendency to be mis-characterised as postmodern revival, and written off as simply fashion. But this is to fundamentally underestimate its importance and implications. In so far as Multiform appropriates certain design tactics of postmodernism, it does so because of the equivalence between that moment of transition and our present one.

Rather than a stylistic choice, Multiform represents an attempt at engaging with the aesthetic, ideological and environmental chaos of the contemporary world. Rather than pursue one particular agenda – whether political, aesthetic or financial – and seek to impose some kind of order, Multiform accommodates multiple states of being and existing.

Multiform represents an attempt at engaging with the aesthetic, ideological and environmental chaos of the contemporary world

So, if this is Multiform, who are the Multiformers? We can see Multiform approaches in the work of growing band of architects and designers who work in the urban realm from across the world.

We see it in the intense improvisation of Fala Atelier, the strategic urban eclecticism of Bovenbouw and the postmodern inheritances of David Kohn Architects. It's present in the veiled complexity of Johnston Marklee, the disciplinary and typological fluidity of Jennifer Bonner's approach to research and design and the sampling and remixing of Studio MUTT.

Then there's the superabundant joy of AOC, the luxurious thrift of Office S&M and CAN's celebration of the city's ad-hoc formations. It's in the participatory sprit of DK-CM, in Groupwork's crafted approach and, of course, in the exuberant colour and patterns of Yinka Ilori, Camille Walala, and others of the group dubbed 'New London Fabulous' by Adam Nathaniel Furman, himself a notable Multiformer.

The Multiform sensibility is by no means limited to these architects and designers, nor does it necessarily characterise all they do. The ability to pursue a variety of agendas simultaneously is what Multiform is all about. But what is common to many of these practitioners is that they are of a generation who can remember a world before the mobile phone and high-speed internet, allowing them to operate with one foot in each of the analogue and digital worlds.

The ability to pursue a variety of agendas simultaneously is what Multiform is all about

As a transitional tendency, Multiform is by definition fluid, dynamic and shapeshifting. And in being so attuned to the circumstances of the present, Multiform is inherently marginal and fleeting. Although a bloom amidst a dense thicket is more rare and beautiful than a field of flowers, it must be nurtured and prevented from being strangled.

Already there are powerful forces lining up to shape the next architectural supercycle. Neoliberalism's espousal of the financialisation of everyday life – the politico-economic ideology that underpinned the last architectural supercycle – is giving way to a new ideology that aspires to the datafication of every aspect of human experience. The data-driven fantasies of big tech aim at nothing less than the surveillance city where basic and fundamental freedoms are not just curtailed but abolished.

Meanwhile, others of a more populist and reactionary persuasion hope for a reversion to the past, whether this is so-called traditional architecture or warmed-up state-sponsored modernism. In contrast to the vast forces currently being marshalled by big tech, the idea of somehow finding a way of turning the clock back appears rather quaint.

Multiform is not alone in recognising the urgency of this situation and its impact on the public values that define the discipline of architecture. Riven by anxiety over architects' diminishing role, some are looking outside the profession to assert their agency. Yet, while offering short-term succour, this risks architecture becoming ever more diminished as a force for (re)shaping the world for the better.

Rather than retreat from the discipline, Multiform doubles down on what architecture is uniquely placed to do and reasserts its central importance to society.

It resists architecture's instrumentalisation towards external agendas and the mono-cultures that ensue and instead meets the complexity of the contemporary world with ideological diversity and aesthetic pluralism. As we stand on the cusp of the next architectural supercycle, Multiform points the way towards a richer, more joyful future.

Owen Hopkins is an architectural writer, historian and curator. He is director of a new centre for architecture and cities in Newcastle, UK opening in 2022 and was previously senior curator at Sir John Soane’s Museum and architecture programme curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. He is the author of books including Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore (2020), Lost Futures (2017) and Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture (2016).

Main image is of Office S&M's Mo-tel House in London. Photo is by French + Tye.

The post "Multiform is the architectural manifestation of our present moment" appeared first on Dezeen.

[jbaquerot]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week announced that the company would overhaul how it presents privacy settings to users of its social network. That may be a case of closing the barn after the cows have left for Facebook, which is under fire for allowing Cambridge Analytica to access data on 87 million Americans that it used, in turn, to create psychographic profiles designed to bolster Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The saga led Apple CEO Tim Cook to call for increased regulation of Facebook and any other business that profits from other people’s data. “I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation,” Cook told recode last week. “However, I think we’re beyond that here.”

Calls for regulation of the Web giants have increased in the big data ecosystem, particularly among the software companies building data science and machine learning tools that companies are using to mine their own data stores.

SriSatish “Sri” Ambati, the CEO and founder of data science software provider H2O.ai, says a data rights movement is brewing. “It’s a rights movement, kind of like the Civil Rights movement where we had to fight for rights, for freedom,” he tells Datanami. “I think we need to fight for rights for our data freedom, where we need to own our data, as well as the data service provider.”

