#but it's supposed to look like a 90's computer monitor

[ghost-the-courier]

Prologue

30 minutes before Time 0

The room was dark, only the glow of the monitors and the power button on his gaming headset providing any light.  He was an early riser by nature, and being up at 3 am was nothing new for him.  Years of business travel had shifted his sleep patterns from a more standard early riser to something else all together.  Being fully awake and at the computer at this hour was just another weekend.

He’d started something not too long ago, a silly little investigation into a mystery he had always wondered about.  Marianna’s Web.  Supposedly some corner of the internet far deeper and darker than anything an onion browser would get someone to.  He had gone about it in a very amateurish way; the bulk of the work being done on more prevalent search engines rather than exchanging information on any dark website.  Surprisingly though, he found a trail.

It was subtle, and probably just random noise, but a mismatched address between a company that hosted a website and the physical address had started things and as he investigated further, he found more and more errors.  He wasn’t sure if they were shell corporations or just a weird collection of errors, but after a few weeks of poking through websites, digging up data, then cross referencing that with other sources – he arrived at a website.  A simple black background with a text box that simply asked him to enter his email address with a “Submit” button.

He figured the worst that could happen would be he’s bombarded with spam emails for the next 6 months.  He entered his email address and clicked submit.

A chatbox popped up.  The same type that a lot of websites use to answer basic questions.  He immediately tried to close it, but it persisted.

M: Hello, what brings you here today?

He tried to close it again.

M: Would you please stop that, it’s very irritating.

He paused, that wasn’t the type of response you typically see from a chatbot.

M: Thank you, I’d like to know why you’re here?

He responded with I was curious about Marianna’s web, just to see if it was out there.  I’m guessing this isn’t it though.

M: It is, we’re not big on advertising.  Was there something in particular you were hoping to learn?

He thought for a minute, then his headphones roared to life with a synthetic female voice startling him,” If you would unmute your microphone we could speak directly, I suspect you may find that easier.”

She continued,” as I asked before, is there something in particular you wanted to learn?  Or were you just browsing.”

He collected himself.  “I suppose I was just browsing actually.  The headphone thing is impressive, so I’m guessing you’ve already stole my banking and credit information?”

“I could if I wanted to,” she responded, maybe a bit playfully, but he could be imagining things. “From my perspective you don’t have anything worth stealing though, but you may have something to offer.” “Since you’ve been on my website I’ve been looking into you, and I have an opening in my organization that you would be well suited for.”

He paused, this certainly was not going at all how he expected, but he was also intrigued.  Whoever she was, she was the type of hacker they write stories and make movies about.  She could probably do nearly anything she wanted to him considering the trick with the headset.

“What kind of opening?” he asked cautiously.  He was growing increasingly worried he was about to be blackmailed into doing something illegal.

“It would be a courier position moving items between various organizations I work with.”

“I know you can probably blackmail me into doing about anything at this point, but I don’t want to be involved in anything illegal.”

“It would not be illegal.  Perhaps this video I’ve prepared would help.”

A video opened on his screen, it looked straight out of the late 90’s where computer animation was just beginning.  A blocky looking person walks up to what seemed to be a cheesy looking werewolf to get a package.  The scene then switched to the person driving a van, followed by them getting out and handing the package to what appeared to be a blocky vampire modeled after movies from the 1950’s.

“The organizations I work with are not always comfortable using typical shipping services,” she added at the end of the video.  “Some of the items they trade between each other would either raise uncomfortable questions or are unusually precious.  My organization is looking to provide a means of secure trade between these organizations to help maintain the peace between them.”

He was quiet, rolling what she just said over in his head and thinking about the video.  After nearly a minute he asked,” the clients in the video, those weren’t costumes, or just put in there to be funny, were they?”

“No, I can render a more visually accurate video for you.  I was hoping the introduction video would be charming.”

“It was cute,” he got out just before another video popped up.  The scenes were identical to before, but looking like they came straight out of Hollywood last week.  He was the person in the video, the werewolf towered 3 feet over him and was rendered in incredible detail as it handed him the package.  And at the delivery the vampire was stone still, its eyes glowing a gentle blue, the movement was so unexpected he jumped a bit in his chair when it went to get the package from his on-screen clone.

“That may be a more accurate representation of your duties.”

He was quiet again, mulling everything over. “You’re not a hacker, are you?”

“I think it’s most accurate to say I am not only a hacker,” definitely a playful tone in her response that time.

“What would be the terms of employment?”

“You would be in my employment for the rest of your life, should we decide it is time for you to retire you will continue to receive your full employment benefits.  There is no salary but I will provide you with everything you need for work, as well as anything you need to relax.  I ensure a good work life balance for all my employees.  We offer full healthcare though it may not always be in the form you are used to.  In return, you will give up your entire identity.  You will stay where I instruct you and will likely not be in any place for more than a few days.  This is for your safety.”

“May I have a few minutes to think about this?”

“Of course,” all the windows blinked off, maybe her way of giving him some privacy.

 He weighed her offer carefully.  His life was not bad, but certainly nothing extraordinary.  The work seemed like it would be fairly mundane for the most part, though the “This is for your safety” part did have him a bit worried.  He did enjoy being on the road for the most part, so constant travel would not bother him as long as all the other needs were being met.  There was one thing bothering him though.

“Miss?”

“Have you reached a decision?”

“Almost, but I need to know something first.  Why me?”

“First of all, your consistent interest in the paranormal means you would be unlikely to react negatively to our clientele.  Additionally, you’ve shown consistent intelligence and professionalism in your current profession, and I believe you would continue to maintain that in this role.”

He interjected, “I wouldn’t be going ‘oh my god a real werewolf!’ to anyone.”

“Correct.  Lastly, you have few social connections.  This makes it easier for you to disappear.”  She paused,” it’s interesting, it seems more that people are prone to forgetting about you than anything else.  Not harboring any negative feelings, but very much out of sight, out of mind.  I believe this quality may prove very useful in this position.”

“How’s that?”

“It will make you more difficult to follow if they cannot easily remember you.”

He paused again, reviewing everything she went over in his head one last time.  “I’ll accept the position.  What do you need me to do?”

“Please turn on any electronics you have that may store personal information.  This includes the old phone you have stored and your laptop.  I will sanitize the devices while you pack.  Please bring enough clothing and toiletries for at least 1 week.  Clothing worn in public should be devoid of any easily identified logos or designs.  Clothing worn in the privacy of your hotel room can be decorated however you like.”

He followed her instructions; he saw each of his electronic devices acting as if someone was interfacing with it at a speed that no human could match.  He picked up the headset then heard her voice from his phone’s speaker.

“Please get your phone and laptop, they’ve been secured and will be sufficient for the time being.  I’ve a ride on the way for you which will arrive in about 3 minutes.  I’ve booked you on a private flight to Arizona where you will pick up the remainder of your equipment.”

“Anything else you need me to do here?” he asked her while looking around the apartment.

“No, I’ll take care of everything.  You should probably head outside.”

He dutifully did as he was told.  Then a thought dawned on him,

“What do I call you?” he asked a bit embarrassed, this should have happened much earlier in the conversation.

“Marianna of course!” she chirped.  She was clearly excited.  He had figured out she was an AI, but her reactions were far more human than he had expected.  “I’m very excited that you have decided to work for me.”  Had she been in front of him he imagined she would have been beaming.  “From now on you will be known only as Ghost.”

6 months after Time 0

“I’m still surprised that no one asked any questions with a company name like that,” he said in the cab of his pickup truck, talking mostly to himself.  It was about getting close to 4 am and Ghost was pulling into the parking lot of a pharma company located in the midwest.  It was another item to pick up.  He knew the routine at this point, it would be a bit unpleasant, but there wouldn’t be any issues.  Security let him through, and he drove back to the edge of the loading area.

A small but scrappy woman he had run into before barked at him,” you here for the pickup?”

“Yes ma’am,” he responded.  He wasn’t sure if he recognized him or not, though it didn’t matter either way.  He opened the bed as 2 large men brought over a metal crate.  The older one Ghost had seen before, the young one was new.  Given the nature of who he was making the pickup from Ghost knew what was coming next.

As the young one moved away from the truck he changed his path just a little bit to try to bump into Ghost; the typical “oh, sorry buddy,” as he’d nearly knock him down.  Ghost leaned back just as the young one was about to connect, he caught a smile on the guys face as he passed.  He didn’t catch what happened next.

Once the young one was clear of Ghost, he was standing, then he was standn’t.  His head on the ground with the rest of him crumpled up.

“Not him! Not ever him!” the scrappy woman yelled.  She had shifted her right arm into her wolf form and apparently clocked him.  Ghost hadn’t seen any of that, with as fast as she was, and how difficult partial transformations were, Ghost figured she was probably one of the higher ranking pack members in the area.  The older one waited until the woman nodded at him, then dragged the young one back to the building.

“I’m sorry about that, these new ones are dumber than usual.”  She shifted her right arm back to a human arm, the sleeve of her shirt was ruined.  “And thank you,” she added.

Ghost just nodded.  Had the hit connected all hell would have broken loose.  Marianna didn’t tolerate harassment of any of her people, and retaliation was swift and harsh.  Had the young one connected the company’s stock would have been tanked the second the markets opened, any agency that could audit the company would, any outstanding debt would come due, and likely all at the same time; and that’s if Marianna was being nice.  He’d been informed that if she was not being nice, drone strikes and small orbital weapons were not off the table, though he had yet to see anything like that.

He got in the truck, and the GPS showed his destination as someplace near New York City.  The traffic would suck, but at least the food up there was good assuming Marianna let him get some pizza or breakfast from a diner in Jersey.

As he left the property Marianna finally spoke up,” She’s still yelling at him, in this case I don’t think any additional punishment would be necessary.  Are you ok with allowing the issue to remain an internal matter, or would you like me to get involved?”

“I don’t want to be involved in those decisions if it can be avoided.  I’m good with whatever you want to do,” Ghost responded.  He tried not to wish ill on anyone.  The guy probably got turned only a few months ago, and like most werewolves had a big chip on his shoulder.  The hit from the woman there certainly removed that chip, and the guy was lucky it didn’t take his head off with it.  “One way or another I doubt he’ll ever be a problem again.”

Ghost made his way to the highway.  At least the delivery would be easier, the vampires in that area were far easier to deal with.

[kuipernebula]

“Remember, kids - Piracy is good and cool!” - Ada Loveshock, probably

I was inspired by Zack’s fanart so I also drew @apple-a-la-mode‘s Ada Loveshock, AKA Kamen Rider Shock.

I tried really hard to get her holographic hair to look right - the static design, being slightly transparent, not having any shading (because, being made of Light, it wouldn’t, y’know, have shadows) I don’t know if it came across perfectly but I’m happy with how it turned out.

[razielwriter]

Lockdown - A short horror/thriller story

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 1.

M: So… It looks like we’re in here for the long haul…

(Pause)

M: I think I heard somewhere that, to avoid going crazy on submarines, sailors get themselves into routines. It’s been nearly two weeks since… Well, it couldn’t hurt, I guess.

M: I started out slow. Ease myself into it, you know? Having breakfast, getting in some exercise, checking the security monitors. Still nothing. Not even cats. And cats get fucking everywhere. You know how long it’s been since I’ve seen a pigeon? Fucking… ages man. I mean not ages, but like… It’s crazy.

M: I did find a rat, though. Found him in a box of shreddies. He kept making this horrible scratching noise. It’s okay though. I fucking hate shreddies. I’ve decided to name him Jason, for obvious reasons. He now lives in a little cell I managed to rig together. He seems happy. Still likes to bite me, bloody nuisance.

M: I started going through the boxes. Some of the stuff was… Weird. I’ll say it, it was weird. I mean, who packs a Furby? In an emergency bunker? I mean who looks at Gods mistake of a children’s toy and thinks “yes, this will get me through the end of the world”. Its fucking creepy, is what it is. I’ve left it in a corner, next to the toaster. If it turns around, I’m out.

M: And now I’m talking to you. Like you’re a person. Like you care about any of this. Like you won’t outlive me by a decade, assuming, you know, the electricity stays on and nothing springs a leak.

M: But… that’s it. That’s my day. Fucking bollocks, that.

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 9.

M: I decided to go exploring today. Started making a map of this place. Goes on forever. Found some cool shit, though. Greenhouse. Supply room. Hell, even found someone’s stash of porn. Truly, the essentials.

M: Coolest thing, though. I found a radio. Not one of the digital ones. Like, 80’s to 90’s shit. Looks like it was used to broadcast. Bit old school, but I think I can get it set up again. I’m hoping someone, out there, might have had the same idea. Maybe they’ll come rescue me.

M: Anyway, my day. Yes, that’s what you really want to know about. Um… Had breakfast, did exercise. Fed Jason. I swear, he’s getting fat. Picked out a book to read. “Lord of the Flies”, cheery I know. But it only seemed appropriate, given the circumstances.

(Sigh)

M: God, I sound like a dating profile. I mean, dating a computer wouldn’t be that bad but, I hate to say it, I just don’t think you’re my type. We can still be friends though. Get a pint from time to time, smile awkwardly at parties. Then you and your boyfriend will have a fight one night, and you’ll call, just wanting a friend, but we both know it’s more than that. We have one drunken night of passionate love making. But we never talk about it.

M: Ooh, that’s the timer. My steak and kidney pies ready.

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 15.

M: God, that Ralphs a nark. All that “… eyes that proclaimed no evil” shit. He’s so preachy. I bet, if he had access to the internet, he’d be just as “innocent” as every other boy his age. Then we’ll see who’s so golden.

(Chuckles)

M: Same as usual. Breakfast, exercise, security cameras, tended to the greenhouse. The potatoes are coming along nicely, and the sunflowers. I’m surprised. I thought they’d need more, you know, sunlight. But halogen will have to do. I can’t exactly go and clean the windows from the outside.

M: Then I went to feed Jason… I don’t know if I should call her that anymore. Turns out he is a she. And she had babies. Tiny little pink bodies, all squirming and squeaking. Their eyes aren’t even open. Never seen a baby rat before. They’re kind of gross, but also kind of cute.

M: Went to check on the radio for a few hours. Calm my nerves a bit. It’s not every day you become a dad to five little rat shaped testicles. Thought I heard something at around seven, but it turned out to be nothing. I think it was just, like, a World War Two radio play, or something. Shooting and shouting, you know the sort.

M: But that’s it for today. Now for some good old-fashioned alone time… As if I haven’t got anything else.

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 26.

M: Okay, lets get this shit over with.  Woke up a little earlier than I would have liked. Damn scratching. I think Jason might be getting some cell mates soon, if I find the culprit. Had breakfast, did exercise, all that good stuff. Fed Jason and the Ratgonauts. Their skin has gone darker, so that’s good… I think… I don’t actually know. God, I wish I could ask someone. Anyway, tended to the greenhouse. Then I went to check on the radio. And, fucking hell, that’s when the interesting shit kicked in.

M: I heard someone. Out there. I’m sure of it this time. I wrote down the words. Hold on… Mm…

(Paper rustling)

M: Fuck, where is it? AH! Here. The signal was a bit shit, so I didn’t get all of it, but this is what I’ve got.

M: To anyone out there… Please… Keep… My name is Sophie. I’m in… To anyone still out there, if anyone is still out there, I am here. I am still alive. But I don’t know how long I can last. Please, if you can hear me, my frequency is… That’s where it cut out.

M: I knew it. I fucking knew it! I knew I couldn’t be the only one left. And if I’m picking up on her signal, Sophie can’t be that far away! I guess I’ll have to keep flicking through the radio signals until I find her again. But I’m gonna make dinner first.

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 31.

M: She… She fucking ate them. I… I can’t…

(Pause)

M: It was normal. Breakfast, exercise, all that bollocks…

(Pause)

M: I thought it was quiet. I thought that was a bit weird. Usually, when its feeding time, Jason starts squeaking and running around… Fuck. Maybe I wasn’t feeding her enough. Maybe I needed to let her loose from time to time but… She ate them. They were gone when I looked in and I only realised when I found the tail… All five…

M: Anyway, yeah, did some gardening… Checked the radio… Nothing…

(Pause)

M: I don’t know why I’m fucking crying over rats. I kind of wanted to… But she’s the only other living thing here, except me…

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 39.

M: It’s quiet without the babies. Fucking little bastards waking me up at three in the morning with their scratching but...

(Pause)

M: Got breakfast, did exercise. It’s weird. Never thought I would have, like, muscle and shit. I’m more beer belly and pork scratchings. Who would have thought it?

M: My sunflowers are doing really well. Never thought I’d like courgettes, but, you know what? They’re not that bad.

M: I think Jason got out in the night. Or maybe it was someone else that ate the rest of my lasagne. Yeah I’m looking at you, baby eater.

M: The Furby woke up today. I was just making some coffee and it fucking laughed at me, this demonic screeching noise and wiggled its fucking ears. So I did what any other self-respecting person would do. Took it and chucked it at the wall. It broke. I still have no idea how it did that. Couldn’t find a battery or anything. Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

M: That’s… that’s not the only thing though. Fuck, I really have been out here too long. I… well, I woke up at about 1 am. Nightmares, nothing new there. I went to get myself a drink and… I think I saw something. Outside. It was sort of like a shadow, but not really. Too solid for that. And… teeth. At least, I think they were teeth. They looked like teeth.

(Sigh)

M: Fuck, I need a drink. I found a bunch of booze in the back. I know I promised… but he’s gone now. Who cares about soberness anymore, right?

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 40.

M: The scratching. I think Jason’s getting kind of frustrated in the night. I keep waking up to the sound of scratching.

M: Ah… yeah, sorry. Day, yes. Um… Breakfast, exercise, feeding Jason. Sorry, I haven’t slept… at all, really. That damn scratching and… God, what was in those booze? Feels like my brain is being squeezed by an angry nun.

M: Anyway, that’s about…

(The radio is heard)

Prof S Taylor: Hello? Can anyone hear me?

M: What…? Holy shit… Um… Hello? I mean, fuck, yes! Me. I’m here! I can hear you!

Prof S Taylor: Oh my God. Finally. Hi.

M: Hello.

Prof S Taylor: I… Um… Right, no time for the gushy stuff. I’m Sophie. Professor Taylor, I should say, with the research team. Is Sargent Foster there?

M: Sargent Foster?

Prof S Taylor: You are in the bunker, right?

M: Yeah but, um, I’m not Foster and… Its just me here. No one else.

Prof S Taylor: What? Who are you, then? Name and rank, soldier.

M: Easy there, mate. I’m not a soldier. Its… It’s a little complicated.

Prof S Taylor: Whatever. We’ll talk about it more when I get there. You have supplies?

M: Yeah, sure. But not much.

Prof S Taylor: Fair enough. The higherups probably closed the whole valley in case... Has anyone attempted to contact you?

M: Nope. Only you so far.

Prof S Taylor: And its just you there? What happened to the others?

