#event stream processing 2021

[aishavass]

Increasing focus on evaluating massive volumes of data along with achieving real-time data insights drives the demand for event stream processing market ...

[isagrimorie]

Disney+ Putting 'Showrunner' as Jac Schaeffer's title is a win for the WGA.

I remember in 2021 everyone was miffed when Disney+ had Jac Schaeffer credited as a Headwriter.

Effectively, the studio is making its TV shows as if they were roughly six-hour movies, applying the same production methodology it’s used for the 23 unprecedentedly successful interconnected feature films that comprise the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That means empowering directors to lead a lot of creative decision-making, in collaboration with a small cadre of hands-on Marvel creative executives who are with the project from the beginning and report up to Feige.

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For writers outside the company, however, Marvel’s decision to diminish the wide creative autonomy showrunners have traditionally wielded in TV — with directors and executives not just calling more shots within the production but also sitting in the writers’ room and requesting rewrites — touches a particularly raw nerve.

Fast forward to 2023 after the flop that was Secret Invasion and the mess of the first Disney+ Daredevil series, and after the WGA strike, Disney will now use Showrunners.

Daredevil is far from the first Marvel series to undergo drastic behind-the-scenes changes. Those who work with Marvel on the TV side have complained of a lack of central vision that has, according to sources, begun to afflict the studio’s shows with creative differences and tension. “TV is a writer-driven medium,” says one insider familiar with the Marvel process. “Marvel is a Marvel-driven medium.”  On the Oscar Isaac starrer Moon Knight, show creator and writer Jeremy Slater quit and director Mohamed Diab took the reins. Jessica Gao developed and wrote She-Hulk: Attorney at Law but was sidelined once director Kat Coiro came on board. Production was challenging, with COVID hitting cast and crew, and Gao was brought back to oversee post-production, a typical showrunner duty, but it’s the rare Marvel head writer who has such oversight.

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Marvel is making concrete changes in how it makes TV. It now has plans to hire showrunners. Gao’s postproduction work on She-Hulk helped Marvel see that it would be helpful for its shows to have a creative throughline from start to finish. “It’s a term we’ve not only grown comfortable with but also learned to embrace,” says Winderbaum of showrunners and Marvel TV’s intention to hire them. The studio also plans on having full-time TV execs, rather than having executives straddle both television and film. “We need executives that are dedicated to this medium, that are going to focus on streaming, focus on television,” says Winderbaum, “because they are two different forms.”  It also is revamping its development process. Showrunners will write pilots and show bibles. The days of Marvel shooting an entire series, from She-Hulk to Secret Invasion, then looking at what’s working and what’s not, are done. And just as Loki, which returned Oct. 5, marked Marvel’s first season two of a series (out of nine TV shows to date), the studio plans on leaning into the idea of multi season serialized TV, stepping away from the limited-series format that has defined it. Marvel wants to create shows that run several seasons, where characters can take time to develop relationships with the audience rather than feeling as if they are there as a setup for a big crossover event. 

Marvel tried to reinvent the wheel but found out the hard way why TV is made the way it's made. But also, it's hilarious how Disney Marvel tried to sell this whole strategic move as solely their idea and not because WGA strike kicked them in the teeth.

So, Jac Schaeffer getting the Showrunner credit on a Disney-Marvel 'Making Of' episode is a really big win.

[coffeegnomee]

Training my brain to learn that caring about something does not mean someone will die and it will all be lost.

Cw - death, OCD, mcyt death, dsmp and lifesteal, triggers

This is, obviously, something super personal. But sharing about it is what scares me, so I’m going to do it anyway and prove to my brain that it’s okay to care.

If you end up reading it, know you just read my heart. I hope it helps you process whatever you’re dealing with <3. 

I looked up OCD tonight because my brain constantly cycles through the same thoughts and worries about Lifesteal like Non Stop. Like I know I’m ADHD but this isn’t just a fixation on this server, but like debilitating spirals of thought. And all focused around analyzing if it’s all going to fall apart or not. 

They say ocd is a “limbic system impairment that occurs when someone experiences a traumatic physical or emotional event while their chronic stress load is already high.”

And that freaking resonated. They say exposure therapy can rewire the brain so let’s go explore what’s the event that’s keeping me spiraling.

My chronic stress load was extremely high that summer two years ago. And then Technoblade died. The longer it’s been the more I really sit with the fact that that was traumatic.

On top of the stress personally, now my favorite YouTuber, my comfort character on dsmp, the freaking anchor of that server, was just gone. Gone.