More Valuable Than Cash

Data has grown so valuable because it’s the fuel that drives AI and machine learning, Ambati says. “Data to us should be very sacred or important. Data itself is more valuable than your own cash,” he says.

However, the ownership structure of data is misaligned at the movement, resulting in widespread abuses by the companies that store our personal data and use it for targeted display advertising. But what Cambridge Analytica did in 2016 is just the tip of the data iceberg. The lack of individual data rights was also felt with Equifax’s massive 2017 data breach, which exposed records of 143 million consumers, none of whom ever asked Equifax to store their personally identifiable information (PII), and who still have no ability to “opt out” of credit monitoring.

But there are other concerns around the use of data, including how colleges use it for admissions, how police departments use it to inform patrol patterns, and how banks use it to approve mortgages. People have begun receiving odd promotions for products that seem linked to conversations overheard by smart home assistants like Google Home and Amazon‘s Echo, accusations that they brush off as mere coincidences. With the coming Internet of Things (IoT) revolution, there’s a lot of room left to grow on big data’s “creepy” meter.

The fact that we’re seeing the #DeleteFacebook movement occurring less than two months before the European Union’s strict data privacy law, dubbed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), goes into effect is just, of course, a coincidence. But that doesn’t mean the Web giants aren’t concerned about the level of enforcement we’ll see from the European Commission, which has the authority to fine American companies billions of dollars for widespread violations.

Radioactive Data

Indeed, the prospect of stricter data regulations in the United States has never been greater. Peter Wang, the CTO and co-founder of data science software vendor Anaconda, says data should be more tightly regulated because it’s so dangerous.

“We should really view data as being radioactive,” he tells Datanami. “It’s a source of great power, but if you have it around, it just contaminates everything. So you really don’t want to be holding onto data. You want it for as little time as possible to do the compute you care about. You want as little as possible — exactly the right amount — then you lock it behind lead doors and don’t touch it.”

Data also decays with time, the same way elements like plutonium have half-lives. Data harvested today is more radioactive – and more valuable – than data that was harvested 18 months ago. However, data also has a long memory, which could thwart attempts to prevent the spread of damaging facts once they’re released.

“You can’t ever put the genie back in the bottle,” Wang says. “You never know at what point in time in the future somebody is going to figure out a clever way to de-anonymize what you did by convolving it with some other data set over here. So it’s not just the latent capability of your data set — it’s the mutual neutron chain reaction when your blob of plutonium and this other blob of plutonium are put together. You never know what’s going to come out.”

Wang, however, doesn’t sound too hopeful that we’re on the cusp of new regulations that will put an end to data abuses. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he says. When we do finally get there, he envisions it will be constructed in much the same way that IT security experts have been protecting sensitive assets for decades – by encircling it with rings of increasingly strict authentication and access controls.

“Access to full fidelity data sets are going to be considered ring zero level access,” Wang says. “What people will start doing is shipping either down-sampled subsets, or anonymized data. They’ll be shipping out inferential models that are of lower and lower quality – and lower and lower fidelity – and you only ship the models around. You don’t schlep data around because data itself is too powerful. There’s too much risk around it.”

New Markets for Data

Some of Wang’s ideas jibe with Ambati’s view. But instead of locking the data away in a bunker somewhere, Ambati envisions every person having their own personal data bank. And when that person wants to grant a company access to the data, she can authorize a given company to access certain pieces via an API. As part of this transaction, she benefits by receiving free or discounted services.

“We just need to transfer ownership to the rightful owners,” Ambati says. “Well, the owner of this data … will choose to promote and allow access to the data the way she wants. A year’s worth of TV is free if you allow us to use the data, or your phone service will be free if you allow us to access the data. Eventually the pyramid gets turned upside down and that’s frankly what’s emerging. You see the deconstruction of Facebook and Google and others in terms of trust of sharing your data sets.”

When we’re in control of our own data – when our PII has been liberated from the tyranny of big data hoarders, so to speak – then we’ll see a flowering of new commercial services around that data and that access. Albebraix Data is attempting something like this with its Personal Secure Vault, which uses the blockchain and a new digital currency dubbed ALX to get compensated by media companies for viewing ads.

Ambati thinks capitalistic forces, if properly channeled, have the potential to dramatically scale this model and create a new platform that benefits all parties involved. “Blockchain and the new currencies have made it possible to create new economies around you as an individual and you as a unique agent,” he says. “I think that’s why AI plus blockchain and data owned on the edge will make it really powerful.”

But nobody will be monetizing their own personal data so long as the data exists solely in the servers of Web giants and big enterprises. That’s why the call for a data rights movement is potentially so powerful, because it could eliminate the ability of a small group of dominant companies to have undue influence over hundreds of millions – if not billions – of people.