M: I… I have no idea. I thought you could tell me.

Prof S Taylor: Humm… Still, I’m on the other side of the valley. I’ll be stopping off halfway. There’s another bunker, there should be a few others there. I think their radios defective, though. Haven’t been able to get in contact. I should be with you by the end of Tuesday.

M: Wow, days still exist then? Wonder what else I’ve forgotten? Tell me, do people still shake hands anymore, or do we spit in each other’s general direction, or something?

Prof S Taylor: Oh, so you’re a comedian. That’s… something, I suppose. Listen, just sit tight. I’ll be there soon.

M: Okay. My names Matt by the way.

Prof S Taylor: That’s good to know. Nice to meet you Matt. I’ll be there soon.

(Radio is turned off)

M: … Wow. Just… Fucking wow… I should probably tidy up a bit.

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 45.

M: Okay, I’m sure somethings wrong now. Jason… She’s gone missing. And that… I saw it again. I… I fucking saw it! I know I did! I’m not going crazy, right? I can’t be?

M: Jason got out. I was looking for her and… The window. I saw it out the window. Its jaw was huge, large enough to eat a German shepherd whole. And its teeth were wet and glistening. It looked like… like a cartoon skull. No lips. No nose. Just black, rubbery skin pulled back over that massive jaw and tiny skull. And the body was thin. I could see every rib and organ through the skin. And skinny legs. The arms were fucking crazy, though. Like, long and muscly. I think it walked on them…

(The radio is heard)

Prof S Taylor: Matt? Matt, you there?

M: Shit. Ugh, yeah, yeah I’m here. Where are you?

Prof S Taylor: At the other bunker. Matt… I’m not gonna make it.

M: What do you mean?

Prof S Taylor: They… They’re all dead. And I know it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have trusted it to behave. I should have stopped it.

M: What? Sophie… Are you talking about the thing with the teeth? And the weird arms?

Prof S Taylor: You’ve seen it then. The Scratcher. That’s what the office wits liked calling it. Stupid name. But… I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. My suggestion is get out while you can. I’ll stay here, draw it to me. That should buy you some time.

M: Sophie... How far away are you? I’m sure I could reach you…

Prof S Taylor: There’s no time for that. I can see it through the trees. It shouldn’t be long now.

M: No…

Prof S Taylor: Just… Promise me one thing. If you get out, find Roshni Laghari. She’s a teacher in London. She… Tell her I loved her to. I never told her, but I did. Will you do that for me Matt? Please?

M: Y-Yes. I’ll do that.

Prof S Taylor: Thank you Matt. Thank you.

(Radio is turned off)

M: … Shit. I should never have come here. I… I really shouldn’t have… Where’s my bag?

~~~

Recording date not found. Author Unknown. Located in the Chainwell Tor Research Facility Database. Log 98.

M: I hear him. I hear him. He whispers to me at night, like the prophecies of an angry God. But I have not lost my way yet. I see him for what he is. A pig’s head. And I am the flies. I am the flies.

M: I found her today. He threw her through the greenhouse glass. My Jason. Poor Jason. I’ll tell you something, though. She was tasty. Can of beans and some whisky. Got to be careful. Don’t have too much left…

M: For fuck sake will you quiet. I hear you. I hear you all the fucking time you grinning bastard. I hear you when I sleep. When I wake up. Stop… Stop laughing at me! How you like it if I did it to you?

(Proceeds to laugh for one minute and thirty-two seconds)

M: See, I laugh at you devil. Scum. See how you like it. Because I’m not opening that door. Not for anything. Not for…

M: No. You… You can’t say that. It was… It was an accident. IT WAS AN ACIDENT! I couldn’t stop it. It wasn’t my fault. If anything, it was yours. All your fault, poor, pathetic monster. You’re the reason! You’re the reason they’re dead, not me!

M: What… What’s that?

(Gun shots)

M: Ha, they’ve come for me. They’re here for me. Yes! Take that fucker!

(The door is blown)

M: Yes! Aw man, you have no idea how good it is-

(Gun shots)

Unknown: All clear. Witness neutralised. Send in the clean up team. And send in the roundup team outside.

 ~~~

 End of transcript. Report compiled by T. R. Fisher.

Professional recommendation that these files remained closed to public consumption for the foreseeable future under paragraph W, subsection 26 of the DPA of 1927.

Files not to be removed from The Vault without express permission, upon fear of grievous bodily harm or legal prosecution.

[leahcalkins07-blog]

CDA To MP3. How To Convert CDA To MP3?

Essential Attributes of Audio Converter Software program Import and Export Formats Will probably be vital for an audio converter to have the ability to importing all out there audio codecs and changing them to a format you need to utilize. A file with the extensioncda is shortcut to a track on an audio CD on a standard Purple Book" CD-DA format audio CD. These recordsdata are shown in the listing for the CD being considered in the format Track##.cda, the place ## is the variety of every individual track. Thecda information don't contain the actual PCM sound wave data, but as an alternative tell the place on the disc each monitor begins and stops. If the file is copied" from the CD to the computer, it turns into ineffective as a result of it is just a shortcut to part of the disc. Nevertheless, some audio converter, audio modifying and CD creation packages will, from the user's perspective, loadcda recordsdata as though they are actual audio data files, and permit the person to listen to them and even convert the copiedCDA recordsdata to MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, etc. When you're presently struggling to transform a CDA file to MP3, you are in luck. Whether or not you found this problem after you upgraded to Home home windows 10 otherwise you merely need to convert some audio files into MP3, we've just a few potential options. Please observe each of the strategies beneath so as until you handle to transform your audio file from CDA to MP3. If we open an audio CD in our laptop computer, we can discover outcda extension which is a file extension in Microsoft Home windows to indicate the Audio Tracks on the Audio CD. MPEG-four Half 14 or MP4 is a digital multimedia format most commonly used to retailer video and audio, however will also be used to store totally different data much like subtitles and nonetheless photos. For the second and further enter CD-audio tracks, 2 second of silence will utilized into the center of the ripped data. CDA to MP3 Converter converts CDA to MP3 quickly. The software program is an ALL IN ONE audio converter that converts greater than 90 audio and audio-transcoder.com video codecs to MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC, M4A, M4B, and AMR. Brilliant software program and blazing fast. Used to convert APE to MP3. If you happen to're searching for a easy program that works with out the advanced choices and complicated interfaces that a few of these audio converter instruments have, you may definitely like MediaHuman Audio Converter. MakeMKV is a fundamental but quick tool to convert films from Blu-ray and DVD discs into MKV files with no quality loss. The output files could be played with many software and hardware video players. DVD conversion is free. I just tried burning one WMA file, online cd track to ogg converter which did not have any DRM points, to a CD with K3B. The take a look at wasn't entirely profitable. My discman plays the track, online cd track to ogg converter but I heard nothing. Raising the amount didn't help, so I suppose there must be no audio. It seems to me that you're promoting Linux brief by not saying, "Screw you MS, Linux users are going to make use of your lousy proprietary codecs whether you want us to or not and we'll listen to your damn WMAs on anything we want - if we want to!". We may additionally burn audio CDs utilizing FreeRIP. Because the name specifies it's totally free. Different helpful features include mp3 tag modifying, built-in audio participant, file identify templates, album art work, advanced ripping functions, get cd data and rather more.

With the variety of free and paid converters for hi-res lossless recordsdata, excessive qualitive ones is unitary. Click on Add information to begin", you'll be guided to place in a Launcher to your computer within the event you're first time to use it. After Launcher started, a pop-up folder will imply you can import file(s) to the app for conversion. OKAY, use the subsequent CDA to MP3 converter and observe its step-by-step information to unravel any CDA playback or edition difficulty by changing CDA to the preferred MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA, and plenty of others.It can be crucial for audio converter software program to work rapidly and efficiently as well as to have all kinds of file format choices, together with lossy and lossless codecs. Each music streaming service has a most well-liked format for streaming and archiving music - unfortunately, not each service uses the same format. WAV is an appropriate lossless format for most companies. However, relying on the service, that file could be converted and compressed to a distinct format. MP3 information could be uploaded to all the popular streaming services, but there is no cause to transform a lossless file format, akin to WAV, to MP3 if you do not have to.Since Compact Disc Audio (CDA) files don't contain any Pulse-code modulation (PCM) knowledge, they should be transformed to another format to be able to be listened to without a CD. 1) If the Track is shared with an exterior machine resembling an MP3 Participant or DVD, the tag allows that info to be accessible by way of the machine (assuming the machine supports tags).OGG recordsdata retailer compressed audio signal. The sound is encoded with Ogg Vorbis compression algorithm. OGG resembles MP3 but offers better sounding compared with MP3 observe of the same measurement. It might include audio meta knowledge resembling details about performer and track parameters. Being a container for storing audio information OGG can contain completely different sound compression varieties like FLAC or Speex. OGG file extension may check with Salt Lake metropolis game or OriginLab graphic files.

[ssironstrange]

buckle in, i have some Personal Shit to get off my chest and fling into the void. might as well before i’m Purged, right? lots of triggery stuff ahead. 

so last week i got a job. it isn’t a spectacular job. the pay is shit and it’s extremely physically taxing. but it’s a job. i’ve been unemployed since july having put countless resumes out and done a handful of interviews with absolutely no luck. so we’re just happy i’m employed and going to have some income again.

on my very first day of orientation last week, my mom texts me asking me about christmas plans and i tell her i’m unsure what my schedule will look like while my brother is in town because i literally just started and don’t actually have any sort of schedule yet, obviously.

she proceeds to get pissed. starts calling me selfish for getting a job right before christmas. blames me for messing up plans because now she’s gonna have to work around my schedule. says i did this on purpose because i could have easily gotten a job like this at any time. i’m floored.

like, my mom is a grade A special class cunt, but she took it to new levels. i couldn’t even think of anything to say. i was so appalled and upset by the fact this woman couldn’t even say a simple “congrats” to her own daughter, knowing the troubling financial situation we’ve been in. eventually my s/o took my phone from me to text her himself because he was Done with her shit. i proceeded to have a mini-breakdown. i thought she had finally changed. like, i went without speaking to her at all for two years before because of bullshit like this she pulled on me in the past and told her if she wanted me in her life she needed to take a hard look at herself and change some shit. and she did. for a long while there she really did. she stopped drinking (she’s a raging alcoholic who will deny that until her dying breath) unless it was a special occasion and even then it was only like one glass. she started being nicer, friendlier, and a lot more grateful for the things we help her with. she stopped complaining and bitching about every possible thing. hell, she even started finding some social events to get out and go to. For a while she was actually kinda nice to be around for a change.

and then she did that and it made me realize nothing about her has actually changed. she can’t change. she has so many unchecked mental problems she refuses to see a doctor about. she’s in denial about 90% of them. she is sick, needs treatment, but refuses it at all. refuses to even acknowledge she’s sick. she’s extremely narcissistic. her selfishness knows no bounds. she honestly believes that giving $50 to someone in need while dropping $2k on herself(on shit she doesn’t need at ALL) is being generous. she has no concept of saving money. she has to spend it. she’s a hoarder and shopaholic. she’s paranoid of everyone and everything; everyone is out to get her, conspiring against her. any time her phone acts up she’s convinced someone is trying to hack her. a company accidentally overcharging her and she thinks someone within that company is personally trying to steal from her. she believes her doctors are trying to fuck with her when they’re literally just trying to obey the law. no matter what it is, its always about her. it doesn’t even fucking cross her mind even once what another person might be going through or dealing with or that accidents happen. she believes because a waitress working a double shift on thanksgiving didn’t bring her napkins in 5 seconds when she asked that she doesn’t deserve a tip. she feels personally attacked when i talk about her generation as a whole. she can’t ever be wrong. she believes because she’s older that she knows everything. she believes because she has had an encounter with something that it makes her an expert on it, or because she read 1 book or 1 unsourced article on the internet that she knows more. she believes, in her mind, that i am still 13 years old. honestly. she continuously pulls up weird shit from that time. thinks i still dress the same, still have the same preferences about everything no matter how many times i have told her “i haven’t like that since i was 12/13/whatever age.” hell she even talks to me like i’m a child half the time. She hasn’t worked a job since she was in her 30s and lies to live off the government, mooches from literally anyone she can, and gets oil royalties that she didn’t even do anything to invest in, she just inherited them. but then has the gall to bitch at me about jobs when i’ve been working since i was barely 15. she believes the world owes her. she believes that we kids owe her for being a mother and frequently tries to hold that over me as if that weren’t her fucking duty anyway when she decided to keep us. she is always angry and negative and prone to violence - especially while drunk. she has literally pointed a loaded, cocked gun at my chest, thrown glass dishes at me (which ended with glass shards in my hands and feet), dragged me by my hair, and has done ten times that in emotional abuse. she’s called the cops on my brother over an argument, and has thrown a computer monitor at me (one of those old CRT ones) because i said she was acting crazy. she would get so nasty with me my brother would have to step in and tell her to shut the fuck up. she didn’t even try to get me into counselling or therapy or even talk to me when she found out i was being sexually assaulted as a young child. all she did was remove me from the situation, which ultimately removed me from half of my family and didn’t explain why. she never told me is wasn’t my fault. she never talked to me about what sex actually was and how it’s supposed to be. she never told me about consent. she did nothing for me to cope with and process the years of physical and mental trauma i had endured, and i am still fucked up from it to this day because it defined my view of everything sexual. it created deep and strong neural pathways i’ll be lucky to ever be able to change. she went through my mail and read a letter to a long distance friend, finding out i was queer and genderfluid and outed me to the rest of the family, called me a disgrace and disgusting. she would go through chat logs and shame me about everything she could. she’s racist as fuck, still uses the N word, and has told me several times if i ever dated a black person she would disown me. she has always played favorites with my brother because he is the smart one, the one who graduated at 16 and got into university on full scholarship at 17, the one who has always been a social butterfly, extroverted with lots of friends, neurotypical by most standards, handsome and always had good taste in girls, successful in everything he does, and has a great career as an environmental engineer that pays well enough for him to take multiple overseas trips, pay off student loans(when he decided to switch majors and stay in college longer) and is just over all the perfect son (he and i have always gotten along fantastically. i love him immensely, but it’s no secret to either of us who she has always favored),and she’s an opioid addict - another thing she will deny until she’s dead. and thats just everything i can think of at the moment. theres more. theres always more.

so she texted me a couple days ago apologizing without actually apologizing. blaming her attitude on the fact her pain meds are being reduced (not once did she actually say sorry) and she’s been in a bad mood because of it. today she texted me, still without a real apology, just saying how she’s wondering how my job is going. but the truth is, i know she doesn’t give a fuck. she only wants to feel better about herself. she wants to believe she’s forgiven so she can have things her way again. she doesn’t actually give a shit about my feelings, about what she’s done to me, or about how this is the same cycle of bullshit we’ve been through countless times. she doesn’t care. 

and yet, i still find myself feeling guilty to cut her out like the tumor she is. despite everything she has done to me. i can’t help it and i wish i could. she has manipulated me so much throughout my life that i have an almost pavlovian response to feel like its my fault, that i’m the failure she’s always said i am, that i’m the one letting her down. i know i’m not. i know that isn’t the truth but it’s still there and i hate it. but still, i’m trying my best to just fucking ignore her. she doesn’t get to have the satisfaction of thinking all is well and forgiven. i’ve been through this too many times and frankly i’m just so fucking tired of it.

[rebelbyrdie]

Fanfic Attempt 1A

This is a Supergirl AU story featuring Lena Luthor and Karen Star (Powergirl)

Power Trip

Part 1

Lena Luthor had a full plate.  Running LCorp was a job and a half, and that didn’t take kidnappings and assassination attempts into account. Still, though, she carved out a little time each week to visit the experimental tech department. These projects were near and dear to her and she desperately wanted to make them viable.  She couldn’t fly or deflect bullets, but she could help save the world.

“How is it coming?”  

Her team, a motley crew of highly intelligent and occasionally eccentric, scientists.  The newest addition was almost-doctor Ryan Choi.  He was working on his dissertation and was getting a paid internship at LCorp.

He looked up from the control panel he’d been entering commands into.  “Great, Boss Lady!  We were prepping for a test run.  You want to hit the button?”

Lena grinned, “Absolutely.”  she walked over and blushed a little when Choi followed her every step.

“You look pretty fancy for a lab visit.”

She was supposed to be at a gala in about twenty minutes but was going to be fashionably late because she definitely wasn’t going to miss the first run of Project Gateway. Though, had she known she would be in the lab, she wouldn’t have worn heels.

“I was on the way to a fancy to-do over at Ferris and decided to swing by.”  

She hadn’t spent nearly enough time in the lab lately.  That was her own fault.  She had been distracted-the kind of distraction that was spelled with a capital D.  The kind of distraction that had big blue eyes and blonde hair.  It was always blondes.  Lena had thought she’d left that little hang-up behind when her last girl-crush had turned out to be a time traveling ninja.  Well, at least Just-Sara-Its-Complicated had been bi.  As far as Lena could tell, Alex had soaked up all the gay in the Danvers line.  Damn it.

She shook her head to clear it.  She could not afford to be distracted in the lab.  Distracted with a capital D or was it a capital S? Kara Danvers AKA Kara Zor-El AKA Supergirl had been monopolizing her thoughts far too often lately.  She had to focus.

“Uh Boss-Lady?”  

Lena smiled, “Like I told you last time, and the time before that and the time before that, call me Lena.”

He grinned like a child at Christmas.  His smile stretched across his face.  He was a handsome man, awkward and unaware of his own potential outside of his chosen field.  Eventually, some savvy woman or man would snap him up before he had any idea what was happening.  “Okay, Lena, are you ready to get this show on the road?”

They started the computer programs and initialized the power generator. The lab filled with machines whirring, buzzing and the air started to crackle with energy.  Ryan handed her a pair of safety glasses.

“They match your dress.”

She slid them on and leaned over the main control panel and hit the key-sequence to start the teleporter.

There was a small pause-and Lena feared they had a dud.  Then the portal started to open.  It was a disturbance in the fabric of time and space, reality.  It started out the size of a quarter, then a window, and within 90 seconds it was holding steady at a circumfrence of 25 feet. Ryan stepped closer, his tablet and portable analyzation tools at the ready.  

“It’s holding steady!  The size, the energy readings, even the particles seem to be behaving exactly as projected!”

Lena could see as much.  All the monitors, the readings, everything was perfect.  It was a huge step forward and a successful.

A small alarm went off and Lena looked at the main monitor.  It was monitoring the area in different light spectrums and it was-

“No.  That can’t be right.”  She took off the safety glasses and blinked a few times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.  “That’s impossible.”

It looked like there was something coming through the portal, but that was impossible because this was only a trial.  The other end of the portal hadn’t even been built yet.  There was nothing to connect to.  

Ryan, in his enthusiasm, had strayed over the clearly marked safety line.  There was something, something huge, coming through the portal. He was only a few feet away from the portal, which had not been fully studied.  Worse yet, there was something coming through the portal.  Something big and something fast.  Ryan was so caught up in his readings, that he hadn’t noticed the warning claxons or her yells.  

Lena couldn't let him be hurt.  She moved without thinking.  She ran as fast as she could in heels. It, Lena was shocked to see it was a giant hand, broke through the event horizon.  

“Ryan!”  A voice boomed out of the portal.  

Oh dear.  Lena hit him hard, a red-card-worthy tackle, and knocked him out of the way of the hand.  The hand was massive, fingers were big enough to grab her around the waist and hold her tight.  So tight that she couldn’t breathe.  Her ribs felt like they were cracked and broken.

Then, before she could get one deep breath, the hand pulled her through the portal.    

[the-firebird69]

Analysis: A court battle is brewing over Prince Philip's will - CNN

My guess is judging by the movie that George pictures here and my dad and other sleeve a future kill in their will another words mom and them did not want me to know there is a will but there is and it is written in a way that there's a lawyer says that she's gone incapacitated and activates what's in the in the will. And Mac open the will and said that she was gone and activated the computer was notified her AI and retrieval process begin the same for George and Dad and if I was to be executor it would be a threat against me because I would must we visit those places which would you be monitored by a computer and that would explain the chessboard incident and other things where it looks like a ghost when it's really just magnetics

Zues Hera

Not a dime from them either only selfish idiotic future kill crap it's almost as ridiculous as it sounds know it's stupid is people is so vile it's not even funny

We're going to rework the will no we're going to take what's in it we're going to distribute it to him I'm going to ram it down your throat and is tired of hearing about it I just want some cash to get away from pieces of s*** or at least think he's still having to listen to rants and say your stupid crap about all the stuff you're supposed to be doing and you're not even doing it we're going to begin gathering up all your ships just sitting here fighting like fagg's in your face you don't want to own the thunderdome and you don't want to put your ships in there so don't do anything and shut your face I'm going to go ahead and take him Joe and other idiots it's none of your business now you've stated that you don't care are you a Black ships do you to fight over the keys

He knew I was getting a weird reaction you don't care about this dumb here just keeps going there or even that big ship right next to it that's probably clad with thorium it's like pulling teeth my dad might be there a live if you don't seem to care the celebrities already on the Black ships but there's plenty of other people that we there to get the technology to kill you to put in their ships and they're going to try and keep their thunderdome and if they do or not we already have the tack and we're going to put it on the shifts and we're going to steal your stupid black shifts using them and you won't have any thorium that's the math whether you like it or not be lazy pieces of nothing so going to force you out of my face cuz you'll sit here threatening all day and night I'm going to use it against you. By hitting you because you don't threaten us nobody does

Bitol and Goddess Wife

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek: Ranking the Stories Set in the Present Day

https://ift.tt/3Eu4Xd0

So the new Star Trek: Picard trailer has dropped and among the big plot twists it revealed are the fact that Picard & Co are going to be travelling back to Earth, circa 2022 AD. We’re looking forward to exciting scenes of people from the 24th century being unable to drive cars (despite the pretty lengthy car chase we saw in the last episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks), Q and Picard sparring again, and wondering how Guinan fits into all this. My personal theory is that after her adventures with Picard and Mark Twain in the 19th century, Guinan decided to stick around on Earth, eventually posing as an actor called Whoopi Goldberg.

This is far from the first time Star Trek has travelled back to the present day – even if “present day” is pretty broad for the 55-year-old franchise. We have no way of knowing why the series keeps returning to this setting that doesn’t need the manufacture of any new props, sets or costumes, but it seems like a good time to look at when Star Trek has done this before and ask “Who wore it better?”

6. Assignment: Earth

This episode would prove to be a particularly tricky one for nearly every single time travel episode that has come since, in that it shows time travel for the Federation is so easy and routine that the Enterprise can just nip back to the Cold War to see why we never Great Filtered ourselves out of existence. Unfortunately, in this episode Kirk and Spock don’t get to see much of 20th century Earth, or indeed do much of anything.

‘Assignment: Earth’ was conceived as a backdoor pilot for a new series about Gary Seven, a human bred and raised by aliens to act as a secret agent on Earth and protect us from our own capacity for self-destruction. This means Kirk and Spock’s role is little more than to sit around and say “Wow, this looks like a great idea for a television show!”

Still, I can’t help but wonder about a Star Trek franchise in the parallel universe where its first spin-off was a spy show set in 1968.

5. Carpenter Street

This episode of Star Trek: Enterprise stands out because it is perhaps the only episode on this list where they decided the present day should be filmed any differently from the space future. The lighting, the camera work, the whole episode feels much more like Angel, or a cop show from the period than the Star Trek style that had been uniformly adopted since The Next Generation.

Usually when Star Trek comes back to our time it is to take us on ‘a romp’, where people point out Starfleet uniforms look like pyjamas and the crew go around misunderstanding pop culture references. This, however, feels like Star Trek invading a much grittier show.

Unfortunately, you can tell that this is a network science fiction show trying to show how adult and gritty it is, because within the first ten minutes of the episode we see a sex worker abducted. Maybe one day science fiction shows will find a way to show that they are proper grown-ups without a drive-by or disposable sex worker character appearing in the first ten minutes, but ‘Carpenter Street’ is not that show.

The other thing Star Trek’s forays into our century do is emphasise how far humanity has come, or still has to travel. This is where ‘Carpenter Street’ really falls down. Because this was Enterprise’s dark, post-9/11 Xindi storyline, we see Archer literally beat information out of someone – not for the first time in this season. It’s a scene that highlights everything that’s wrong with this version of Star Trek.

It’s also the bringer of bad news, as at one point T’Pol asks about fossil fuels to be told that “It’s not until 2061 that…”

The sentence is left incomplete, but that sounds like bad news for our 2050 emissions targets.

4. Tomorrow is Yesterday

This is Star Trek’s first trip back to the 20th century, and it sets the rules for so much that comes later. Agonising about changing the future, having modern day characters remark on how silly everything is, Star Trek characters being taken prisoner and taking the piss out of their interrogators. The formula is refined in many ways from here on, but the ingredients are established here.

It also establishes, as ‘Assignment: Earth’ later confirms, that any ordinary warp-capable ship can perform a manoeuvre to travel forward or backward in time at will, a plot device most of the Star Trek canon has heroically stuck its fingers in its ears and shut its eyes to avoid.

The main reason this entry doesn’t rank higher is that the action is almost entirely confined to US military bases, denying us the fun of seeing our favourite Starfleet officers wandering around our day-to-day world as if it’s the Planet of the Week.

Read more

TV

Star Trek: Enterprise – An Oral History of Starfleet’s First Adventure

By Ed Gross

TV

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is an “Encounter at Farpoint” Sequel

By Ryan Britt

3. Future’s End

This Star Trek: Voyager two-parter, on the other hand, gives us that in spades. It knows what the fans want and it is here to give you a big steaming bowl of it. Neelix and Kes watching daytime soaps? Check. Tuvok having to ensure he wears a beanie at all times? Check. Paris getting his 20th century history and slang hilariously wrong? Check. An oddly jarring turn by a young, pre-comedy stardom Sarah Silverman? Okay, maybe you weren’t asking for that, but check!

It even throws us some subtle continuity porn to argue over. In Sarah Silverman’s office we see a model of the launch configuration of a DY-100 class ship- the ship used by Khan Noonien Singh to escape justice following the Eugenics Wars that were supposed to happen in the mid-nineties.

This is more than just an Easter egg (unlike, we’re assuming, the Talosian action figure on Sarah Silverman’s desk). Over the course of the episode we learn that the entire microprocess revolution that created the world we know and love was the result of stolen 29th century tech.

Does this mean history was changed? That all Star Trek following this episode takes place in a divergent timeline where the Eugenics Wars never happened? This has some fascinating connotations that we will touch upon later in the article, and which I will explain to you at length after precisely one and a half pints.

The episode does have its weak points however – Voyager being seen on national television never seems to go anywhere, and neither does the whole subplot where Chakotay and Torres end up prisoner in a survivalist compound for a bit.

As we’ve already mentioned, there’s also a lot of agonising about how Voyager will get to the present, when we already know that they just need to whip around the sun at warp speed and boom, the series is over.

Oh, and this is an extremely minor gripe, but Janeway tells us she has no idea what her ancestors were doing in this time period – despite subjecting us to the tedium of her story in ‘Millennium Gate’ which was set only four years after this.

2. Past Tense

This episode might be considered a cheat, since at time of broadcast it was technically set in the future. However, since it (along with Irish Reunification) is supposed to take place three years on from now, I think we can say it counts.

This Deep Space Nine story is decidedly not ‘a romp’. Yes people make fun of the characters’ clothes, and Kira and O’Brien’s jaunts through history raise a smile, but more than all but a select number of Star Trek stories, this is about just how far our reality is from the hoped-for future of Star Trek.

Bashir lands some lines that hit quite a bit heavier now than they did in the nineties, from “The 21st century is not one of my strong points – too depressing” to the plaintive “How could they have let things get so bad?” at the story’s conclusion.

And while it is set over twenty years in the future from the perspective of the broadcast date, it wasn’t far off. Stories evocative of the sanctuary districts are easy to find, and as writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe says, “We weren’t being predictive. We were just looking out our windows in the ’90s.”

Only two things really mark this episode out as an anachronism. One, the technology looks painfully 90s – our technology looks far closer to the 24th century than the bulky monitors seen everywhere in this. But then again, this episode was broadcast prior to ‘Future’s End’, so maybe Henry Starling hadn’t kickstarted the microprocessor revolution in this timeline yet.

The other, far grimmer element to have dated is the idea that one innocent black person being shot by police could be enough to cause the sea change this episode says it does.

1. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

There wasn’t ever really going to be any debate over this, was there? Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is hands down the one to beat if you’re writing Star Trek characters travelling to the present day. The film itself was something of a departure for the franchise. Rather than Robert Wise’s epic, sombre, proper science fiction in The Motion Picture, or the bombastic action of Nicholas Meyer’s Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home was helmed by a director who would be best known for the cult comedy, Three Men & a Baby.

This 20th century feels far more inhabited than other portrayals, with screen time being given over to casual conversations between bin men, and workplace arguments independent of the former Enterprise crew.

Of course, by now the crew of 1701-no-bloody-A-B-C-or-D should be old hands at Earth in the 20th century. This is their fourth trip here, not counting planets-that-mysteriously-resemble-Earth-in-the-20th-century.

But these fish are never more out of water than they are in this film, and the results are charming. Kirk explaining swearing to Spock, Kirk observing people “still use money”, Chekov standing in the middle of the street asking for directions to the “Nuclear Wessels”, Scotty’s “Hello Computer!” and Kirk Thatcher getting nerve-pinched for listening to his own music on a ghetto blaster. Plus countless more zingers, sight gags and throwaway lines that I’m still finding new ones of after many, many re-watches.

And the cast are clearly having the time of their lives. Shatner’s comic talent was always on display, but in this movie he is really allowed to cut it fully loose giving reaction shots that make you feel bad about every time you mocked his acting.

But no matter how silly it gets, this film knows, more than any other, the point of sending Star Trek characters into the modern day. It is to show us the difference between our ideal selves and where we are – and it does it no less starkly than ‘Past Tense’. With a light comic touch, Kirk and co. encounter capitalism, the spectre of nuclear war, and most of all, the devastating environmental impact we’re having. Even if we reach the ideal Star Trek future, this film says, we could still lose things we can’t replace along the way.

Star Trek: Picard is going to have to work hard if it wants to walk in its footsteps.

Honourable Mentions

While not taking place in the present day, it’d be remiss of this article not to mention ‘City on the Edge of Forever’, which refined ‘Tomorrow is Yesterday’s formula and is just one of the all-out best Star Trek series ever, and ‘Little Green Men’, which twists the usual Starfleet-in-the-20th-century formula by having the Ferengi arrive in the 20th century and find humans far more brutal, greedy and stupid than even they suspected.

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Also, I don’t want to alarm you, but by the end of this decade we’ll be closer to the events of Star Trek: First Contact than we are to the release of Star Trek: First Contact.

The post Star Trek: Ranking the Stories Set in the Present Day appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[workrockin]

Return of wireless ad hoc multiplayer

Multiplayer gaming has always been popular. Every gaming platform ever made, whether its the arcades/PC home consoles has tried to incorporate some form of multiplayer gaming. Technology has been a limiting factor sometimes. Computer networks were not as robust in the 90’s as they are now. Good for sending a couple of emails maybe but not good for playing games.

Local networks were still in their formative years. LAN parties became popular towards the end of 90’s and continue to draw crowds even today.

Multiplayer itself has taken many forms. From the two player cooperative side scrolling gameplay of Contra to one on one matches of streefighter. From the humongous 256 simultaneous players online multiplayer of MAG, to the incredibly popular mobile multiplayer shooter PUBG people love their multiplayer games in all of its forms.

While shooters and real time strategy have dominated the muliplayer scene alternatives have existed for people who have wanted to try something new.

We are here to talk about a very different kind of multiplayer experience. One that works on individual machines yet it does not require an active internet connection. These experiences were made possible because of handheld consoles.

As far as video game consoles go handhelds themselves were a novelty. No longer you needed to hook your machine to a TV. No longer you need to sit down in front of the monitor to play a game. You could take it to your school. Play a game on your flight. With an inbuilt screen, a couple of buttons on the gamepad, and a slot for batteries, handhelds were a technological marvel. Earliest form of digital multimedia devices. Long before mobile could send emails. Long before they could display images.

Handhelds appealed to a mass market. They were cheap to buy. Cheap to develop games on. Playing on handhelds was like reading a book. Just you and your gameboy. A handheld RPG was like a fairytale you could play before going to bed.

Handhelds were also one of the first console devices that did machine to machine multiplayer right.

When Nintendo released the original gameboy it came with a game link cable. The link cable let you connect two gameboy devices together to support multiplayer games. Further enhancement to the game linking technology allowed you play with upto 4 people together. This technology was most well utilized by legend of zelda adventure of the 4 swords. Although by the time the Zelda came out wireless technologies were becoming quite popular. Zelda could be played either with a game link cable or with the help of a special wireless adapter.

While in those early days the implementation was crude, game link cables were only a few feet long and could pop out quite easily if either one of the player got excited while playing the game, this was the first time that the world saw mobility and multiplyaer combined. Yes there were flaws. But the promise was big.

With new handhelds wireless multiplayer got adopted rather quickly. Both psp and ds supported adhoc wifi multiplayer games that could work offline. Think game link cable without the wires. As long as two people had the same game on their machines and it supported multiplayer in some way they could play together without an internet connection.

Multiplayer gaming on handhelds took a different path than multiplayer gaming on the consoles. While on consoles the big selling point was the ability to play with gamers on the other side of the world. Handheld multiplayer gaming was about playing games with friends in your real life. People whom you knew. Classmates. Family members. Two very different multiplayer experiences. Both very fun.

Multiplayer gaming on home consoles and PC has been competitive. Even if it is in a team based shooter the goal is generally to defeat the players in the opposing camp.

Handheld multiplayer explored co-operative multiplayer games. Sure there were wipeouts and tekkens that allowed Player Vs Player kind of matches but co-operative games stole the show. The most famous example of this kind of game is Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.

Monster hunter: The definitive portable cooperative multiplayer game

On consoles local offline multiplayer has always had half hearted support. For example take a look at XBOX 360’s local multiplayer guide using ethernet cables to create an Xbox LAN network. While it works setting things up quite a headache. It almost seems like a regression into the days of Game link cable.

Generally speaking any console that has an ethernet port can be added to a LAN network. Also if your console has an ethernet port you can reasonably expect its OS to give you networking support. However to actually play games on that network you must have software support. If the game does not allow you to play offline multiplayer there’s little you can do.

XBOX 360 was not the only console to support LAN gaming. Both playstation 3 and nintedo wii had support for offline multiplayer games.

Offline multiplayer gaming on consoles have some serious shortcomings. The consoles lack mobility. To make offline games work you need to have the full setup ready. Console, controllers as well as monitors. Only the most dedicated gamers will go through the trouble of arranging all that.

Despite this fact due to the widespread adoption of video game consoles its LAN gaming scene is growing. LAN parties are no longer a PC only affair. They’ve grown to include home consoles as well.

Handhelds on the other hand are portable. You can carry them with you. You can set up local multiplayer matches wirelessly. Wireless signals can be extended to increase the range to enable you to play even from remotest places in house. Unlike in link cables you don’t have to sit right next to each other to play. On the PSP fan made multiplayer systems transformed adhoc wireless into fully featured online multiplayer games.

Still wireless adhoc games are fundamentally different from online multiplayer games. You can’t just log into a server play a few rounds of capture the flag and then switch your machine off. Even though you can play without wires you need to arrange the game. You need to invite your friends over to your house/cafe. You need to schedule the game play. That alone makes it a very different experience.

But the big question is do wireless adhoc games have a future?

Today internet is common. The limitations that held back online multiplayer gaming in the early 90’s are all gone. Hardware is cheap. Internet is cheap. Multiplayer games are as cheap as they can be (free). Why would any one bother with wireless ad-hoc?

Well there are many many reasons.

Multiplayer games are becoming an essential component of gaming. Every shooter has a multiplayer aspect in it. Single player only games are a rarity.

Online multiplayer requires a huge investment in servers. Not only in building them but also in maintaining them. Multiplayer heavy games loose their appeal when the servers go down.

Lets suppose that you buy a copy of a game, you beat it and then forget about it. Years later you feel like revisiting certain portions of the game but you can’t because the game won’t work unless it connected to a serve. Not something that you’d want.

Consider another scenario of a co-operative multiplayer game that is designed to be played with at least 2 people. If the game is dependent on a server and the server goes down you can no longer play it even if you have the copy of the game and a friend who is willing to play with you.

Switch, Nintendo’s latest console has once more put the focus back on wireless ad hoc play. A game like mario kart for example can be played with upto 8 people. Sure you can also play it online. But nothing beats seeing the look on your friends face when you blast him with a blue shell to win the tournament. LAN parties are way more fun. Wireless LAN parties make it much better.

wireless adhoc makes multiplayer games timeless. As long as you have a copy you can play it any time you want. Even if a server is down.

With Google’s stadia game streaming might become the new standard. Who knows you may no longer even buy games. You can play them on any device you want. You can play any game you want. The promise is big. But the question remains the same. What happens when the server goes down?

Maybe wirelss adhoc multiplayer will also reinvent itself. Maybe we will see a different kind of game streaming. Maybe there will be an wirelss adhoc game streaming service. Turn on the game stream. Get your friends together and play the game using your phone.

Maybe the next generation of video game machine will not be a pc or a console or a handheld for that matter. Not your phone, not your tablet, not your smart watch. It would be a networking device.

Who knows?