While his day job is building a compelling data science platform at Anaconda, Wang thinks about the ramifications of the powerful technology he’s working to put into companies’ hands. “Empires are built on language, currency, and weapons. Power aligns along these things,” he says. “And so it was extremely naïve of us as technologists to imagine that creating a global communications platform, like Facebook or Twitter, where individual peer communications could immediately escalate to broadcast to million. We don’t have an intuitive understanding of this. We’re not wired for the sociability of that, the social norms of it. It’s a big experiment and it’s a dangerous one.”

[artandworldmaking]

Curatorial statement

This exhibition is guided by the question, what commonalities or generative connections exist between everyday spaces and other-wordly spaces? To explore this and other questions, I put into conversation the performance work of Fannie Sosa & Navild Acosta; the photography of LaToya Ruby Frazier, Juliana Huxtable, and Khadijah Saye; the music of Ari Lennox and Tierra Whack; and the writing of Paul Beatty, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Alexander Weheliye, and Elizabeth Alexander. Through images, media, sounds, and words these pieces put together explore unseen connections between the everyday and futuristic spaces. At first these two modes or methods of creation may seem disparate. What does Huxtable’s image depicting herself in a steam-filled, vibrantly green and blue futuristic setting have to do with LaToya Ruby Frazier’s photograph of herself with her grandmother? While imagining vastly different worlds within works of art may seem divorced from documenting the quotidian, Alexander asks us to consider that dreams and future spaces are not “neutral” but instead make possible “a way of imagining the racial self unfettered, racialized but not delimited” (Alexander, 5)

Another possibility for thinking this through the connection between these works is to think about the breath and cycles of rest. Also evoked in the Black Power Naps and the air we breathe, the breath is a constant, cyclical process that often goes unnoticed but enables the quotidian and everyday. The emergent concept of Feminist Political Ecology, which Irma Kinga Allen writes about, open space to transform our understanding of the boundaries and bodies, time, and intimacy. She writes, “air and breath also reveal crucial aspects of permeability, relationality, vulnerability and also excessive un-tameability that speak to feminist rethinkings of the body as thoroughly open, unstable, fluxed and flexed. . . . Dust, molecules, atoms, gases and water vapour, microbes, viruses and pollen pass into our lungs with each breath of air. Are these not the most intimate of matters?“ (King) This evokes how when breathing the sonic is always possible, we are constantly on the verge or the cusp of creating sound, even when quiet. Might the breath be a connection between the quiet and the aural, and perhaps too between living and dying. What does the breath leave behind when we enter into eternal rest (oft evoked in the phrase, rest in peace)? While we speak rest in peace (or use other phrases, rest in power) the work of Frazier reveals that things aren’t at rest. In fact, the former private spaces and the materiality of a person persists after and in the spaces of their breath. How can breath open up new ways to think about the body as permeable? Can this notion help expand on Weheliye’s notion of the post-human? Ari Lennox’s song “Self Love” helps us sit with the tension between the promise of other worlds and fantastical dreamlike spaces and the pain of heartbreak and the difficulty of self-love in the everyday. . . how do artists sit with this dichotomy? This duality is a reminder of the future possibilities for love, the potentiality for fulfilling interpersonal and self-love. The weight of dreams arises in the work of Paul Beatty. In the quote from The Sellout which I’ve paired with “Self Love,” Beaty marries the quotidian and the future realm of dreams to describe how the everyday, something as invisible as the weight of grocery bags, marks and indexes the difficulty of holding onto dreams, to a future particularly when the everyday remains difficult. The heartbreak expressed by Lennox and the way Beatty describes his lover Marpessa as being dragged down by the bags echoes Frazier’s image in which she holds garbage bags with her grandmother’s possessions. Physically crouching down to lift the weight of the bags, both Marpessa and Frazier are at a moment of convergence between the everyday and the exceptional. In these works, we encounter both women performing physical and affective labor. Frazier invokes the weight of this labor in the title with the word “baggage”

I would encourage the viewer to attend to the gaps between the 1-minute songs in Whack World. As Whack transitions from different visual spaces and worlds, these moments create quiet and further moments of rest within the piece. From 1:59-2:10 there is no music playing and the viewer is left with the sounds of the space: a door opening and closing, the sound of Whack placing a stuffed dog statue on a metal table are the only perceptible sounds. So too in this moment does Whack appear doubled- she is seen both in her felt disguise and standing behind a metal table, the room appears like a vet or doctor’s office. This is both a moment of doubleness and silence. Whack World is another moment to think about what the human means and how Whack is redefining the human through the way she alters her voice. This thinking is based in the scholarship of Alexander Weheliye. Does a more abundant understanding of the human create new possibilities? How does Huxtable’s work contribute to this conversation?

Finally, the exhibition reminds the viewer that time no longer stretches out in front of humanity infinitely. How can we enact futurity and potentiality in the time which remains?

Works Cited:

Allen, Irma Kinga. “Thinking with a Feminist Political Ecology of Air-and-Breathing-Bodies.” Body & Society 26, no. 2 (June 1, 2020): 79–105. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X19900526.

Alexander, Elizabeth. The Black Interior: Essays. Saint Paul, Minn: Graywolf Press, 2004.