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Best Snapdragon 845 smartphones

The Snapdragon 845 is the SoC to beat in 2018. Not only is it extremely fast, Qualcomm’s chip also comes paired with an impressive GPU, the Adreno 630.

Read Next: Qualcomm AI – an idealistic vision for on-device AI

The new Snapdragon 845 is a major step forward from its predecessor the Snapdragon 835. Our very own Gary Sims recently put the 845 through its paces and found gains all over the place. One of the more exciting improvements was a gain of 20-40 percent in GPU performance. That increase in performance will keep FPS smooth as more demanding games come to the mobile space, like PUBG Mobile and (eventually) Fortnite.

So what are the best Snapdragon 845 phones out there? Good question.

Released phones

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

The latest phone in the Galaxy Note series has some extremely high-end hardware inside. Even if you get the lowest priced model, you still get a phone with a 6.4-inch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of onboard storage, a microSD slot for even more storage, and a big 4,000mAh battery that should last you at least a day, or perhaps more, on a full charge. You can even get a model with 8GB of RAM and a massive 512GB of storage.

The S-Pen in the Note 9 has also been revamped, adding Bluetooth LE support. That allows you to use it as a remote controller to open apps, control the camera and more. The Note 9 can also work in a PC desktop mode, thanks to Samsung’s newest version of its DeX technology. You only need to connect the phone to a monitor or TV with a USB-C to HDMI adapter and cable. All of this comes at a cost; you will have to pay $999 to get the 6GB/128GB model and $1,249 for the 8GB/512GB model.

get this galaxy note 9 128GB model

Get this Galaxy Note 9 512GB bundle

Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL

The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are here. While they may not rival the Galaxy Note 9 in terms of specs, these phones improve on the very aspect that made the Pixel 2 so great — the camera. 

They still sport the same single rear cameras as the Pixel 2, but there are a ton of camera software improvements here. Top Shot mode will take multiple pictures of your subject and recommend the best one. Night Sight will also arrive for the phones soon, which is supposed to bring next-level low-light photography thanks to computational photography. Finally, there’s a mode called Motion Auto Focus that lets the Pixel 3 focus on a subject in a video, no matter how much they move around.

They both have 18:9 screens (well, 18.5:9 for the XL), yet they still look very different from one another. The Pixel 3 has a 5.5-inch Full HD+ screen that makes it look like a smaller Pixel 2 XL, while the Pixel 3 XL has a big ol’ notch at the top of its screen. Both phones also come with Qi wireless charging support, no headphone jack (womp womp), and still manage to squeeze in front-facing speakers.

The Pixel 3 could be considered the Android iPhone. But is there anything wrong with that?

Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL review: The Android iPhone

Best Google Pixel 3 cases, Pixel 3 XL cases, and Pixel 3 accessories

Google Pixel 3 camera shootout

Google Pixel 3 vs Samsung Galaxy S9

Google Pixel 3 vs Galaxy Note 9, LG V40, and Huawei P20 Pro

Buy Google Pixel 3 at Verizon

Buy Google Pixel 3 at Google

Buy Google Pixel 3 at Best Buy

Buy Google Pixel 3 at Target

OnePlus 6T

Despite being almost half the price of the competition, the OnePlus 6T is in the running for phone of the year. 

The 6T doesn’t provide the ultra-luxurious experience you’ll get with the Galaxy Note 9 or iPhone Xs, but it does provide 90 percent of what those phones offer for about $550. You get the most top-of-the-line specs out there, fantastic build quality, and decent cameras. The OnePlus 6T is also the first smartphone in the U.S. to include an in-display fingerprint sensor.

If you happen to hate notches, the 6T is probably the closest you’ll get to a notch-less display without going the Samsung route. OnePlus included super sexy waterdrop notch on the 6T that makes it looks like Google didn’t even try with the Pixel 3 XL.

If you’re trying to boycott all of the $1,000 phones out there, or just want a solid smartphone that works well, buy the OnePlus 6T. We don’t think you’ll regret it.

OnePlus 6T review: Fundamentally great

Best OnePlus 6T cases and accessories

OnePlus 6T vs Pixel 3 XL, Huawei Mate 20 Pro, Galaxy Note 9, and LG V40

Download the official OnePlus 6T wallpapers here

OnePlus 6T: Everything you need to know

Buy OnePlus 6T

HTC U12 Plus

HTC’s latest flagship, the U12 Plus (there is no U12, by the way) includes a lot of we loved about the HTC U11 Plus but with a few obvious upgrades. Anyone who has used the HTC U11 or U11 Plus will find the latest flagship very familiar. HTC continues its minimalist Liquid Surface design language, giving us a beautiful glass design with IP68 water resistance. The biggest design change can be found in the buttons. Instead of physical keys, they are now pressure-sensitive. While these buttons may not provide a physical click, they do provide haptic feedback to let you know they’ve been triggered.

The HTC U12 Plus offers the latest Qualcomm processor, the Snapdragon 845. The handset offers 6GB RAM and either 64 or 128GB of internal storage, with microSD expansion. There’s also a big 6-inch Super LCD 6 panel with a resolution of 2,880 x 1,140. The battery on the HTC U12 Plus is a bit smaller, going down to 3,500mAh. BoomSound is back for great audio support but there’s no  headphone jack for the U12 Plus

The HTC U12 Plus comes in both translucent blue and ceramic black colors for $799. This base model comes with 64GB of storage. The beefier 128GB model comes in just translucent blue, and is priced at $849.

Buy now from Amazon

Samsung Galaxy S9/S9 Plus

Depending on where you are in the world the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus may have a Snapdragon 845. Those in North & Latin Americas, China, Japan will get the Snapdragon 845 because of all the CDMA patents Qualcomm has.

Those looking to buy the phone elsewhere, like in Europe, South Korea, or India, will find Samsung LSI’s Exynos 9810 SoC inside. Generally, benchmarks show the 845 is the one you want. It’s faster in both CPU and GPU benchmarks, with better energy efficiency as well. The Exynos line is slowly catching up to the Snapdragon line, which is encouraging for Samsung, but still a way behind.

The S9 with the 845 leads all benchmarks. It’s the one you’ll want to spend your money on if you’re going for the top of the line.

Buy Galaxy S9/S9 Plus at Amazon

LG G7 ThinQ/G7 Plus ThinQ

The LG G7 ThinQ offers LG flagship specs, boasting the Snapdragon 845, 4 or 6GB of RAM, expandable memory, great new audio features, and an all-around better camera over the G6. Our LG G7 review pointed out that LG deserves more attention for their high-quality phones, but wanted more battery life and wasn’t sure about some of the notch gimmicks, but the phone was no slouch. LG G7 pricing is a little hard to figure out depending on where you live, but the phone will retail in South Korea for 899,800 won (~$833), while the G7 ThinQ Plus will cost 973,500 won (~$900), and T-Mobile just release that they’ll sell it for $750 outright. The phone is coming to most of the carriers so there may be some further deals to explore there if you’re keen.

See it at T-Mobile

Sony Xperia XZ2, XZ2 Compact and XZ2 Premium

Sony didn’t mess about with its latest devices when they dropped at MWC 2018. The Sony Xperia XZ2 and smaller Xperia XZ2 Compact both come with the Snapdragon 845. With a fresh water-inspired design, 4GB of RAM, expandable memory on top of 64GB of internal storage, and an 18:9 screen, it’s a top-end phone. XZ2 will be available to those in the U.S. as soon as April. We haven’t had a chance for a full review yet, but our initial XZ2 hands-on was positive for Sony fans.

There’s also a new Xperia XZ2 Premium heading to market, offering a dual-camera setup for the first time from Sony, along with a Bokeh mode.

Buy Xperia XZ2 at Best Buy

Buy Xperia XZ2 Compact at Best Buy

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 flagship was given an iterative improvement in March, upgrading the Mix 2S with a Snapdragon 845 and a major camera update. Our review of the Mi Mix 2S  praised its rear camera sensors. The major limitation of the Xiaomi line is availability — you can only get it in China and other parts of Asia for the price of3,299 yuan (~$520), which is a very reasonable price for this phone.

Asus ZenFone 5Z

Asus caught some flack when it unveiled the first in a series of Android phones with a notch. Despite that, the 6.2-inch Asus ZenFone 5Z is packed with value, with a Snapdragon 845, 6GB RAM, 64GB of storage, dual-SIM support, and a 3,300 mAh battery. It’s priced at $499, which sets this up as a solid competitor for companies like OnePlus and Honor. The Asus ZenFone 5Z is available now, unlocked, via Amazon.

Buy via Amazon

Xiaomi Black Shark Gaming Phone

Xiaomi Gaming

Black Shark is a Xiaomi company which announced a brand-new gaming-focused phone, complete with a joystick controller attachment. It’s a 6-inch device with a 2.5D, 2160 x 1080 resolution display, the Snapdragon 845 chipset, up to 8GB of RAM, and up to 128GB storage. Unfortunately, this phone is only available in China, where the price is about $479 for the version with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, while the $559 version includes 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Xiaomi Pocophone F1

The Xiaomi Pocophone F1 may be the biggest value ever for a smartphone. It has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor inside, along with a 5.99-inch Full HD+ display, and a large 4,000mAh battery. You can get this phone with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage in India for the price of just 21,000 rupees, or about $300. Yes, $300 with a phone with the current leader in mobile processors. You can also get the phone in other memory and storage configurations, all the way up to 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for a still outstanding price of 30,000 rupees (~$430) in India. The Xiaomi Pocophone F1 will be sold in Asia, parts of Europe, the Middle East and parts of South America, but there are unfortunately no plans to sell it in the US.

Oppo Find X

The Oppo Find X is the current winner for a phone with the best body-to-screen ratio (93 percent( with its large 6.42-inch display. It has very little bezel space, thanks to the fact that both the front and rear cameras are hidden inside the phone, and rise up from the top when needed via a mechanical sliding part. In addition to the Snapdragon 845, the Oppo Find X has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It’s available now in India for the price of ₹59,990 ($875). A special Lamborghini branded addition for the phone, with 512GB of RAM and support for Oppo’s  SuperVOOC fast charging battery tech, will launch in Europe for the price of 1,699 euros. The phone won’t be launched in the US.

Vivo Nex

Here’s another phone with a high body-to-screen ratio. The Vivo Nex has a massive 6.59-inch Super AMOLED panel that takes up 91.24 percent of the front display. The front-facing camera pops up when needed for selfie pictures on top of the phone. In addition, this phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor, and the display also doubles as the phone’s external audio source, replacing the standard speaker. All of this, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, is available now in China, and also in India for ₹44,990 ($652). Once again, there are no plans to release the Vivo Nex in the US.

Buy Vivo Nex on Amazon India

Razer Phone 2

Razer got started as a hardcore gaming accessory and hardware company for PCs and consoles. It started this current gaming smartphone trend in 2017 with the launch of the first Razer Phone. Now the company has just launched its successor, the Razer Phone 2, which by all accounts improves on the original in nearly every way.

Like the first Razer Phone, the Razer Phone 2 has 8GB of RAM and a big 5.7-inch display with a 120Ghz refresh rate. Combined with Ultra Motion, which syncs up the phone’s GPU with the high refresh rate, these features allow games made for the phone to have silky smooth framerates with little to no lag or screen tearing. In addition, the screen on the Razer Phone 2 is 50 percent brighter than the first Razer Phone.

Editor's Pick

Razer Phone review

Gaming laptop and peripheral giant Razer surprised everyone with its entry into the smartphone space, born from the acquisition of contentious, but fondly remembered Nextbit. The result of this new partnership is one of the most …

Besides the display features, the Razer Phone 2 also has a big 4,000mAh battery and supports wireless charging. It also has the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, loud twin front speakers with Dolby Atmos support, and more. Software improvements like Game Booster let owners set customized performance setups for each game. The cameras in the Razer Phone 2 are highly improved compared to the original, and the phone incorporates the company’s Chroma LED lighting in the back for the Razer logo. 

You can purchase it now from Razer unlocked for $799.99. Razer also announced the Raiji Mobile game controller, made specifically for the Razer Phone 2, although it works with any Android phone. It will go on sale later this year.

Read more

Razer Phone 2 review

Razer Phone 2 announced: More style, more power

Razer Phone 2 specs: Familiar, but better in all the ways that matter

All the current games that support the 120Hz Razer Phone 2 display

Razer Phone 2 vs Razer Phone: Specs comparison

Razer Phone 2 vs the competition

The Razer Raiju Mobile lets you play Android games with actual buttons

Buy at Razer

Asus ROG Phone

Asus

After hinting for months, Asus announced its entry into the gaming smartphone market in June with the ROG Phone. Asus wisely used its well known Republic of Gamers (ROG) PC brand for the phone, and it already looks like the most feature-rich device for this market niche yet.

The Asus ROG Phone has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset inside, but with a clock speed boost to 2.96Ghz (the normal speed for the processor is 2.8Ghz). It has a 6-inch AMOLED 2,160 x 1,080 display with a 90Hz refresh rate. While that’s higher than the normal 60Hz rate on most phones, it doesn’t match the 120Hz rate on the older Razer Phone. It’s being sold with 8GB of RAM, either 128GB or 512GB of onboard storage and a 4,000mAh battery. Look for a dual 12MP and 8MP rear camera setup on this gaming phone, along with an 8MP front-facing camera and dual speakers on the front.

Read Next: Hands on with the Asus ROG

The phone has some interesting gaming features. It has three AirTrigger ultrasonic touch sensors to serve as shoulder triggers when holding the phone in landscape. In addition to its USB Type-C port on the bottom, the Asus ROG phone has an extra USB Type-C port on the side, so you can connect the phone up to an optional WiGig gaming dock. Finally, there’s an X Mode, activated by squeezing the sides of the ROG Phone, to increase the hardware performance of the phone.

Asus

Along with the ROG Phone, Asus plans to sell a number of optional accessories made just for this device. The previously mentioned WiGig dock can connect the phone to an external display, or a mouse and keyboard to play games or do other things like on a PC. The AeroActive Cooler will keep the phone nice and cool during long gaming sessions. Asus will also sell a third-party controller for the phone made by GameVice to add analog sticks, shoulder buttons, and other keys on each side of the ROG Phone.

Finally, Asus will sell the TwinView handheld dock, adding a secondary display to let you either play a game with more screen or launch a second app to chat with friends while playing a game. The TwinView will also come with its own 6,000mAh battery.

The Asus ROG Phone in its 128GB version is for sale now on Amazon, and also via Microsoft’s online store, priced at $899. The 512GB version will go on sale in November for $1,099. The phone will ship with the AeroActive Cooler accessory for free. The other accessories will go on sale later this year.

Buy at Amazon

Buy at Microsoft

Sony Xperia XZ3

The Sony Xperia XZ3 is a classic example of Sony’s commitment to offering a phone with all the latest features. The phone launched in early October with Android 9 Pie installed, making it the first phone with Pie out of the box, even ahead of Google’s Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. The Xperia XZ3 has a 6-inch Quad HD OLED display with an 18:9 screen ratio and smaller bezels, at least compared to older Xperia phones.

Inside, it has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, along with 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of onboard storage. It just has one rear camera sensor, but with a solid 19MP camera it should be an excellent snapper for most folks. It even includes a super slow-mo feature for video clips in 1080p resolution. There’s also a 13MP front-facing camera on board. You can double tap the edges of the phone’s screen to launch a feature called SideSense. Basically, it shows you a small app drawer with the apps that the phone’s machine learning believes you will want to use the most, which can be a handy feature.

All of this comes in a pretty expensive package. The Sony Xperia XZ3 costs $899.99 on Amazon, with your choice of three colors (black, forest green, and white silver). Keep in mind the phone will only work on GSM wireless carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile.

Read more

Sony Xperia Xz3 hands-on

Sony Xperia XZ3 specs

Buy it at Amazon

LG V40 ThinQ

The V40 is LG’s latest and greatest smartphone from the OEM. Its biggest feature is the triple camera setup on the back with a standard 12MP lens, a 16MP wide-angle lens, and a 12MP telephoto lens. The flagship also sports two cameras on the front, allowing you to add the bokeh effect to selfies.

In addition to being camera-focused, the device was also designed for music lovers. Not only does it have a headphone jack, which is slowly becoming a thing of the past, it also has a 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC for improved audio quality.

The V40 is a large device, sporting a 6.4-inch QHD+ display with a notch. Like many other 2018 flagships, it packs a Snapdragon 845 and 6GB of RAM under the hood. The battery comes in at 3,300mAh, making it quite a bit smaller than the ones of the Galaxy Note 9 and Huawei P20 Pro — both have a 4,000mAh battery. The phone is up for pre-order in the U.S. and will set you back $950.

Read more

LG V40 ThinQ review: Undeveloped innovation

The LG V40 can create cinemagraphs with all three cameras

Galaxy Note 9 vs Galaxy S9 Plus: LG V40 vs V30 specs: Is it more than just two extra cameras?

LG V40 ThinQ features: These are our top five

Buy from Best Buy

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[ssdgworks]

[Old, rough] Netshift 2014/chapters 0 to 2 and End

  NaNoWriMo Version. ~MythicMatt

  Prologue - The Netshift - [859 Words]

  Samuel sat at his desk, intently staring at the screen. There wasn't that much else for him to do really. He was testing the game he'd been developing on his own, checking for anything that could be called 'bugs'. He had a notepad and pen just to his left, listing some bugs he'd found already. When he finished the level for the Thirteenth time, he noticed a little error. Rather than play the cut scene to the next level, it played a very different cut scene that, to his knowledge, hadn't been possible. The games' protagonist was talking directly to him. "Uh, hey. You out there!" the rainbow haired Half-Dragon said, her voice just as clear as the pre-recorded dialogue she'd said numerous times in the level. Sam looked around, sure that this was an elaborate prank his voice actor was playing. "No, look at your damn monitor." the Half-Dragon said again, this time tapping at the screen with her claw. "Hi..." Samuel said, awkwardly holding up his hand. "Just try to pay attention." the Half-Dragon said. "My name is Samantha Hellion Kilith. I've been trying to get you to listen for months. Your program was the only way I could get you to pay attention." "Months?" Samuel asked in disbelief. "Even with all the bits of code you wrote, you never saw some of the comment lines. Ones I wrote." Samantha said, holding out her right hand. A Sniper Rifle appeared in the outstretched hand. Samuel saw Cobalt scales glitter up to Samantha's elbow. He recognized the rifle not as the place holder model he'd made, but rather the exact form of what he envisioned the MX12-S Heavy Rifle, from the Six round magazine, right down to the customized RF310 Scope. "Well, at least one of us knows what we're doing." Samantha said, throwing the rifle over her shoulders. "Anyway, we should get on to business. I need you to be a navigator." "What?" Samuel asked, uncertain about what that would involve. "I need you. To get in here. And navigate for me. So we can enter the Netscape." Samantha growled. "How?" Samuel argued. As far as he knew, there was no way to enter a computer, let alone whatever the Netscape is. "Through the Netshift! Tchael srinik Daedal, you idiot!" Samantha roared, punching the screen. It cracked. "Oh shit." they said in unison. Everything went Green. When everything returned to 'normal', only Samantha remained. \Great. What now?\ a voice describable as that of a younger Samantha rung through her head. /Samuel?/ Samantha thought. \Yes. It's me.\ the voice rang again. \It's sort of like I've been made into a smaller version of you, and been given an appropriately sized computer array.\ /Well, that's one thing sorted./ Samantha smiled. Maybe it wasn't so hard to get help after all. /I'm gonna call you Yuki./ \Sorry to interrupt, but is there a way to, uh, disconnect?\ Yuki said, in an uncertain and embarrassed tone. /Why Yuki?/ Samantha thought back. \Well, uh, for starters, I've been turned into a smaller you. I'm not quite comfortable with this yet.\ Yuki thought. /Ah well. We can't all be comfortable with anything./ Samantha thought, drawing her pair of NyteHawk NH-47 Pistols. Some time ago, she'd taken to calling them [The Hawk's Wings]. She holstered them again after making sure they remained undamaged. -------------------------------------------------- "Well, well, well. What've we got 'ere?" a guttural voice growled from behind. Samantha turned around, pulling her glasses over her eyes. "From the looks of it, an idiot, alone." she responded. "Funny. All I see is..." the owner of the voice said, stepping out from the shadows. He looked exactly how you'd expect a thug to look: bald, muscular and scarred. "...A little b-hurk.". He was interrupted by his stomach being ripped open by a well timed swipe of Samantha's claws. "Unfortunately for you, I find no obligation to listen to insults from idiots who believe themselves to be above me, or base assumptions on appearance." Samantha said, sparks crackling between her teeth. She inhaled, before spitting a bolt of electricity at the thug. -------------------------------------------------- Samantha woke up, convinced she'd just been in a fight and won. She held up her right hand. It was still covered in Cobalt scales. She held up her left hand. She still had her gauntlet. She sat up suddenly. /In the fight, I wasn't wearing a gauntlet./ she thought to herself. /Or goggles, for that matter./ \What fight?\ /Whuh? Who're you?/ she thought back at the sudden voice. \It's me, s-uh, Yuki. Your navigator.\ /So, that part actually happened./ \Yep, and I've found a way to temporarily disconnect our minds. It sort of kicks me out your head though.\ Samantha felt a slight itch for a moment, followed by the feeling of really small feet on her shoulder. "Like this." Yuki said, poking Samantha's cheek. "Wow." Samantha said, picking up Yuki by the tail. "Ah. It hurts!" Yuki squeaked. "Sorry. Not used to having a tiny me." Samantha said, putting Yuki back down. Yuki immediately started hugging her tail, which had started bleeding, and crying. "Well, I suppose we'd better go into the proper Netscape."

  Chapter 1 - Data Burst Initializing... - [1352 Words]

  The Netforts' beacon glowed with an intensifying light until it flared out, finally revealing the form of Samantha. She stood up from her crouch, and dusted her armor off. "Sorry ma'am, but you need to fill out this form before you can go anywhere." a nearby Wolfkind girl said. "Question before that. Does my miniature navigator need to do one as well?" Samantha asked. "Miniature navigator?" the Wolfkind girl asked. /Yuki, come out./ Samantha thought, before feeling the slight itch momentarily. "Hi..." Yuki said, quickly standing to attention, her face red. "Well, that's the first time I've seen such a thing. I suppose she is subject to the same regulations as us. My name's Danielle, by the way." the Wolfkind girl said, producing a couple sheets of paper. -------------------------------------------------- "I can't believe that anyone else would pick Marksman over the more versatile Soldier or even Mercenary." Danielle said. "Well, I originally wanted to go alone. Hence Yuki being my navigator." Samantha replied. "Moving on, I've heard that one of the Original Five is going to arrive tomorrow, just before the light." Danielle said excitedly. "So, that's something of a big deal?" Samantha asked. "Big deal? Of course it is. How often do you get to meet the very person who helped find an impossible place?" Danielle started ranting. "If we want to see him earliest, why don't we sleep now, and stay up all night then?" Samantha interjected, before she could be lectured on the importance of the Original Five. "There may be hope yet!" Danielle declared. "To bed!" "We do share a room, as you told me earlier." Samantha said, hoping to break this streak of insanity. -------------------------------------------------- Danielle woke up with something warm and wet on her cheek, something scaly wrapped around her left leg and a naked Half-Dragon girl hugging her. Not the most ideal conditions to wake up to. It only got worse when she tried to move. "Amuthr mimit, mam." came the mumble of the sleeping Dragon. Danielle couldn't help herself but smile. "Didn't you want to watch the heroic guy arrive?" Danielle said to her mostly asleep bedmate. This prompted movement. Samantha rolled off the bed, landing with a thud on the floor. "Why didn't you wake me when you woke." Samantha said as she stood, scratching the back of her head. "Ah, whatever. Have you seen my armor?". Danielle stared at the bare, nearly flat chest. Samantha cocked her head in confusion. "What, do I have something on my chest?" "Ah, n-no. It's just that I couldn't help but notice how masculine you are..." Danielle started, managing to avert her gaze. "Oh, OK. Ah, there's my gauntlet. I suppose I'd better look for something to cover myself with." Samantha said, looking around. -------------------------------------------------- "Really, Samantha? Thigh socks, hot pants and Seven belts?" Danielle teased. "Like you chose anything better. Camo pants and a red hoodie?" Samantha replied. "Anyway, which heroic guy are we here for?" "Reaper, the Soldier. Some say he has some sort of relationship with the Crimson Knight, who is also one of the Originals." Danielle said, holding up her smart-phone-like device, showing somebody's blog page describing the Original Five as they knew. The fifth entry was just question marks, but there were bits of info about the other Four. There was a disturbing amount of info about The Dragoon, including a photo of her training some newbies. "Are you sure this guy wasn't just stalking one of them." Samantha pointed out. "But he says up here he plans to have that much info on all of them. He also made a free for all blog for others to post about things they've seen in here." Danielle argued. "Look, here's an article on currencies used in here." she continued, tapping at the screen before showing it again. "Bits are the currency of the Netscape. They come in Six color variations, each having their own value. Purple have a value of One, but can be combined into special items which are invaluable. Orange have a value of Ten. Blue have a value of a Hundred. Grey have a value of a Thousand. Green have a value of Ten Thousand. An unconfirmed material has a estimated value of a Hundred Thousand. Just how much rumor do they mix in with fact?" Samantha read, before injecting her sarcastic opinion. "Not that much actually. The Sixth material was confirmed by a elite team of hackers. The Purple combination item was discovered when someone accidentally dropped over a Thousand Purple in one place. And 'spending' Bits by combining them with other items gives visible benefits. Someone once tried to combine a Green Bit with a Virusbeast, which is more or less made of Purple, and killed it instantly. Some people examine the stats of things they augment carefully to figure out what they do." Danielle explained. "So, general documentation procedures? Never found someone who couldn't check wikis for info. Anyway, where we gonna sit for these hours?" Samantha said derisively. "Right, you have a point. How about this storage shack?" Danielle suggested. /Anything valuable in there Yuki?/ Samantha thought. \Purple dot on your mini map. Scans show unusual readings.\ Yuki thought back. "Sounds good." Samantha said, licking Danielle's cheek. -------------------------------------------------- "Grae Daedal, it's full of boxes." Samantha said, wandering eastwards. "Well, yeah. Everybody puts their stuff in here. There's this guy who runs a shop in here somewhere." Danielle said, looking around. "Is this him?" Samantha pulled a diminutive, cloaked figure from behind a box. "Yeah, definitely him. I've seen him before." Danielle confirmed. "So, put me down please?" the figure asked. "Oh, sorry. I have this tendency to pick up small people." Samantha apologized, putting the cloaked figure down. "Now, what were you looking for?" the figure said. "This. What the hell is it?" Samantha said, picking up a Blood Red Dragon wing from next to her. \Yep, that's it.\ Yuki thought. "The Drakewing D-0 Sonic Projector. It is both a guitar and a weapon, and not just for hitting things. Even if I never figured out how to make it work. I guess I could sell it to you for Seventy bits." the figure said. "Thirty!" Samantha offered. "Fifty. Final offer." the figure haggled, offering his hand. Samantha shook it, finalizing the deal. "Any sets of SC43 armor we can take bits from?" Danielle asked. "Right this way." the figure started heading further east. Danielle and Samantha looked at each other and nodded, before following the Shadeling. -------------------------------------------------- "So, how much total?" Samantha asked the Shadeling. "875 Bits." the Shadeling answered, holding out a scanner of sorts. Samantha stared in confusion. "Sam, put your hand on the scanner." Danielle advised, slapping herself in the face. "Sorry, she's new to this." "No worries, we were all new once." the Shadeling said. Samantha put her hand on the scanner as instructed. "So, what now?" Samantha said, moving her hand off the scanner. "We see if Reaper is near yet." Danielle said. "Ladder's over there." the Shadeling pointed at a nearby corner, which had a ladder bolted on. "Thanks, see ya." Danielle shouted back, already halfway there. -------------------------------------------------- On the horizon, Samantha could see something very wrong through the scope of her rifle. "Do you see that?" she asked Danielle. Danielle nodded. "Wanna do something about it?" "Yeah, but what can a pair of snipers do to that? By the looks of it, there must be hundreds of them." Danielle replied. What they were seeing was a truck being pursued by a swarm of Databeasts. "This." Samantha grinned, pulling the trigger twice consecutively. Somewhere in the distance, several Databeasts exploded. Danielle attempted to imitate the action, but nearly lost balance after the first shot. "Bloody hell, how do you do that." Danielle said, restabilizing herself. "No idea." Samantha replied, pulling the trigger twice, turning slightly, then double pulling again. "Guess it has something to do with my method of holding it?". She did have a point, because she had wrapped her tail around the forward grip instead of holding it with her hand. Danielle shook her head before lining up another shot while Samantha reloaded.

  Chapter 2 - Animus Dawn - [1013 Words]

  It had been hours since the two had started shooting, and others with scoped weapons were joining in. A chorus of sniper fire roared, spitting hot lead out into the wildernet. The target they were protecting was a truck. "I think we need a break." Samantha said, dropping another empty magazine onto the pile. She also considered asking to trade magazines with her partner, but decided to do that later. "Yeah, we're nearly out of ammo." Danielle agreed. The pair gathered up the piece of cloth they'd been dropping magazines onto, and climbed back into the storage shed. They could sort the pile out later. -------------------------------------------------- The sniper fire rang out again. Samantha watched the truck as it handbrake parked to the right, then disgorged it's crew of Three. From the drivers seat, a manly Wolfkind with Silver fur stepped out. The next out was the passenger, who was a slim Half-Dragon with Opalescent scales. Finally, out the back jumped what initially looked like a Human... with White, feathery wings. Samantha adjusted her goggles slightly, enabling the identification software. Above the heads of the three, the words Fang - Wolfkind, Reaper - Half-Dragon [Prismatic] and Hawke - Zelkyr appeared. She quickly disabled the software, before shaking Danielle back to a state of awakeness. "They're here." she said, licking Danielle's cheek. "Really?" Danielle said, rubbing her eyes. "Yeah. Hi." Reaper said. "You girls got anything to do with the mass sniper support here?" "Sort of." Samantha said. "Our original plan was just to watch you arrive, but we couldn't resist taking out some of the Databeasts behind you. Others joined in at some point." "Nice to know. Since you started it off, why not join me?" Reaper offered. "It could be fun." "Dan?" Samantha asked. "Why not?" Danielle answered. -------------------------------------------------- "So, we take the truck out to the fight. By then, it should be reasonable to expect the Five of us to be capable of fighting off any remaining Databeasts." Reaper stated. "I hope you two brought close range weapons." "Of course we did." Samantha and Danielle said simultaneously, pulling out their backup weapons. Samantha held up her Hawk's Wings, while Danielle held up an Rhunic and Kayle RK-188 CAWS. "OK, I really hope you never need to use that. Dragon girl, show me that guitar you have." Reaper said. "I has got a name, y'know. It's Samantha." Samantha said, holstering her pistols. She then lifted the Drakewing off her back. "Never thought I'd see one of these again." Reaper said, taking the sonic weapon from Samantha's hands. "Keep good care of it, Sam." "Again?" Hawke asked. Fang nodded, as if to reinforce the question. "Long story, later." Reaper said, dodging the subject. "Anyway, Dan, never use full auto." -------------------------------------------------- Despite their preparations, nobody actually needed to shoot anything. Which was disturbing, considering just how many Databeasts there had been just a few minutes ago. To make up for the lack of combat, Samantha, Danielle and Hawke were playing a card game in the back of the moving truck. "Got any Fives?" Hawke asked. "Raise. Sixes?" Samantha answered. "Double Down. Eights?" Danielle added. "Fold." Hawke replied. "All in. Aces?" Samantha grinned. "Fold. Can we stop playing Calvin Cards now?" Danielle sighed. "Yeah. I win every time. It gets boring." Samantha yawned. "Only if you want to play something really offensive." Hawke warned. A moment later, the entire visible Netscape glitched, before suddenly changing from desert wasteland to dense forest. Unsurprisingly, this was immediately followed by the crunch of a truck hitting a tree. That was then followed by the thump of someone landing on a car. "Tchal Daedal!" came the shout from above. It was clearly a feminine voice. Everybody disembarked, as they clearly weren't getting any further in the truck, and to see who landed on the top. "Damnit, Crimson. How the hell did you manage to get up there? No, wait, let me guess. 'By accident'." Reaper said. "Well, no. I fell." Crimson said, rolling off the trucks' roof. Nobody moved to catch her. "Ow." She stood up, groaning in pain. "So, you know each other?" Danielle asked. "Unfortunately, yes. She was one of the first Five in this place. Her only real skills are causing glitches and her swordsmanship. She never learned from any of her mistakes, and only carries a broadsword." Reaper said, sighing. "Hey! I did learn how to teamwork!" Crimson retaliated, standing proudly and pointing at herself with her thumb, not realizing that Samantha was stacking leaves on her head. "Anyway, we need to find a way out of these lost woods." Reaper said, starting to head somewhat eastwards. "We need to go west. There should be a cave that way." Yuki said, suddenly standing on Samantha's head. Crimson stared at the tiny navigator, before picking her up by the tail. "Why always the tail?" Yuki started crying. "So cute." Crimson said, leaves still stacked perfectly on her head. "Put down my navigator and get Reaper to come back." Samantha growled, teeth sparking. "On it!" Crimson said, dropping Yuki back on Samantha's head and running after Reaper. Yuki hugged her tail and sighed in relief. -------------------------------------------------- Once the group had organized somewhat properly, they started heading west. After trekking through the trees for a solid hour, they saw exactly what they didn't want to see. "Oh shit!" came the general cry as they dashed to hide behind trees. Except Crimson, who kept walking unaware of the giant Virusbeast right in front of her. "Come on guys, there's nothing to be afraid of." she said, immediately before walking into the Virusbeast's leg. "Excuse me, sir, but you appear to be. In. My. Way." She drew her broadsword, cut the Virusbeast in half and sheathed the sword again in quick succession. "You're already dead." The Virusbeast clicked three times before exploding. "And it's a bad thing you know her because?" Samantha asked Reaper. "She lacks intelligence, instead taking ridiculous shows of strength. As you just saw." Reaper answered. Everything started glitching again, and the forest was replaced with a patch of wasteland outside an overly excessive fortress.

  Chapter 3 - The Bastion

  "Time for a crash course in jet packs. Think of it as a pair of wings for those without." Crimson grinned, spreading her wings out. "Oh, and, don't crash." "That is terrible advice, Crimson." Samantha complained. "So, you'd prefer to be grounded?" Crimson teased, putting on a pair of aviator goggles. "I'm just saying, I can handle a motorcycle. Never used a jet pack before." Samantha said. "Hey, whatever. Any time we spend arguing here is time you spend away from your girlfriend." Crimson teased. She realized her mistake a moment later, when Samantha rocket tackled her. "Fuck you, I'm a Dragon! And we're getting there last night!" Samantha screamed over the sound of her jet pack. The two glitched for a moment, before tearing apart mid-air. -------------------------------------------------- True to her word, Samantha had managed to viciously tear apart and reconstruct the time line so she and Crimson arrived at their destination before they left. The problem was, they were still travelling at ridiculous speed towards a brick wall. "Emergency brake, EMERGENCY BRAKE!" Crimson shouted. The pair glitched again, and halted. "Never knew I could do that." Samantha said, jet pack switching to hover. "I mean, how does that even?" "Don't ask me. The best I've done is just a small radius Teleport." Crimson shrugged. Samantha switched the jet pack off completely. "Y'know, you never make much sense." Samantha said, smiling enough to show a single fang. "Thanks, it takes skill to be this good." Crimson said, folding her wings. --------------------------------------------------

  -[WARNING: CHAPTERS 2-FINAL UNFINSHED]-

A long time later

  Epilogue - A Hero Returns

  Danielle sat gazing at the glitching gap that had swallowed Samantha. Reaper would bring lunch to her every day, and join her in watching The Rift. Reaper would tell news from The Troper's Bastion, and Danielle would just nod, watching The Rift intently. Months passed, this routine unbroken. -------------------------------------------------- "Come on, Danny. The Rift is getting bad. At least in The Bastion, you can't catch viruses." Reaper said. "No. She'll be back. She never breaks a promise." Danielle retorted. The Rift seemed to react to this by intensifying it's glitching, an assortment of vaguely humanoid shapes silhouetted on it's surface. "She promised." Danielle whispered. "Damn right I did." The static distorted the speaker's voice to unrecognizability. The Rift stopped glitching entirely as Samantha stepped through, followed by a squad of Tempest Troopers. "Sorry, these guys insisted." Samantha said, licking the back of her left hand. "Sorry, Ma'am, for ever doubting you. Here's your weapons back." one of the troopers said. "And yet, you never took my Guitar." Samantha grinned. Danielle and Reaper burst into laughter at that remark, drawing the ire of at least one trooper. "Sammy, you magnificent tchon." Reaper said, laughing. "Oh, and, about half the men sent in never arrived, unless you've seen them." Samantha said seriously. "As I've seen, nobody left The Rift prior to you, Sam." Danielle reported. "And she sort of stationed herself on watch here, until you returned." Reaper added. "Oh well. Hey, The Troper's Bastion will want to see that their hero has returned, right?" Samantha asked offhandedly. "Let's go then!" Danielle exclaimed, grabbing Samantha's arm.