Beatty, Paul. The Sellout. First edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Morrison, Toni. The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2019.

Shange, Ntozake. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Twentieth Century Drama. Cambridge [eng: Proquest LLC, 2009.

[thrashermaxey]

20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts

Every Sunday until the start of the 2018-19 regular season, we'll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week's "Daily Ramblings".

Writers: Michael Clifford, Ian Gooding, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

  1. Will people still consider Nicklas Backstrom a premier asset heading into drafts this season? Last year, he was the 20th player off the board in Yahoo leagues. This was after he produced an 86-point campaign in 2016-17. That season, he played around 60 percent of his even-strength minutes next to Alexander Ovechkin. He produced 36 power-play points and hadn’t yet turned 30.

Heading into 2018-19, things aren’t so rosy. His production dipped to 71 points in 81 games. His power play production was the lowest per-game since 2010-11 and he’ll be 31 by the time puck drops this fall. His five-on-five time with Ovechkin was around 580 minutes – roughly the same percentage as the year prior.

The big playoff run will help ease some GMs concerns about taking the Swedish pivot early. However, the emergence of Evgeni Kuznetsov cannot be overlooked. The younger Russian played roughly 475 even-strength minutes with Ovechkin last season. But the two were connected at the hip down the stretch and throughout the playoffs. The results were fruitful.

Backstrom has proven to be a reliable performer. His ability to generate offense away from Ovechkin is admirable. However, it’s not at the same level it could be if he was consistently dishing the puck to this generation’s greatest goal scorer. With the extreme depth at the centre position, there’s no need to jump up and grab Backstrom in the first two rounds. Hell, I may even wait until closer to the 35-spot to take a swing on him. (aug11)

  2. One of the most underrated players of this generation, Blake Wheeler has been lethal on the power play for the Jets (having Patrik Laine and Mark Scheifele helps). Can he replicate the 40 power-play points (!) he had last year? That’s a pretty tall task. Seems likely he comes down to the 75-80-point range he had been the previous couple seasons. Then again, there is a lot of talent on that top power-play unit. He has one year left on his deal and will be 33 years old for the 2019-2020 season. (aug7)

  3. Is anyone else a little concerned that Dallas Stars’ new bench boss, Jim Montgomery, will be inclined to split his top line to spread out the offense? We can assume at least one of Jamie Benn or Alex Radulov will get to live next to soon-to-be potential upcoming unrestricted free agent, Tyler Seguin, next season. But, will the other end up driving offense from the second line to help get Jason Spezza and company going?

The Stars top line produced 103 of the team’s 231 total goals. Seventy-three (73) of those goals came at even-strength, where the team scored 187 total goals. That’s 40 percent of the team’s offense during five-on-five play. Meanwhile, no other forward cusped the 20-goal or 35-point mark. The secondary scoring is non-existent in Big D.

It’s certainly a situation to watch carefully. Seguin will reap the best of everything as he’s the focal point of the attack down the middle. The team will also be looking to give him every reason to sign a massive extension before testing the market next July. Benn and/or Radulov could be seeing their even-strength production take a dip next season if they end up away from the top line. (aug11)

  4. How much does Shayne Gostisbehere’s value depend on Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek's ridiculous power play production? Giroux has a history of racking up massive production on the power play. Over the past five seasons, he’s averaged 34 points on the man-advantage. And his 168 total PPPs over that time are tied for most in the league with Nicklas Backstrom. Voracek has been a little more inconsistent, producing 23 power play points in three of the last five seasons. But, he's sprinkled in 33 in 2014-15 and 35 last season.

Gostisbehere saw his average powerplay deployment dip by 15 seconds per night last season. Yet, his power play production shot up from a previous career-high of 23 to the 33 he experienced last season. That result led all blueliners and has propelled him to being one of the best fantasy hockey blueliners out there.

For those who concern themselves with Ivan Provorov breathing down Gostisbehere's neck, don’t. Let's say the Flyers decided to promote Provorov to the top unit. The increase in his level of production would pale in comparison to the deficit that moving Gostisbehere off of it would cause. This is a Kevin Shattenkirk–Alex Pietrangelo situation all over again. The club will play their players to their strengths. That means Gostisbehere gets all the fun minutes and Provorov remains an all-around stud who is limited offensively due to his deployment. Until the Philly power play begins to show signs of slowing, Gostisbehere will remain an elite producer. (aug11)

  5. In case you’re wondering where Brady Tkachuk might fit in now, the Sens have a number of established NHL-level players at the left wing position. But, with the departure of Mike Hoffman, the Sens also lack a true top-liner at that position. So, Tkachuk could receive an opportunity to latch on to a scoring line right away.