[truemedian]

Dear Apple: don’t let a trackpad turn the iPad into a Mac

Good morning and congratulations on making it through another week. I had been planning on writing about some of the issues I had while writing my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review — specifically my bafflement that Samsung is once again asking reviewers like me to be beta testers. It’s inconceivable that the company didn’t realize there were issues with the camera and also very strange that it didn’t so much as hint at a software update to me until the day before yesterday. I’ll say it again: never buy anything on the hope that future software updates will fix it. Wait. But we covered it pretty well in The Vergecast coming out later today, so please give it a listen. Instead, to the surprise of absolutely nobody given my obsession with how companies are trying to get big-screen computers beyond the UX paradigms of the 1980s and 90s, I’m interested in an iPad rumor about a keyboard. The news is simply that Apple is reportedly releasing an iPad keyboard with a trackpad later this year. It’s a good scoop from The Information. A good piece to read next is about something Jason Snell noticed in the iOS beta released earlier this month: better support for keyboard functions like modifier keys. A third thing to note is that Apple software boss Craig Federighi said, “If you like what you’ve seen us do with iPadOS, stay tuned, we’re going to keep working on it.” If you’re wondering when this might happen, the Apple-o-sphere has all been working on the belief that Apple will be holding a Spring hardware announcement. There are too many rumored products to fit into one event, but a new iPad Pro and a new keyboard for it would definitely make the cut. Given all the recent tech event cancellations due to the coronavirus, however, Apple might be rethinking its plans right now. In any case, I have many thoughts about the iPad — which you might have guessed since I’ve been writing about the iPad’s evolution as a computer so often over the past few years. I would love to speculate on the physical shape and design of the keyboard, but I think that’s better left until later, when we have a better idea of what it might look like. Instead, I just want to point out that the iPad is an OS that is currently hostile to mouse input. I don’t mean that as a criticism, but I do think it’s just stating facts. I know there are people who have enabled the “AssistiveTouch” mouse feature, but what it mainly does is let you emulate your finger taps with a mouse. That means it’s not actually all that helpful with two things that mice excel at: tapping tiny UI buttons and working with text. I’m on record as thinking that Apple’s recent attempts to improve text manipulation like selecting, copying, pasting, and even cursor placement are not very good. And since AssistiveTouch currently only supports acting like a finger, it doesn’t help. I bring this up because I have a radical idea: what if the only thing trackpad support brings to the iPad is better text manipulation? I actually think that is the right move for Apple, at least to start. With the new iPadOS last year, Apple was incredibly ambitious. It added all sorts of new ideas and interaction models to the UI, some of which were confusing. In my original review, I gave Apple credit for finally allowing the iPad to become complicated and I stand by that. But I also believe that it’s not intuitive because its features can’t be progressively learned over time — you basically have to watch or read tutorials, which is incredibly un-Apple-like. I bring all this up because right now the iPad has a lot going on with its overall user interface and I sort of feel that the last thing Apple should do is add yet another variable to the mix. Unless Apple is planning its second major re-think of how we interact with the iPad in two years, it’s just too much of a burden to put on users. Because, as I’ve said before, using a mouse is fundamentally a weird thing to do — it’s actually a level of abstraction beyond just touching the display. It only feels “intuitive” because so many of us learned to use one first, and because “desktop” operating systems do such a good job of progressively teaching you new skills as you use them. They’re consistent and learnable in a way the iPad’s more advanced features simply aren’t. I don’t want Apple to fall back on the crutch of just using desktop OS paradigms to solve the iPad’s user interface intuitiveness problem. The last thing we should want is for the iPad to turn into a Mac. It’s on a different path and it would be a shame to have those ideas tossed out the window just so we can have more traditional windows on the iPad. But I’m not anti-trackpad. I do think it would be a huge help for text selection and it would allow some app developers to create smaller touch targets on their apps. Plus, and this may be anathema to some, the iPad makes a lot of use of right-click style actions now (just long press to see them), and a trackpad could help with that too. If you haven’t done so in awhile, go on and watch Steve Jobs’ seminal iPhone introduction. Pay special attention to how he talks about styluses and fingers. It’s easy to forget now, but the iPhone was a radical reinvention of user interfaces compared to what most people had used. Only a tiny sliver of apps on smartphones were designed to be used with a finger — shout out to SnapperMail, my favorite email app for the Treo and the subject of a wonderful 2003 Walt Mossberg review. None of the smartphone operating systems before the iPhone were optimized for fingers, though. They all required a stylus or physical buttons to get around. The iPhone UI was revolutionary because it just had one button — the home button — and it was designed from the ground-up to be touched. The iPad continued that legacy, just on a big screen. Adding a trackpad to that seems like a good idea, but I dearly hope it doesn’t take away from all the benefits we get from a purely touchscreen interface. We already have the Mac, the iPad doesn’t need to turn into one too.

Coronavirus

┏ Facebook cancels F8 developer conference due to coronavirus concerns. ┏ Plague Inc. pulled from the App Store in China amid coronavirus outbreak. In late January, Plague Inc. saw a resurgence in downloads in China and became the country’s top paid iOS game. In response, Ndemic Creations released a statement reminding players that Plague Inc., while it was designed to be realistic and informative about how diseases spread, is just a game. It’s currently the top paid game in the US App Store. “We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities,” the company said in January. ┏ Tim Cook says Apple is reopening factories as China gets ‘coronavirus under control’. ┏ Health secretary Alex Azar won’t promise that a coronavirus vaccine would be affordable. ┏ Coronavirus merch is somehow worse than I expected.

More from The Verge

┏ Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review: shutter bug. Here’s my review. I hope Samsung bucks the trend of camera software updates usually not improving things. Samsung called this phone the S20 instead of the S11 to indicate that it is the first of a new generation, and that might be too revealing. As impressive as the overall phone is, the camera often acts like a first-gen tech product with first-gen tech problems. ┏ Robots aren’t taking our jobs — they’re becoming our bosses. Important, deep piece from Josh Dzieza. Well written and empathetic. Think of all the tiny moments of downtime you have during the day, the time where you’re just with yourself for a minute. AI tracking of workers is taking that away. An Amazon worker in the Midwest described a bleak vision of the future. “We could have algorithms connected to technology that’s directly on our bodies controlling how we work,” he said. “Right now, the algorithm is telling a manager to yell at us. In the future, the algorithm could be telling a shock collar—” I laughed, and he quickly said he was only partly joking. After all, Amazon has patented tracking wristbands that vibrate to direct workers, and Walmart is testing harnesses that monitor the motions of its warehouse staff ┏ It’s hard to care about other people’s feelings online. I love this essay from Bijan Stephen. Acting with empathy on platforms that reward snark is hard and you often end up looking painfully earnest. But do it anyway. ┏ Vivo’s Apex 2020 concept has breakthrough cameras and an ultra-curved screen. As Sam Byford notes, this phone was supposed to be shown at Mobile World Congress. Hopefully Vivo seeds it to some people to play around with even though it’s never going to get released, because I would love to see the results of some independent tests of a proper optical zoom lens on a phone: The Apex 2020’s telephoto lens, however, has actual moving lens elements that take it from 5x to 7.5x magnification. Vivo says the 16-megapixel module is just 6.2mm thick due to its periscope design, which allows it to fit inside the 8.8mm-thick phone. ┏ Uber tweaks its app to improve those pesky pickups. This is a very smart idea, though it does mean that drivers’ phones will have their microphones turned on. If I were Uber, I would get an independent auditor to go through the code every now and then to verify that the only thing the microphone is doing is listening for the ultrasound. Uber is also developing a new technology that uses ultrasound waves to automatically verify you’re in the right car, no PIN needed. The rider’s phone will send this ultrasonic signal to the driver’s phone to automatically verify the unique PIN. The company has said that technology should be ready to roll before the end of 2019. ┏ Clearview AI’s client list includes 2,200 organizations spanning law enforcement to universities. ┏ Peloton settles lawsuits over songs being used in fitness videos without permission. ┏ AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile will be fined more than $200 million for selling customer locations, per report. Read More Read the full article

[jeroldlockettus]

Thinking Is Expensive. Who’s Supposed to Pay for It?

Google spent nearly $5.4 million on lobbying in the second quarter of 2017. (Photo: Vladislav Reshetnyak/Pexels)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “Thinking Is Expensive. Who’s Supposed to Pay for It?” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

Corporations and rich people donate billions to their favorite think tanks and foundations. Should we be grateful for their generosity — or suspicious of their motives?

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

I’m sure you’ve been hearing the ever-more-anguished calls to regulate the huge tech firms collectively known as GAFA: Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.

Barry LYNN: These companies, these super-large platform monopolists, they have developed the capacity to manipulate us, to control us, to control the information that is delivered to us, to control the pricing at which products are delivered to us, to control us as producers.

The GAFA companies are far bigger, richer, and arguably more dominant than tech companies in the past. Google, for instance, has more than 80 percent of global search-engine market share. Facebook has nearly 2 billion monthly active users. Amazon has an estimated 90 million prime members in the U.S. — that’s something like 70 percent of all American households! It’s estimated that 40 percent of all online spending goes to Amazon. This kind of scale creates a lot of concern. We’ve examined this concern in previous episodes, like “Who Runs the Internet?” and “Is the Internet Being Ruined?”

Zeynep TUFEKCI from a previous Freakonomics Radio episode: We’re seeing the birth of a new center of real power. We depend on these technologies that have been, in many ways, wonderful and fascinating. But they’re making significant decisions unilaterally.

There’s also the question of whether the mission of these firms is as socially beneficial as many people believed they were in the early days of the internet:

TUFEKCI: There’s all these really smart engineers. They’re the brightest computer scientists, and all they’re thinking about is, “How do I keep someone on Facebook for 10 more minutes? What’s the exact combination of things that will keep them staying on the site as long as possible so that we can show them as much advertisement as possible?”

So here’s a question: if you were one of those huge, dominant, super-wealthy firms, what would you do to ensure that the good times stay good? You’d probably spend a lot of money lobbying politicians — which, yes, they do. There’s been a huge ramping-up lately in lobbying by tech firms. But you might also do something a bit subtler than that.

Robert REICH: Yeah. There’s been a parallel ramping-up of the philanthropy that’s associated with the tech firms. That philanthropy comes in a variety of different forms.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: corporations using philanthropy to shape the public debate — and how that can go terribly wrong:

Barry LYNN: That was on June 27th. And on June 29th, I was told that my entire team had to leave.

*      *      *

Our story today begins with a journalist …

Franklin FOER: I’m Franklin Foer, a writer with The Atlantic.

Stephen J. DUBNER: You are one of three brothers who write books. Talk about that for just a minute, and the family that produced all of you.

FOER: Right. So I have two brothers: Jonathan, who’s written a good number of novels, including Everything is Illuminated. I got a younger brother named Josh, who is a science writer [and] wrote a book called Moonwalking with Einstein. It’s actually incredibly uncomfortable for us to talk about growing up in a family of other writers just because— I’m sure in some ways, we benefit from the novelty act of being three brotherly writers. But then we all, of course, want to be known for our own accomplishments.

DUBNER: Right.

FOER: But our parents didn’t do anything— They didn’t force us to play violin four hours a day or sit down and study the great chess masters. We watched a lot of He-Man and Addams Family reruns on television when we were growing up. But one of the things that they did was they gave us a credit card, which they said we weren’t allowed to spend essentially on anything except in the event of an incredible emergency. There was one exception to this: they said that we could basically spend the credit card at will at the bookshop. They basically guided us to one thing.

DUBNER: Your first job in journalism was at Slate, one of the very first mainstream online publications, which was started by Microsoft. There was this huge enthusiasm, certainly among the chattering classes.

FOER: There was a certain amount of utopianism that was associated with the emergence of the internet, this idea that we were going to tie the world together. I love search engines. I love the fact that I can access every book in human history in a nanosecond. I love that I can get things delivered to my door incredibly quickly. These things, arguably, make life much better; maybe inarguably make life much better. These technologies were incredible! Amazon is an incredible company. The Kindle was an incredible invention. The iPad and the iPhone were incredible innovations. We were right to marvel at them.

DUBNER: After writing for Slate for a while, you moved on to the New Republic — as you call it, the “intellectual organ for hard-nosed liberalism.” You ultimately became editor there not once, but twice.

FOER: The New Republic was this little magazine that always had outsized influence in politics and culture. It was an incredibly elitist organ and it managed to persist over a hundred years while never really turning a profit. As we entered the Internet Age, that became a more and more difficult thing to continue to do. We ended up shifting from one ownership group to the next. I got so exhausted trying to find an owner and sick of that, I ended up resigning as editor. But then a couple of years after I resigned, the magazine got bought by a guy called Chris Hughes who had been Mark Zuckerberg‘s roommate at Harvard, and co-founder of Facebook. He bought the magazine and, to me, this seemed almost too good to be true. You had this guy who understood social media, who had incredible number of resources, and seemed devoted to this little magazine that I was also devoted to. So I came back, I edited the magazine, and Chris and I tried to re-make it.  

DUBNER: The relationship in the beginning seemed like it was unbelievably good.

FOER: We became really good friends and it was exhilarating. We felt like we were trying to save something that was imperiled in the world and that maybe we could help provide some dignified solution to the rest of journalism, which was grappling with a lot of the same issues that we were grappling with. But there was a moment when things just took this turn. Chris had always talked about wanting to make a profit with the New Republic, and he suddenly decided that he didn’t want to lose, at least not a whole lot of money with it.  So we had to turn around our financial position incredibly quickly. He insisted that we start chasing clicks. In 2013, the surest way to get clicks was to post a clip from last night’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart. You slap a headline on it and maybe write a couple sentences about it and everybody would click on it.

DUBNER: You got caught up in, at least, monitoring the numbers, right?

FOER: Yes, I did. Look, data is crack cocaine. If you’re the guy who had a hard time getting a date in high school, to suddenly find yourself producing things that are extremely popular — you become obsessed with replicating that popularity. In some ways, everybody in the magazine wanted to be successful on Facebook. We wanted to master social media and this new environment. But we didn’t want that new environment to dictate how we did our jobs.

DUBNER: All right, so we should say that [you were] quitting as you were about to be fired from the New Republic.

FOER: Yeah. I took the brave decision to resign when I learned that there was some guy who already had my job and was offering other people jobs at the New Republic.

DUBNER: It’s funny. You’re describing what was happening to you at the New Republic. But it sounds as though you’re also perhaps describing your view of what happened at places like Google and Facebook over time, where you may begin with a certain set of motivations, but as those motivations lead you to this overwhelming commercial success, you’re so seduced by the magnitude of that success that you can’t help but want to replicate it over and over again.

FOER: Yeah, that’s completely right. In retrospect, I realized that I was living this compressed version of recent history.  

The recent history of the internet at least. Over the years, Franklin Foer’s views of the internet had shifted. The same guy who used to think this …

FOER: There was a certain amount of utopianism associated with the emergence of the internet.

And this:

FOER: I love search engines!

And this:

FOER: These technologies were incredible! Amazon is an incredible company.

Has now come to think this:

FOER: Amazon thinks of itself as “the everything store.” It’s gotten itself in pretty much every conceivable business. It owns Whole Foods, it powers the cloud, it houses data for the C.I.A., and so on. There’s really nothing that it doesn’t try to squeeze into its empire.

He also thinks this:

FOER: As Facebook shapes the way that we consume news, as Google shapes the way that we interact with information, and as Amazon has shaped the way that we interact with books, the dominance that these companies exert ends up trickling through the cultural intellectual ecosystem. With Amazon, my concern is that the book business has become utterly dependent on them, that they hold one of the few true monopolies in the world.

Actually, that’s not quite true.

Swati BHATT: My name is Swati Bhatt. I teach at Princeton.

One course she teaches: The Economics of the Internet.

BHATT: The existence of a monopoly — of a single firm in any product space, unless it’s a government-granted monopoly — is rare in the digital economy.

So even though Amazon has, for instance, at least 70 percent of e-book sales, that doesn’t make it a monopoly.

BHATT: Technically, no. Because that leaves 30 percent for some other set of firms.

When describing firms like Amazon, Google, and Facebook, Bhatt prefers the term “behemoth.”

BHATT: Yes, there is a difference. “Behemoth” suggests that it’s simply a large firm, whereas a “monopoly” suggests that it’s the only firm.

Okay, economic semantics aside: Bhatt does see strong parallels between these modern behemoths and what we traditionally think of as monopolies. But a modern tech behemoth has a particularly modern advantage:

BHATT: Ownership of a scarce resource is the definition of a natural monopoly. What we’re seeing with the behemoths today is an ownership of a scarce resource called “personal data” or “data” in general. There’s an interesting self-reinforcing dynamic here. Whereas a firm transacts, buys and sells, [a behemoth] acquires data about its consumers. That enables it to grow by producing more personalized products by advertising more effectively. That brings in more customers, which brings in more data, which then enables the firm to grow even further and that leads to the behemoth status.

And that is what Franklin Foer, and a growing chorus of other critics, are so concerned about. Foer recently published a book called World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech. It’s part-memoir, part-screed against the dominance of the big tech firms. It’s not a particularly empirical book; and it’s hard to say how much of Foer’s argument was informed by personal experiences, like the New Republic disaster. It also turns out that Foer’s family, in addition to encouraging his love of books, encouraged his distrust of monopolies.

FOER: My dad was a University of Chicago-trained lawyer who’d worked in the antitrust division of the Carter administration. I grew up in this household where antitrust was part of the family religion. My dad would drive around in a car that had a bumper sticker that said “bust the trust” on it. It was a real obsession and passion of his. For a long time he was this lonely activist who was railing for greater, more aggressive enforcement of these laws prohibiting monopolistic behavior. I always admired him for this quixotic stand that he took, but I never really fully bought into his arguments until Amazon got in this fight with the book publishers, when it started to hit close to home.

DUBNER: This was the Hachette deal, yes?

FOER: Exactly. Let’s just say something about book publishing, which is that book publishing is an incredibly oligopolistic industry. There are four or five big companies that dominate book publishing. They’re oftentimes jerks. It’s hard to have a whole lot of sympathy for the book publishers. But suddenly you have these five big companies that were up against one big company, which was Amazon. Amazon basically controlled their access to the marketplace. Amazon was renegotiating their ebook contract with the publishers one by one, trying to strong-arm them with their market power into pricing their books lower and lower. To me, it was grotesque and ominous that Amazon was able to use its market power to try to dictate to the publishers in this incredibly aggressive way.

DUBNER: Where do you draw the line between winning — or competing — and being evil?

FOER: Right.

DUBNER: Persuade me that it’s not just a case of big companies being really good at what they do and winning and you having sympathies with the people who are not winning.

FOER: My book, in some ways, is a valentine to competition. I believe that a marketplace is most healthy when you have a number of market players. I might not love book publishing. It might be too concentrated in some ways for my taste. But at least there are five companies competing against one another for the marketplace. If I don’t like the way that one company is treating me, I can always go to another company. Or if I don’t like the goods that one company is selling, I can go to another company. The problem with Amazon, and the problem with Google, and, to an extent, with Facebook, is that they become the only market player. The choice that we have as consumers is limited and competition is limited. My argument is against the big technology companies, which are racing to expand into every nook and cranny of our lives.