It's anyone’s guess whether Tkachuk would stay in Ottawa for the full season or not. But it’s worth mentioning that brother Matthew went straight to the Flames right after being drafted and stayed the entire season. So, it’s possible that Brady is trying to follow the same path. But ultimately it will be the Senators’ decision. If the Sens are a Canadian tire fire again, then playing in London would be a better option for the 2018-19 season. (aug12)

  6. One left wing that Tkachuk will be battling for minutes with will be Ryan Dzingel. With all the turmoil in Ottawa last season (and stretching into the offseason), it’s easy to overlook the fact that Dzingel tied for the team lead in goals with 23. There’s lots to like with Dzingel as a potential deep sleeper. Not only is he playing for a contract, but he is also entering his fourth season (if you count his 30-game 2015-16 season). His production climbed as the season went on, which was at least partially due to his deployment with Matt Duchene later in the season.

At this point Dzingel might be the preferred choice on the top line while Tkachuk becomes accustomed to the NHL either this season or next. But long term, he’s probably keeping the seat warm for Tkachuk. In the meantime, you can have fun saying the name "Dzingel!" Doesn't it just roll off the tongue? (aug12)

  7. Dylan Larkin inked a five-year contract extension worth 6.1 million per season. That's a nice chunk of change coming to the 22-year-old. Larkin epitomized the dreaded sophomore slump in 2016-17. After taking the NHL by storm in the first half of his rookie campaign, things turned a little sour for the former University of Michigan standout. He witnessed a dip in goals, assists, points, shots, and time-on-ice. A great deal of that can be explained by his transition to the middle of the ice and the responsibility that comes with it.

The 2017-18 campaign was the re-emergence. He posted more than double his previous season point totals (31 to 63) and was a force at even-strength. His 53 points at five-on-five were good for 23rd in the league. Wedged between Steven Stamkos and Evgeni Kuznetsov. (aug11)

  8. I’ll be very interested to see what the Arizona Coyotes do with their top power-play unit this year. If we look at their PP line combinations from Frozen Tools, their three most-common PP lineups had three forwards and two defensemen. However, with the addition of Alex Galchenyuk and the hopeful emergence of Dylan Strome, as well as the lack of scoring talent down the lineup, it would make sense for the team to run a heavily-used four-forward top PP unit.

They could go with Galchenyuk-Clayton Keller–Derek Stepan-Strome-Oliver Ekman-Larsson and just play them 70 percent of the time. It would give them four lefties but that’s not really a huge issue. You can have Galchenyuk on his off-hand wall, Strome or Keller on their strong-side wall, the remaining forward and Stepan playing low/high in the slot with OEL on the point.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but it seems to me they finally have the offensive pieces necessary to run a very threatening top PP unit. Arizona was bottom-10 in five-on-four goals last year and if this team wants to earnestly push for a playoff spot, a boost on the PP would go a long way in helping. It’ll be curious to see what they run in exhibition games. (aug10)

  9. Eric Staal has been lights out for the Wild since they signed him, culminating with 42 goals last year, 11 of them on the power play. For reference, he had 12 power-play goal totals from 2014-2017 combined. He hadn’t cracked the double-digit goal mark on the PP since 2010-11.

Minnesota is a team that splits their power-play units to a degree which, as written above, is a concern. He shot 28.12 percent at five-on-four last year. If that comes down to 10 percent, or so, in 175 five-on-four minutes, that’s a huge crash in production. Just that loss in PP goal production alone would knock him down to 35-ish goals. I don’t think anyone expects him to repeat 42 goals again but just be aware of where the goal drop will come from. In leagues that count PP goals (or even PP points), it could be a double-whammy as the loss in production will likely come from the man-advantage side. (aug10)

  10. With the Sedin twins gone, there is presumably two open spots on Vancouver’s top power-play unit. Sven Baertschi signed a three-year deal with the Canucks and though they have some young guys coming up among their proven, top-end forwards, they have two. And one of them is a sophomore. Does Baertschi crack that top unit? There is Adam Gaudette, Elias Pettersson, and Jonathan Dahlen, but how many rookies do they want to put on PP1? Surely, Baertschi won’t shoot 30 percent at five-on-four again,but if he can manage to skate with Brock Boeser and Bo Horvat at 5v4 for most of the year, that extra ice time could mitigate some of the percentage drop. We’ll see. There are a lot of moving parts in Vancouver this year. (aug10)

  11. Ryan Johansen has a 33-goal season to his name, which was followed up with a 26-goal season. His last three seasons, though, have seen totals of 14, 14, and 15. His last two years have seen fewer total power-play goals (five) than either of his seasons with the Blue Jackets from 2013-2015. Now, when you skate with Filip Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson, there really aren’t many shots left to go around and Johansen doesn’t need to be a scorer. That doesn’t mean he can’t pop a handful of power-play goals this year, though, especially if his five-on-four shooting percentage rebounds from a six-year low of 3.7 percent.

Again, Johansen isn’t a scorer now, and he doesn’t need to be. With a bit of good fortune at five-on-four, though, he could push for 20 total goals. That’s not overly impressive, but it’s better than what he’s done lately. (aug9)

  12. Once a prolific goal scorer on the power play, Bobby Ryan had just one PP goal last year and two the year before. When you look at just five-on-four power plays, he had zero goals in 2017-18 and two in 2016-17. That’s two goals at 5v4 over a span of 124 games and 302 power-play minutes. This is from a guy who once posted back-to-back double-digit 5v4 goal seasons.

Ryan’s hand injuries over the last few years are lengthy and well-documented. It’s a wonder if he’ll ever get over them again. With the exodus of talent in Ottawa of late, there should be a lot of PPTOI available for Ryan if he can stay healthy. And that is a big, big if. (aug9)

  13. Helen St. James covers the Red Wings and states that the team wants to be competitive this year, which reads as playoff aspirations to me. In that vein, she thinks Jimmy Howard’s starts could be reined in with the signing of Jonathan Bernier. Howard’s 57 starts in 2017-18 were the most for him since 2011-12 and largely due to the underperformance of anyone else they tried to use. If Bernier can perform at the level he did the last couple years, this could be a split-start situation rather than Howard starting 50-plus again. Even if Howard performs well, he could be a trade deadline casualty.

Though there’s nothing from management or coaching staff, she would like to see Filip Zadina play alongside Henrik Zetterberg if – IF – Zetterberg is healthy enough to play this year and Zadina makes the roster out of camp. Given that Zetterberg still possesses good playmaking abilities, this makes sense. There is a lot of time between now and the start of the season, though, so this is obviously just speculation for now. (aug9)

  14. Though there’s no official update on Ryan Suter’s status, Minnesota Wild beat reporter Michael Russo said he talked to Suter and recent scans on his ankle/foot came back clean and he’s been doing very light on-ice work. Suter’s expectation is that he will be ready for training camp. Now, what an athlete believes and what actually happens are often two very different things but that’s what we have for now.

Russo also believes we could see Nino Niederreiter on the third line this year. He says Bruce Boudreau wants to be able to throw three scoring lines at the opposition and that means there’s going to be a very skilled player on the third line. That might be Niederreiter. In which case, it’s a downgrade. No offense to Joel Eriksson Ek but he’s not Eric Staal. If Nino has third-line minutes and split power play time, returning to his 57-point performance in 2016-17 will be tough to accomplish. He also had Charlie Coyle on that third line as well, which kind of makes sense if you want to balance things out. (aug9)

  15. For anyone concerned about Vladimir Tarasenko’s off-season surgery, there was some news that came out late Monday night in that regard. Long story short, there shouldn’t be much to worry about from one of the league’s elite snipers.

Months ago, I wrote in these Ramblings about how he could be a bounce-back candidate. That was before the shoulder injury, but I still stand by it. His average draft position (ADP), as it does with all players, will ultimately determine how much value he can return, but the revamped lineup with some natural progression from last year makes me a believer.

As with all returning injured players, though, there’s always risk attached. It’s up to the individual fantasy player how much, or how little, risk you want to assume in the draft. Every player has injury potential but one of the better indicators of future injury is prior injury. Tarasenko coming off long-term shoulder injury obviously fits that bill. If you’re really concerned about a second- or third-round pick only playing 65 games then he can be avoided. Again, each fantasy owner is unique so the decision is ultimately up to the individual owner. (aug8)

  16. I remember a week ago (or so) that fellow writer Cam Robinson was on Twitter discussing Jake Guentzel and his hopes that he would see top PP minutes this year. As a Guentzel owner in multiple keeper leagues, nothing would delight me more. Patric Hornqvist’s proficiency on the power play, however, is going to be a big stumbling block. He does a very good job at playing that Wayne Simmonds-type role around the net and Guentzel is more of a slot shooter like T.J. Oshie. Guentzel isn’t going to replace any of the other forwards, so it’s hard to see him getting consistent top PP minutes without someone suffering an injury. (aug7)

  17. Sam Reinhart is going into his fourth season (something we love around here at DobberHockey), will almost certainly play on Jack Eichel’s wing (good spot to be), and is going to be on the top PP unit again. How the team fares without Ryan O’Reilly or Evander Kane in the fold is another story but the ice time and quality linemates should be there for Reinhart. Will a true breakout follow? (aug7)

  18. The John Gibson signing – already discussed at length (by Ian Gooding here) but I’ll chime in – was a good cap hit for the Ducks, of course, given his consistent top save percentage. But, eight years is a risk given his injury history. He had always been a little under-ranked as a prospect goaltender on my list because he was injury prone. And this was before he stepped a skate onto NHL ice!

– 2014-15: He missed the middle of the season with a groin injury – 21 games; – 2015 playoffs: Missed seven games with a UBI; – 2015-16: Missed two games with a UBI; – 2016-17: Thirteen (13) games with a LBI (two injuries, or the same one twice, I don’t know); – 2017 playoffs: He missed the last game with an LBI and then had all summer to heal, so who knows how much time he would have missed; – 2017-18: Missed one game (concussion), four games (LBI), three more games (LBI), three more games (UBI).