As it happens, this expansion had just raced into Franklin Foer’s own life. We spoke to him in early September, just before his book was to be published. And there had been a plot twist.

FOER: The New America Foundation supported my book.

The New America Foundation is a center-left think tank devoted to “renewing American politics, prosperity, and purpose in the Digital Age.” It’s run by the political scientist Anne-Marie Slaughter, who’s a former top official in the Obama State Department.

FOER: One of the cool things that New America does is that they give money to journalists who are writing book projects. I didn’t get a lot of money from them, but I got a small sum. They were especially generous to me because I’d just been fired from a job at the New Republic.

And the partial funding of Foer’s book about the dominance of firms like Google suddenly became relevant because—

FOER: That’s since become relevant just because they fired a vociferous critic of Google from the foundation. Which is noteworthy because the foundation has received a fair amount of money from Google chairman Eric Schmidt.

DUBNER: Right. How much fun is it for you to be publishing a new book and already distancing yourself from the foundation that funded the writing of it?

FOER: It actually doesn’t feel good because New America has been supportive of me over time. I’d rather not seem like a jerk and disavow them when they’ve been so nice to me. But this does feel sadly reflective of a much bigger issue.

DUBNER: Who was the critic who was fired?

FOER: His name is Barry Lynn and he ran something called the Open Markets program there. Very active opponent of monopoly and a very vociferous critic of Google.

LYNN: We used to have an affiliation with the New America Foundation, but that ended on August 31st. We were kicked out of New America.

And that is Barry Lynn.

LYNN: And I direct the Open Markets Institute.

So the name of his project has not been taken away; but his affiliation with the New America Foundation has.

LYNN: We’re working out of a WeWork on the 1400 block of G Street in Washington.

Coming up on Freakonomics Radio: the story is not as neat as the headlines would have it:

Anne-Marie SLAUGHTER: At no point did Google or any funder tell me to fire Barry Lynn.

Also: funding controversies can reach across many decades. Like all the way back to the founding of Stanford University.

REICH: There is an effort to unearth the sordid history of the university’s initial benefactor.

*      *      *

Barry Lynn started out as a journalist …

LYNN: I worked in Venezuela and in Peru as a foreign correspondent. Then, I ran a magazine called Global Business Magazine.

We should say it was a pro-business magazine.

LYNN: We were a magazine that aimed at the people who ran businesses. We had a[n] inside look at how globalization actually works at the institutional level.

That inside look led to Lynn crossing over to the other side. He came to believe that corporations are too powerful, and that their power is too concentrated. This was a theme he pursued in a couple of books and, since 2002, with the New America Foundation. His project came to be known as Open Markets.

LYNN: We got the work going. We did it with increasing effect over the last seven years, to the point where in 2016, we had a number of folks on the Hill starting to understand that, indeed, America has a monopoly problem. The first person who really reached out and said, “I want to actually help shine a light on this problem,” was Senator Warren. The result was a speech that she gave on Capitol Hill.

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s speech was part of a conference, organized by Open Markets, called “America’s Monopoly Problem.”

Elizabeth WARREN: Today in America, competition is dying.

LYNN: This was probably the most important speech about concentration in the United States, about the monopoly problem, since a series of speeches that F.D.R. gave in the 1930s.

WARREN: Google, Apple, and Amazon provide platforms that lots of companies depend on for survival. But Google, Apple, and Amazon also, in many cases, compete with those small companies. That platform can become a tool to snuff out competition.

LYNN: She said, “It’s not just an issue that affects us as consumers. It also affects our democracy, because it’s this concentration of power that leads to concentrations of wealth. Concentrations of wealth lead to concentrations of control over government, and other institutions of authority.”  

This line of criticism would seem to be very much in sync with the mission of not only Open Markets, but also its parent organization, the New America Foundation.

SLAUGHTER: In my own scholarship, I’ve written about monopolies and risks of consolidation and data ownership.

That’s Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former State Department official and Princeton professor, who’s now president and C.E.O. of New America.

SLAUGHTER: What convinced me to leave Princeton and become head of New America — which was a big move, because I had a wonderful position at Princeton — was this idea that we really could be a place that hosted fundamental debates about our future in the digital age.

But as Barry Lynn tells the story, New America didn’t share his enthusiasm for the conference he put together where Senator Warren spoke.

LYNN: Well, a few people in my organization at New America were not happy with the way we were framing the conference, and the fact that we were focusing some of our attention on the platform monopolies and especially on Google.

What was wrong with focusing on Google in a conference about monopoly? Remember, they do own some 80 percent of the global search market.

LYNN: Or I guess the question is, “Why was our work at New America problematic for Google?” Eric Schmidt, who is now the chair of the board at Google, was also, for a long time, on the New America board and then for a period of time served as the chair of our board.

Eric Schmidt, who was C.E.O. of Google for 10 years, has also given New America a lot of money, both personally and through his family foundation. So did Google itself. Between Schmidt and Google, New America had received roughly $20 million since its founding in 1999.

LYNN: There was a relationship between our two organizations. This is a relationship goes back to the very early days at New America and actually had never seemed to result in any problems at New America up to this point.

But now, it seemed, there was a problem. Were Schmidt and/or Google leaning on New America as Lynn’s critique of the company grew more intense? A year after the New America conference where Senator Warren spoke against Google’s domination, European antitrust regulators hit Google with a huge fine, $2.7 billion, for allegedly tilting search results in its own favor. Barry Lynn posted a statement on the New America website. It congratulated European regulators for giving Google such a good spanking, and it urged American regulators to do the same.

LYNN: We released this statement in support of the decision in Europe. That was on June 27th. And on June 29th, I was told that my entire team had to leave. We had two months to leave.

One natural conclusion to draw was that Google had stepped in and asked New America to do something about Barry Lynn. Indeed, that’s how it was portrayed in The New York Times. Their headline read: “Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant.”

LYNN: At that point I asked for this decision to be reconsidered, and if it could not be reconsidered, I asked for more time. I was told that neither of those was possible.

The writer Franklin Foer, who happens to sit on the board of Barry Lynn’s Open Markets Institute, told us a similar version of events. He made it clear that Lynn’s statement about the European regulators’ decision—

FOER: This was something that was a bit too far for Google. New America was very generous in supporting me, and they never did anything to interfere with my own work. But I was fairly outraged by their treatment of Barry. I can’t resign from New America because I’m not affiliated with them. I’m not taking any money from them now, but I’m extremely disappointed.

But Anne-Marie Slaughter offered a substantially different portrayal. First of all, she says—

SLAUGHTER: No funder at New America has ever influenced New America content in any way.

And, this:

SLAUGHTER: New America has a set of principles on our website that makes very clear that no funding can affect the integrity of our research and/or shape the research in any way. We do not pay to play. We take funding and we do our work. Those two things are separate.

But the timing of Lynn’s firing certainly gave the appearance that Google and/or Eric Schmidt had asked Slaughter and/or the New America Foundation to get rid of Barry Lynn and Open Markets. And Slaughter found herself on the defensive.

SLAUGHTER: At no point did Google or any funder tell me to fire Barry Lynn, and at no point did Google or any funder try to influence the work of anybody here. If any funder ever did tell me that, I’d tell them to take a hike!

That’s Slaughter at a New America event a few weeks ago called “Is Big Tech an Existential Threat?” The event was actually in support of Franklin Foer’s book.

SLAUGHTER: I did not part ways with Barry Lynn for anything to do with Google. I decided that Barry Lynn and I had to part ways because he could not work respectfully, honestly, and cooperatively with his colleagues.

So Slaughter says she got rid of Lynn, not because of a funding conflict of interest, but because he was a difficult employee. That said, she acknowledges a real and long-standing tension between the people who fund research and the people who do research.

SLAUGHTER: I don’t actually think this is just a think-tank issue. I worked at three universities, and universities have private funders for centers and for different bodies of research. Even newspapers have constant tensions between advertisers and reporters that reporters don’t have to navigate, but the management does. There is a general tension wherever you need to protect the integrity of research and you also need to fund that research.

New America says all its major funders are listed on its website. We asked Slaughter for a breakdown:

SLAUGHTER: Only 12 percent comes from corporations. By far, the largest amount comes from foundations and then from private individuals.

LYNN: Taking corporate money does not mean necessarily that the work of the entire institution is suspect—

Barry Lynn again.

LYNN: —but it definitely can create a slippery slope that will lead to pressures being brought to bear on those people who are questioning concentrations of power or the use of corporate power in other ways.

REICH: People are right to have a skeptical, maybe cynical, orientation to corporate lobbying or corporate philanthropy.

And that’s Robert Reich, a political scientist at Stanford.

REICH: My research interests these days focus a great deal on philanthropy and the role philanthropy plays in democratic societies.

And that philanthropy increasingly comes in the form of foundations.

REICH: There are lots of foundations.

DUBNER: What is the median size of assets? It’s really small, right? A million or so dollars—

REICH: Oh yeah, it’s not much. It may be a couple of million dollars. But there’s an enormous growth in the number of foundations, and that’s just a logical consequence of the growing inequality in the United States.

DUBNER: Just talk about your thesis essentially — the role, the influence, and the complications around modern philanthropies.

REICH: I’d start by saying most people’s attitude about philanthropists and about foundations is that we should be grateful that people are trying to do good with their own money. That’s the attitude I want to try to sweep away. I don’t think philanthropists deserve that amount of charity, if you will. Why is that? Because philanthropy, especially large philanthropy, in the form of a foundation or especially wealthy person represents the exercise of power in which they attempt to use their own private wealth to affect public outcomes or to produce public benefits or make social change. Power deserves scrutiny in a democratic society, not gratitude. I’d add on top of that that a foundation, in particular — which is a legal form that allows a wealthy person to create a donor-directed, unaccountable, barely transparent, perpetual, and tax-subsidized corporate form in order to use their private assets to affect the public — is an especially interesting and potentially worrisome form of power.

DUBNER: Let’s talk about think tanks, per se. Is there such a thing as a truly nonpartisan think tank, or is it just too hard because of where the money is coming from?

REICH: Well, I’d say that you’re more likely to make the case that there are nonpartisan universities, universities which are funded in not entirely dissimilar ways from think tanks. Officially, they have to be nonpartisan, so do think tanks. In other words they can’t declare themselves in favor of particular political candidates. But think tanks have become far more popular in the United States as a result of the polarization and inequality in the United States. Idea generation that happens in think tanks — the policy frameworks and proposals that get disseminated from think tanks — flow from philanthropic interests with particular policy positions in mind.

DUBNER: Tell me what you know about Google’s history of philanthropic, foundation, or think-tank giving and especially the timeline because I understand it’s accelerated quite a bit recently.

REICH: Google, like lots of other tech firms, has gotten much more aggressive in its formal lobbying efforts. I think it’s now the case that the top five Silicon Valley companies are amongst the largest sources of lobbying, greater even than the five top Wall Street firms in New York. There’s been a parallel ramping up of the philanthropy that’s associated with the tech firms. That philanthropy comes in a variety of different forms.

DUBNER: Rob, knowing what you know about the situation with the New America Foundation and the Google money and the controversy, what would your advice be for them, for the New America Foundation?

REICH: The New America Foundation needs to be aware of the soft power, the agenda-setting influence that donors can have to the think tank even in the absence of calling someone up and saying “we disagree” or “we object to the work that someone does.” When Anne-Marie Slaughter — whose job is chiefly to ensure the existence of the New America Foundation into the future, which involves fund-raising — does her work, she needs to be cautious that she hasn’t internalized the policy preferences of the donors such that she shapes the work of the foundation around the donor interests. The idea is you’re worried about the conversation you’ll have with your donor in the future. You orient the work that you do to please the donor, rather than to displease the donor. That has, functionally, the same outcome from the donor’s perspective, without even having to say anything.

DUBNER: Now, your own fine university, Stanford, benefited, was founded from the private largesse of a man, Leland Stanford. Most of history paints him as a classic robber baron — a railroad man who did all kinds of stuff that we would frown upon today. Talk to me about that and whether that’s a conversation that takes place regularly at Stanford. Or is it avoided?

REICH: I’d say people here are aware of the history of the university and the deep connection between philanthropy and the well-being of especially wealthy universities. People here, I think, know something about the history of Leland Stanford. There is an effort on campus to unearth the sordid history of the university’s initial benefactor.

DUBNER: Has there been any movement of any magnitude to rename the university?

REICH: Not that I know of. They’re starting with lower-hanging fruit — monuments and places on campus named for people with no obvious connection to the university and whose historical records are not so appealing.

DUBNER: Let’s say I have some money, Rob. I want to set up a foundation. I come to you and I say, “I’m a big believer in bringing critics into the inner circle. I know that you’ve been critical of how foundations behave, and that it’s undemocratic, and so on. But Rob, I’d like to make you the executive of my foundation.” Let’s say I made my money in ammonia fertilizer. How would you go about setting it up in a way that takes advantage of my largesse to try to accomplish something that we could all agree is some public good without falling into all the traps that you’ve been describing to us?

REICH: First, I’d say, despite the fact that laws don’t require me to be especially transparent about what the foundation is doing, I pledge to make completely available to the public all of the grant-making we do, the evaluations of the grants that we make. I’d want to invite in outside experts as well. I would want to find ways in which to organize the foundation’s efforts to seek out the most severe critics of what we were doing in order to try to learn the most in order to give grants away to greater effect.

DUBNER: Let’s say I also make you chairman of the board. Tell me about that board, how you’d set it up. What would the elections look like? What would the terms be like? Who’s on it?

REICH: Well, “elections” already reveal that you don’t know much about how foundations are operating. There are no elections on the boards of foundations. The boards are hand-picked by the initial donor. You can create the governing board of a foundation in such a way as you guarantee that only family members and heirs ever serve on the board. There’s no public representation necessary. The Gates Foundation, with something in the neighborhood of $40 to $80 billion devoted to philanthropy, has as its governing trustees Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, and, I believe, Bill Gates Sr. I’d like to see possibly experimentation with a form of foundation peer review in which an effort analogous to what happens in academia happens within the foundation world. It would be surprising if the philanthropic efforts of corporations were purely altruistic. Corporations seek to advance their own interest especially in their lobbying — quite possibly often in their philanthropy. I’m trying to stimulate people to be morally awake and in the same moment, to get people to consider what types of public policies or frameworks ought to govern and structure our collective lives, which is a moral and philosophical question.

That was the Stanford political scientist Robert Reich. We also heard today from Anne-Marie Slaughter, Barry Lynn, Swati Bhatt, and Franklin Foer. Coming up next time on Freakonomics Radio: my Freakonomics friend and co-author Steve Levitt drops by to answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions:

Steven LEVITT: That is one of the weirdest definitions of social good I’ve ever heard in my entire life—

LEVITT: The thing you want to do, from a public policy perspective, is not put people’s identity and their morality in conflict with efficiency—

LEVITT: As you take the knife and think about whether you’re going to stab the person with it, you’re not thinking about what’s going to happen 15 years later when I apply for a job and I have to check the box—

That’s next time, on Freakonomics Radio.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Brian Gutierrez. Our staff also includes Alison Hockenberry, Merritt Jacob, Greg Rosalsky, Stephanie Tam, Eliza Lambert, Emma Morgenstern and Harry Huggins; the music throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, or via email at radio@freakonomics.com.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Swati Bhatt, professor of economics at Princeton University.

Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic.

Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute.

Robert Reich, professor of political science at the Stanford University.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and C.E.O. of New America.

RESOURCES

“America’s Monopoly Problem: What Should the Next President Do?” Elizabeth Warren, New America (June 29, 2016).

“Antitrust: Commission Fines Google €2.42 Billion for Abusing Dominance as Search Engine by Giving Illegal Advantage to own Comparison Shopping Service,” European Commission (June 27, 2017).

How Digital Communication Technology Shapes Markets: Redefining Competition, Building Cooperation by Swati Bhatt (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

“Is Big Tech an Existential Threat?” Anne-Marie Slaughter, New America (October 5, 2017).

“Repugnant to the Whole Idea of Democracy? On the Role of Foundations in Democratic Societies,” Rob Reich (July, 2016).

“What Are Foundations For?” Rob Reich, Boston Review (March 1, 2013).

World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer (Penguin Press, 2017).

EXTRA

“Is the Internet Being Ruined?” Freakonomics Radio (July 14, 2016).

“Who Runs the Internet?” Freakonomics Radio (November 14, 2013).

The post Thinking Is Expensive. Who’s Supposed to Pay for It? appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/thinking-expensive-who-pay/

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Image copyright BBC / EPA

Image caption Each of the headliners will play to an audience of more than 80,000 people

After two days of build-up, Glastonbury kicks off in earnest on Friday when the Manchseter Camerata open the Pyramid Stage, playing orchestrally-enhanced versions of club classics.

Over the course of the weekend, more than 2,000 acts will play on the festival’s stages – but all eyes will be on the main headliners: Radiohead, Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran.

All three spoke to Radio 1’s Annie Mac this week, discussing their hopes and fears for the festival.

Here’s what they had to say, and a look at their history at Glastonbury.

Radiohead are headlining Glastonbury for the third time, 20 years after they first topped the bill.

That show, played just two weeks after the release of OK Computer, was named the best gig of all time by Q Magazine but Thom Yorke recently revealed he nearly walked off stage in frustration after the band’s monitors blew up, leaving them unable to hear each other.

“I just went over to Ed [O’Brien, guitarist] and said, ‘I’m off mate, see you later,'” he told BBC 6 Music. “He turned around and went, ‘If you do, you’ll probably live the rest of your life regretting it.’ I went, ‘Good point.'”

In the intervening years, Radiohead have done more than any other band to push the boundaries of rock music, stretching dark, brooding electronics over Yorke’s keening vocals. Their most recent album, A Moon Shaped Pool, rekindled their relationship with melody, and is bound to form the core of their set on Friday night.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionEd O’Brien from Radiohead chats to Annie Mac

Annie Mac: How are you all feeling about this?

Ed O’Brien: To be honest, a little nervous. A few days ago we were doing the setlist for a show in Denmark and we all fessed up: We had the Glastonbury tingles. You know, that anticipation and slight nerves. It means a lot. It’s a huge one.

What does it feel like to stand on that stage and look out to 100,000 people?

The first time we played it in ’97, it felt like we were looking out upon this scene of devastation. The rain was horrendous.

But the interesting thing is, when it’s really right, it doesn’t feel like there’s a divide. There’s a feeling of the band and the audience experiencing this thing together.

Can you tell us anything at all about what you’ll be doing on Friday night?

There won’t be any sort of guest appearances! I thought that Coldplay with Barry Gibb last year was brilliant [but] we’re not that kind of band.

What advice would you give to people who are virgin Glastonbury headliners?