In four seasons in the NHL, Gibson has sustained nine injuries after having a reputation as being injury-prone well before he even turned pro. And now he’s locked in for eight years. Good luck, Anaheim! Hope it pans out for you and he stays healthy. If so, it’s a steal. (aug6)

  19. While looking at the Ducks, Jakob Silfverberg popped out at me because he’s an unrestricted free agent next summer. Here’s a guy in his mid-20s who possesses more offensive talent then he’s shown and is under-used offensively because he’s so good defensively. Players like him always surprise in a UFA contract year – Josh Bailey and Evander Kane sure did it last year. The latter two had expected production of 50 points and they certainly exceeded that. Silfverberg is in that ballpark, too. Kevin Hayes another one. In fact, I’m just going to list the guys I think best fit this mold as I go through Cap Friendly. In no particular order: Silfverberg, Hayes, Derick Brassard, Gustav Nyquist, Marcus Johansson, Richard Panik, Joonas Donskoi.

The latter two names would be pushing the term ‘breakout’ but if they get into the high-50s, I’d call that a contract year. Jeff Skinner isn’t on this list because he’s already had huge seasons. But, I’m willing to bet two or three of the above players really surprise us in a good way. (aug6)

  20. Did William Karlsson just sign the same contract that Kevin Hayes signed? That’s pretty nuts. Yeah, I know, it’s the ‘only one year’ thing…but okay, take two years then. Karlsson had 103 points in two years to Hayes at 93 and he’s a year younger and scored 49 goals to 42 (game winners he’s up 9-8, too). I think Vegas got a bit of a deal there but at the expense of possibly getting taken to the cleaners next summer. But the Rangers? They overpaid Hayes just a little and they let him become unrestricted at the end of it, too. You’d think they’d get a discount from his agent for helping him do that. (aug6)

  Have a good week, folks!!

        from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts-36/

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Larkin Signs, Rantanen Get’s No Love, Deployment Key for Backstrom and Ghost

  The big news of the day was Dylan Larkin inking a five-year contract extension worth 6.1 million per season. That's a nice chunk of change coming to the 22-year-old. 

  Larkin epitomized the dreaded sophomore slump in 2016-17. After taking the NHL by storm in the first half of his rookie campaign, things turned a little sour for the former University of Michigan standout. He witnessed a dip in goals, assists, points, shots, and time-on-ice. A great deal of that can be explained by his transition to the middle of the ice and the responsibility that comes with it.

  2017-18 was the re-emergence. He posted more than double his previous season point totals (31 to 63) and was a force at even-strength. His 53 points at five-on-five were good for 23rd in the league. Wedged between Steven Stamkos and Evgeni Kuznetsov. 

    With Henrik Zetterberg dealing with age and injury, Larkin is clearly the future for the Red Wings down the middle. He will be looked at to lead the team out of the basement this season. The addition of a Filip Zadina and the continued emergence of Anthony Mantha shouldn't hurt his stock either.

  **

  I have this theory about Mikko Rantanen. That he’s the least appreciated 21-year-old 84-point scoring player in recent memory. 84 points as a sophomore. 84!

  {source}<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mikko Rantanen has had the most quiet 84-point season by a 21-year-old in recent memory. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Avs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Avs</a></p>— /Cam Robinson/ (@Hockey_Robinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/Hockey_Robinson/status/982807925730066432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 8, 2018</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>{/source}

  Sure, he played over 80 percent of his even-strength time next to Hart Trophy finalist, Nate MacKinnon. And sure, he clicked on 16.3 percent of his shots while only taking 2.2 per contest. While those are noteworthy facts, they’re also likely to be replicated in future seasons. 

    MacKinnon, Rantanen and Landeskog have established themselves as one of the most potent top lines in hockey. There’s little reason to expect the trio to split up any time soon. As for Rantanen’s lofty conversion rate, historically he’s been a very efficient finisher. As an NHL rookie, he scored 20 goals on 133 shots (15%). As an AHL rookie in 2015-16, he scored 24 goals on 140 shots (17.2%).

There appears to be a theme here.

  Where he may be in line for a dip is in his power play output. His 35 points on the man-advantage led his squad and were good for the eighth most in the league. The Avalanche climbed all way out of the basement in 2016-17 man-advantage efficiency (12.6%) to eighth in 2017-18 (21.9%). There’s little reason to believe the Avs will be losing effectiveness on the power play. Their young core is only improving. However, expecting Rantanen to repeat his 35 PPPs may be a touch high for the youngster.

  His 35 points would have led the league in 2016-17 and factor in as one of the top 15 best outputs from the 2010-2017 seasons. That's elite stuff and difficult to replicate.  

Single-season power play point leader (2010-11 to 2016-17)

Meanwhile, his even-strength numbers should remain rock solid. Here's a look at the team's even-strength shot maps with and without Rantanen on the ice. The team generates more shots on goal from more dangerous spots while he's on the ice. Again, this likely means MacKinnon is on the ice as well, but who cares?! Those two are a match made in hockey heaven.

    Considering traditional ageing curves, the surrounding talent, and the trajectory of the player and team as a whole, Rantanen should be one of the most-sought-after points-only fantasy players out there. Yet, he gets Rodney Dangerfield-level appreciation from most. His ADP will be very interesting to track this fall. If you can nab him outside of the top 20, get excited.

Graphics courtesy Hockeyviz.com

  **

  Over on DobberProspects, I began a series that will pit two (or three) comparable prospects against one another to see who holds the better fantasy upside. The first instalment was Martin Nečas vs Henrik Borgström

  **

  How much does Shayne Gostisbehere’s value depend on Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek's ridiculous power play production?

  Giroux has a history of racking up massive production on the power play. Over the past five seasons, he’s averaged 34 points on the man-advantage. And his 168 total PPPs over that time are tied for most in the league with Nicklas Backstrom (more on him later). Voracek has been a little more inconsistent, producing 23 power play points in three of the last five seasons. But, he's sprinkled in 33 in 2014-15 and 35 last season.

  Gostisbehere saw his average powerplay deployment dip by 15 seconds per night last season. Yet his power play production shot up from a previous career-high of 23 to the 33 he experienced last season. That result led all blueliners and has propelled him to being one of the best fantasy blueliners out there.

    For those who concern themselves with Ivan Provorov breathing down Gostisbehere's neck, don’t. Let's say the Flyers decided to promote Provorov to the top unit. The increase in his level of production would pale in comparison to the deficit that moving Gostisbehere off of it would cause. This is a Shattenkirk-Pietrangelo situation all over again. The club will play their players to their strengths. That means Gostisbehere gets all the fun minutes and Provorov remains an all-around stud who is limited offensively due to his deployment.

  Until the Philly power play begins to show signs of slowing, Gostisbehere will remain an elite producer.

  **

  Have you bought your 13th Annual Dobber Fantasy Guide yet? Don’t waste another second. Do it. Do it now!

  **

  A couple of pickums. Who do you prefer?

  {source}<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Points only keeper league pickum!</p>— /Cam Robinson/ (@Hockey_Robinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/Hockey_Robinson/status/1027776256882831360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2018</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>{/source}{source}<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Keeper league pickum!</p>— /Cam Robinson/ (@Hockey_Robinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/Hockey_Robinson/status/1027298982115008512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 8, 2018</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>{/source}

  **

  Will people still consider Nicklas Backstrom a premier asset heading into drafts this season?

  Last year, he was the 20th player off of the board in Yahoo leagues. This was after he produced an 86-point campaign in 2016-17. That season, he played around 60 percent of his even-strength minutes next to Alexander Ovechkin. He produced 36 power-play points and hadn’t yet turned 30.

  Heading into 2018-19, things aren’t so rosy. His production dipped to 71 points in 81 games. His power play production was the lowest per-game since 2010-11, and he’ll be 31 by the time puck drops this fall. His five-on-five time with Ovechkin was around 580 minutes – roughly the same percentage as the year prior.

  The big playoff run will help ease some GM's concerns about taking the Swedish pivot early. However, the emergence of Evgeni Kuznetsov cannot be overlooked. The younger Russian played roughly 475 even-strength minutes with Ovechkin last season. But the two were connected at the hip down the stretch and throughout the playoffs. The results were fruitful.

  Backstrom has proven to be a reliable performer. His ability to generate offense away from Ovechkin is admirable. However, it’s not at the same level it could be if he was consistently dishing the puck to this generation’s greatest goal scorer.

  With the extreme depth at the centre position, there’s no need to jump up and grab Backstrom in the first two rounds. Hell, I may even wait until closer to the 35 spot to take a swing on him.

  Stats courtesy of Corsica

    **

  Is anyone else a little concerned that Dallas Stars’ new bench boss, Jim Montgomery will be inclined to split his top line to spread out the offense?

  We can assume at least one of Jamie Been or Alex Radulov will get to live next to soon-to-be potential upcoming unrestricted free agent, Tyler Seguin next season. But will the other end up driving offense from the second line to help get Jason Spezza and company going?

  The Stars top line produced 103 of the team’s 231 total goals. 73 of those goals came at even-strength where the team scored 187 total goals. That’s 40 percent of the team’s offense during five-on-five play. Meanwhile, no other forward cusped the 20-goal or 35-point mark.

  The secondary scoring is non-existent in Big D.

  It’s certainly a situation to watch carefully. Seguin will reap the best of everything as he’s the focal point of the attack down the middle. The team will also be looking to give him every reason to sign a massive extension before testing the market next July. Benn and/or Radulov could be seeing their even-strength production take a dip next season if they end up away from the top line.

  **

  That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and feel free to follow me on Twitter @Hockey_Robinson

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-larkin-signs-rantanen-gets-no-love-deployment-key-for-backstrom-and-ghost/