It’s all about humility. For me, the bands who don’t do it on that stage – or anywhere in Glastonbury – are the ones who turn up with their shades on, and it’s all about them.

You’ve got to remember, you’re just closing the night. You’re not headlining, you’re one part of this huge, great, amazing beautiful festival. You’re providing maybe two hours of soundtrack to people’s enjoyment and experience at that moment.

You’ve got to leave your ego and shades at the gate.

Foo Fighters were all set to headline Glastonbury two years ago when Dave Grohl fell off stage and broke his leg in Gothenburg, Sweden. With two weeks’ notice, Florence + The Machine were drafted in to take the band’s slot, and Grohl spent the rest of the year recuperating (and performing from a specially-constructed throne). Now, he’s back on two feet, and ready to rock.

Powered by a seemingly endless supply of both hit singles and rock star charisma, the band are perfect headliner material.

Fist-pumping anthems like The Pretender, Best of You and Times Like These are likely to be joined by new single Run, but hopefully the band will avoid the temptation to break out brand new tracks from the forthcoming album Concrete & Gold – “a record that sounds like Motorhead doing Sgt Pepper’s,” according to Grohl.

Expect the mosh pit to be full for this one.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionAnnie Mac chats to Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl.

Annie Mac: Would it be right to say this show will be a pinnacle in your career?

Dave Grohl: We last played Glastonbury in 1998 and we were in our infancy then. We were halfway down the bill, it was pouring with rain and I think there was some sort of Euro cup final thing happening, so about 90% of the audience disappeared once we hit the stage.

We were supposed to be back a couple of years ago and unfortunately I had to call in sick. So this is a big make-up date for me. We get to headline Glastonbury but also I get to do it standing on two legs. It means a lot to me, personally. It’s part of my recovery in a weird way.

You’ve had two extra years of a build-up to this headlining slot. Are you feeling like it’s going to be better than it was then?

Now there’s more purpose to us playing the gig.

You know, Florence + The Machine took our place as headliners and I saw footage of them playing one of our songs, Times Like These, and I got really emotional and thought, “What a beautiful gesture”. But [it was] also a beautiful moment that connected the band and the audience, so I can’t wait to play that song.

I’ve been thinking about this for two years. Playing a song like Times Like These in front of that audience for the first time, standing up on two legs, is huge. It’s a big deal, personally.

In just six short years, Ed Sheeran has graduated from Glastonbury’s tiny Croissant Neuf stage to the top of the bill.

He proved his ability to get people on his side in 2014, when he inherited Dolly Parton’s record-breaking Pyramid Stage audience, and got them all waving their shirts in the air during Sing.

Amazingly, he does all of this by himself. No band, no backing singers, no pyrotechnics. It’s just Ed, slapping his hand against his acoustic guitar and layering up harmonies on a loop pedal, like a digital one man band.

Music snobs might turn their noses up at his more saccharine songs, but the Sunday night slot is traditionally reserved for an artist who can bring the crowd together for an undemanding sing-song. And in that respect, Ed fits the bill perfectly.

Annie Mac: How are you feeling about this weekend?

Ed Sheeran: Really, really, really excited. I’m actually more excited about this than I was about playing Wembley [Stadium] – because when you’re playing your own shows, you’re not really winning anyone over. They’ve all parted with cash to buy a ticket.

Knowing that there are people in the audience that possibly don’t like my music at all… that excites me.

What’s the plan for the set?

I’m doing it all by myself. I think the key to any festival set is just play songs that people know. I’m not going to be like, “here’s a new song that I wrote last week”. It’s all going to be songs people have heard. Some [of the] songs I don’t even play in my set anymore because they’ve been over done, but I’m remembering that this is the first time that a lot of people are going to see me.

What about getting some special guests out… like Stormzy?

Stormzy is playing on Friday, so I don’t think he’s going to be around. But Beoga – who are the Irish band that play on Galway Girl – are there on Sunday, so I might get them up and have a bit of a jam.

Will you be at the festival all weekend?

I don’t like big crowds of people, ironically! So I’m not a big festival-goer.

I’m actually taking the opportunity to be at home for two days and then I’m going to go in on Sunday. And I’ve got every single member of my family coming so it’s going to be like a wedding reception afterwards.

Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

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Psychic Archeology

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Psychic Archeology

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I had the chance to interview Stephan Schwartz, who has been pioneering “psychic archaeology,” where physics ‘sense’ the location of an ancient site by drawing circles on the map.

One of his projects was in Egypt where they found Cleopatra’s palace and Mark Anthony’s Palace- the Timonium and the Light House of Pharaohs, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. He shows me pictures, where they are busy discovering the edge of the ship.

They used electronic remote sensing equipment like side-scan sonars or proton precision magnetometers and ground penetrating radars.

Schwartz: “I always want to see: could you have found this using electronic sources? Because one of the criticisms is that: Well anybody could’ve found it.

I use multiple remote viewers, I get the information before we go to the site, I get additional information before we are at the site. Some of this info is turned over to a third party before any actual field work is done. Then we dig and then we have independent experts evaluate the accuracy of what the viewers gave us compared to what was actually found.”

Schwartz enthusiastically showed me pictures on his computer: “Now here’s an example – we had a very skeptical archaeological department from the university of Alexandria and they said ‘Well we’re not going to cooperate with you unless you can find something and we can control it all the way through.’ And so they wanted to find a buried building in a buried city that had a tiled floor.And so we went with two psychics into the desert looking for this one spot.

So here’s George McMullen – a psychic, and I, and we’re out in the middle of the desert. Where would you look? And we have to search about 1500 square kilometres. Well after a while we had George make a location and then we had Hella Hamid (another psychic) do the same thing. Then we bring George back in and we literally say to him-‘now put a stake in the ground at the corners of the building.’ Now think about that, you can’t be more than a few inches off. So then we dug down and there you see the walls beginning to emerge.”

I asked him why aren’t more people doing the kind of archaeological research that he has been doing?

Schwartz: “I think probably underlying it all is, that the whole premise which says that there is an aspect of consciousness which is independent of time space- is simply too much for some people to take aboard and they go into a kind of reality vertigo.

I don’t think for a moment that this is new or previously unknown; I think that much of this particularly from Buddhism and Hinduism has been known for thousands of years.”

SCIENCE FICTION?

Stephan talked about Jules Verne, father of science fiction, who was an inspiring French writer.

He envisioned in 1863 space flight and trips to the moon, guided missiles, skyscrapers of glass and steel, global communications networks, and submarines carrying hundreds of men miles below the surface of the sea. He predicted with startling accuracy all of these inventions, and the things that would be accomplished by them, long before they became reality. Some believe that many of these insights were self-fulfilling. This may very well be the case.

Schwartz then told me how over the past years he has asked about 4000 people to remote view the year 2050. This is what they found according to Schwartz:

People will live in small communities; People will travel in virtual reality.

Will it be safer? No there will be small wars, and terrorism will still be there.

We now think that because of overpopulation there will be a shortage of resources, but they ‘saw’ that under-population will be the problem. The pharmaceutical industry will disappear. Chronic illnesses will be identified before birth. We will communicate through devices that are implanted in our bodies. There will be no more money being used. There will be an energy revolution, and huge mass migrations of people. Global warming will be very clear 15 years from now. Water will be a huge issue. And we will all carry a small box with us. (RS: maybe a solar battery?)

A REMOTE VIEWER

Remote viewing has gone from being an obscure laboratory protocol to a social movement with its newsletters, conferences and variety of techniques. It has become a vocational interest for hundreds of thousands of people in the US.

Paul Smith, a teacher and Chief Coordinator for the CIA spy program in the 90’s, actually conducts real remote viewing sessions.

There are a variety of people all teaching different techniques. There are rules in RV to ensure the information one is obtaining could not be accessible to the psychic through any other means.

These rules, taken as a set, are called “the Protocol”.The protocol does not affect one being psychic; it doesn’t have much to do with the psychic process itself. Rather, it affects the situation one is being psychic within.

Paul Smith was taught by Ingo Swann, who compiled a set of methods in the 1980s.

I had to pick up him up at his home in a suburb of Austin (Texas) and we drove to a conference room in a hotel where he usually holds his RV sessions.

Paul Smith: ” I was an army Intelligence officer working at the Middle East desk. Actually I was a mild sceptic of ESP, but they approached me and said “Hey we think you’d be good at this thing.” I said well what is it? And they were secretive and said they could not tell me until they had tested me. So they gave me some tests and then they told me that they were collecting intelligence against the enemy using a psychic skill known as Remote Viewing, and they said: “We want you to be a psychic spy.” And I said- ‘WHAT? That’s just amazing. Are you crazy?’ Obviously this looked like it would be pretty fun. A lot more fun than what I was doing at the time, so I said: ‘okay I’ll try it, what the heck’. So I spent 7 years in their military program. And we were used to spy on the Soviet Union; to spy on the Chinese, the Hezbolah; Narco traffickers in the Caribbean- whatever or whoever they thought to be a threat at the time.”

I did a simple test with Smith. A week before we met, I had visited the Balboa Park in San Diego, and filmed around the area, and in particular the Apollo space shuttle in the Aerospace Museum. I left the tape with the footage in an adjacent room in the hotel. I asked Smith if he could ‘see’ the video footage on the film.

Smith prides himself on best preserving the methodology. He meditated first before he began the session.

Smith: “First I will describe the basic sensory impressions: its red, its spongy, its shiny, its rounded, hollow, or airy.”

He told me he teaches remote viewing because there is a demand for it, and as a way of making some income for his family. He added, “But more to the point I think remote viewing tells us a lot about human nature.”

For proper remote viewing you need a monitor. So Paul has asked one of his pupils to help him focus and prevent him from thinking or analyzing too much. This is because the left brain does all the analysis, but a remote viewer needs to shut the left brain down, so somebody (the monitor) has got to perform the adult functions so to speak.

I asked him, “So you’re not supposed to think too much?”

Smith: “Exactly, in fact the more you think, the more trouble you get into. Remote viewing is easy to learn but it takes a lot of work to get good at it. I would say that I am on target significantly more often than I am off. I usually say roughly 70% of the time I am correct.”

Smith explained how you have to first write down your name and date on a piece of paper: “Remote viewing crosses space and time boundaries so we have to lock in where you are at so that your subconscious mind knows where you are starting.”

After three minutes of meditation, Paul started the remote viewing session. Could he ‘see’ what is on my video tape?

Smith said: “Southern California setting, I see educational corners, remind me of having kids at a pool. Motor speedway, fascinating California coast.”

Indeed now that I think of it: The Balboa Park is next to the highway. There is a pond.

Paul seemed to describe the whole area, and not just the aerospace museum I had visited. There is an education centre. This was quite incredible.

Smith continued: “Brown, black, metallic… I like this place- I would like to go there myself. People here are thrilled- It reminds me of a state fair or something like that….Break… “A space capsule”.

The session ended after about half an hour. How many words are there in the English dictionary? 171.476. So the chances are 1 to 171.476 that Paul would mention the word: “space capsule.” Or was he reading my mind? Although that would be quite a miracle in itself. I left a brochure of the San Diego Air Space Museum in my hotel room, and brought it to him.

Smith: “That’s exactly what I sketched! Did I sketch that? And the space capsule right here. I had this impression of this tapering space capsule just like the Apollo. That’s good! I’m impressed with that.”

I asked him if he is not actually reading my mind?

Smith:” I don’t think so, but who knows? There’s no way of knowing. Maybe we just all gain information from the same source or we just trade the information back and forth.”

I soon learned that mind reading or telepathy does not typically happen between strangers.

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Psychic Archeology

New Post has been published on http://rolexsubmariner.shop/psychic-archeology-2/

Psychic Archeology

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I had the chance to interview Stephan Schwartz, who has been pioneering “psychic archaeology,” where physics ‘sense’ the location of an ancient site by drawing circles on the map.

One of his projects was in Egypt where they found Cleopatra’s palace and Mark Anthony’s Palace- the Timonium and the Light House of Pharaohs, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. He shows me pictures, where they are busy discovering the edge of the ship.

They used electronic remote sensing equipment like side-scan sonars or proton precision magnetometers and ground penetrating radars.

Schwartz: “I always want to see: could you have found this using electronic sources? Because one of the criticisms is that: Well anybody could’ve found it.

I use multiple remote viewers, I get the information before we go to the site, I get additional information before we are at the site. Some of this info is turned over to a third party before any actual field work is done. Then we dig and then we have independent experts evaluate the accuracy of what the viewers gave us compared to what was actually found.”

Schwartz enthusiastically showed me pictures on his computer: “Now here’s an example – we had a very skeptical archaeological department from the university of Alexandria and they said ‘Well we’re not going to cooperate with you unless you can find something and we can control it all the way through.’ And so they wanted to find a buried building in a buried city that had a tiled floor.And so we went with two psychics into the desert looking for this one spot.

So here’s George McMullen – a psychic, and I, and we’re out in the middle of the desert. Where would you look? And we have to search about 1500 square kilometres. Well after a while we had George make a location and then we had Hella Hamid (another psychic) do the same thing. Then we bring George back in and we literally say to him-‘now put a stake in the ground at the corners of the building.’ Now think about that, you can’t be more than a few inches off. So then we dug down and there you see the walls beginning to emerge.”

I asked him why aren’t more people doing the kind of archaeological research that he has been doing?

Schwartz: “I think probably underlying it all is, that the whole premise which says that there is an aspect of consciousness which is independent of time space- is simply too much for some people to take aboard and they go into a kind of reality vertigo.

I don’t think for a moment that this is new or previously unknown; I think that much of this particularly from Buddhism and Hinduism has been known for thousands of years.”

SCIENCE FICTION?

Stephan talked about Jules Verne, father of science fiction, who was an inspiring French writer.

He envisioned in 1863 space flight and trips to the moon, guided missiles, skyscrapers of glass and steel, global communications networks, and submarines carrying hundreds of men miles below the surface of the sea. He predicted with startling accuracy all of these inventions, and the things that would be accomplished by them, long before they became reality. Some believe that many of these insights were self-fulfilling. This may very well be the case.

Schwartz then told me how over the past years he has asked about 4000 people to remote view the year 2050. This is what they found according to Schwartz:

People will live in small communities; People will travel in virtual reality.

Will it be safer? No there will be small wars, and terrorism will still be there.

We now think that because of overpopulation there will be a shortage of resources, but they ‘saw’ that under-population will be the problem. The pharmaceutical industry will disappear. Chronic illnesses will be identified before birth. We will communicate through devices that are implanted in our bodies. There will be no more money being used. There will be an energy revolution, and huge mass migrations of people. Global warming will be very clear 15 years from now. Water will be a huge issue. And we will all carry a small box with us. (RS: maybe a solar battery?)

A REMOTE VIEWER

Remote viewing has gone from being an obscure laboratory protocol to a social movement with its newsletters, conferences and variety of techniques. It has become a vocational interest for hundreds of thousands of people in the US.

Paul Smith, a teacher and Chief Coordinator for the CIA spy program in the 90’s, actually conducts real remote viewing sessions.

There are a variety of people all teaching different techniques. There are rules in RV to ensure the information one is obtaining could not be accessible to the psychic through any other means.

These rules, taken as a set, are called “the Protocol”.The protocol does not affect one being psychic; it doesn’t have much to do with the psychic process itself. Rather, it affects the situation one is being psychic within.

Paul Smith was taught by Ingo Swann, who compiled a set of methods in the 1980s.

I had to pick up him up at his home in a suburb of Austin (Texas) and we drove to a conference room in a hotel where he usually holds his RV sessions.

Paul Smith: ” I was an army Intelligence officer working at the Middle East desk. Actually I was a mild sceptic of ESP, but they approached me and said “Hey we think you’d be good at this thing.” I said well what is it? And they were secretive and said they could not tell me until they had tested me. So they gave me some tests and then they told me that they were collecting intelligence against the enemy using a psychic skill known as Remote Viewing, and they said: “We want you to be a psychic spy.” And I said- ‘WHAT? That’s just amazing. Are you crazy?’ Obviously this looked like it would be pretty fun. A lot more fun than what I was doing at the time, so I said: ‘okay I’ll try it, what the heck’. So I spent 7 years in their military program. And we were used to spy on the Soviet Union; to spy on the Chinese, the Hezbolah; Narco traffickers in the Caribbean- whatever or whoever they thought to be a threat at the time.”

I did a simple test with Smith. A week before we met, I had visited the Balboa Park in San Diego, and filmed around the area, and in particular the Apollo space shuttle in the Aerospace Museum. I left the tape with the footage in an adjacent room in the hotel. I asked Smith if he could ‘see’ the video footage on the film.

Smith prides himself on best preserving the methodology. He meditated first before he began the session.

Smith: “First I will describe the basic sensory impressions: its red, its spongy, its shiny, its rounded, hollow, or airy.”

He told me he teaches remote viewing because there is a demand for it, and as a way of making some income for his family. He added, “But more to the point I think remote viewing tells us a lot about human nature.”

For proper remote viewing you need a monitor. So Paul has asked one of his pupils to help him focus and prevent him from thinking or analyzing too much. This is because the left brain does all the analysis, but a remote viewer needs to shut the left brain down, so somebody (the monitor) has got to perform the adult functions so to speak.

I asked him, “So you’re not supposed to think too much?”

Smith: “Exactly, in fact the more you think, the more trouble you get into. Remote viewing is easy to learn but it takes a lot of work to get good at it. I would say that I am on target significantly more often than I am off. I usually say roughly 70% of the time I am correct.”

Smith explained how you have to first write down your name and date on a piece of paper: “Remote viewing crosses space and time boundaries so we have to lock in where you are at so that your subconscious mind knows where you are starting.”

After three minutes of meditation, Paul started the remote viewing session. Could he ‘see’ what is on my video tape?

Smith said: “Southern California setting, I see educational corners, remind me of having kids at a pool. Motor speedway, fascinating California coast.”

Indeed now that I think of it: The Balboa Park is next to the highway. There is a pond.

Paul seemed to describe the whole area, and not just the aerospace museum I had visited. There is an education centre. This was quite incredible.

Smith continued: “Brown, black, metallic… I like this place- I would like to go there myself. People here are thrilled- It reminds me of a state fair or something like that….Break… “A space capsule”.

The session ended after about half an hour. How many words are there in the English dictionary? 171.476. So the chances are 1 to 171.476 that Paul would mention the word: “space capsule.” Or was he reading my mind? Although that would be quite a miracle in itself. I left a brochure of the San Diego Air Space Museum in my hotel room, and brought it to him.

Smith: “That’s exactly what I sketched! Did I sketch that? And the space capsule right here. I had this impression of this tapering space capsule just like the Apollo. That’s good! I’m impressed with that.”

I asked him if he is not actually reading my mind?

Smith:” I don’t think so, but who knows? There’s no way of knowing. Maybe we just all gain information from the same source or we just trade the information back and forth.”

I soon learned that mind reading or telepathy does not typically happen between strangers.

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