Dreamsmp came in a time of some pretty heavy depression. Obviously the pandemic was still occurring so that’s a chronic stress load itself (I found it January 16th 2021, so like, three days before the disc finale, but almost a year into covid) and watching through all the streams I was able to completely escape.

For the first time in months I was laughing. Like deep belly laughs. Full body. Actual joy. The neural rewiring my brain those first months was insane. It was pure serotonin.

I became motivated to work again, having something fun in the background. I looked forward to cherishing the lore, keeping those streams to the side for the evenings when I could really immerse myself into the story.

There’s a two-fold trigger that sends me into a spiral around loosing the thing that makes me happy. Unfortunately at the time, the things causing the chronic stress in my life stemmed from the things that used to bring me fulfillment and joy and purpose. They were being taken away, by my own choice, and from my health (more on that later).

So in the void of having my real-life anchors to bring fulfillment, dreamsmp was the thing keeping this whole body going. Truly a hanging on by a thread moment.

But even then, it’s not just about "loosing the thing that makes me happy" that causes these obsessive thoughts.

It’s the irrational connection that because the lore changed and the dynamic of the server stalled, that THAT therefore somehow that lead to Techno dying. (yes. An irrational and non related thought. I just realized with writing that that I have truly merged both those events so closely that when the first happens, I cannot let go of the idea of the second. I’m sitting here expecting someone to irl die.)

Huh. That’s interesting. 

It’s like, I read this from some random instagram post years ago. This woman’s husband died on a sunny day and then years later sunny days fill her with dread as if the weather was signaling that she would come home to the death of a loved on.

That’s what’s going on in my noggin.

Because it’s Quackity’s lore that changed the fabric of the dreamsmp. It didn’t have to, but it did. It came at the perfect storm when everyone was super burnt out and needed to run away from the insanity of both the fans and the haters and the sudden massive fame. 

He decided to do pre-recorded movies. On my live-stream smp. The very fabric of lore was changed. 

And because of the larger production, it took longer, and the other members of the server seemed to not know where to take their personal lore; everyone was waiting for that damn casino to open. And since all the lore ended up happening in pre-recordings we never again experienced that magic of live stream entertainment and improv and dumb bits. Everything was sanitized. For their own sanity, sure. But at the expense of the survival of the server. (Also Techno wasn’t available because of the chemo, so truly nothing was happening on any end of the server)

That perfect storm, loosing interest in the server and the lore being fundamentally changed, set the stage for the traumatic moment of loosing a member. That's my two-fold trigger.

And his death sealed the deal. I’ve never held it against them for not wanting to continue after. Season 2 was impossible the moment that happened. 

My chronic stress had exploded so far that my thyroid was fucked and I’m diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disease that keeps me fatigued more often than not. Besides that, my other main chronic stress was a realization that the Future I had always expected myself to take, the Plan that I had set out, I was suddenly extremely Not Sure I wanted to do anymore. 

But I had confidently told my friends and family for over 8 years that this is what I wanted (all this during college and after. I was already 26 at this time) (yes I’m old) (yes life is still crazy when you’re old) (but you start understanding yourself better). It was in this understanding of myself that I realized my direction needed to change.

Suddenly my whole identity I had built for myself was swept out from under me. 

At that. same. dang. time. That same week. That’s when the news broke. Literally broke me to pieces. 

And I hadn’t told anyone I was obsessed with Minecraft lore. Like bro. I’m out of college for a few years. Get a life. (But man. My eyes just light up when I think about this method of story telling. It’s just goated)

My mom sort of knew. She didn’t understand but at least I could tell her someone died and she had some sort of connection that I had been following this kid for over a year now. 

But no one else. The sorrow and pain of loss is just so much worse when you can’t explain why you cared about someone so much. It’s not like my parent died. Or sibling. It was a kid I had never met in person but I resonated with so much. 

And I remember distinctly thinking “It’s not worth not sharing the things you care about with other people”. Burned into my brain that day.

But time heals all wounds. Until something triggers it. 

I spent the next year just following Foolish, that ray of sunshine who was involved enough to have become my comfort streamer, but not too involved that it was painful to watch because of the memories.

It was a crazy fun year. Best comfort streamer. But people change, I change, and I missed Minecraft lore. You can only watch so much valorant before it’s just the same game.

Foolish found out he was on QSMP (I think it actually was before, I think he knew about the server before it was announced) and he started looking at Minecraft content and Minecraft builds again. For the first time in over a year. It was such a random day. 

But we watched Sandiction and… Rekrap2. 

Both of them stole my heart and I went, maybe it’s time to return to mcyt. See what’s been brewing.

And before I knew it I was on a month-long binge of Lifesteal content and just so absolutely lost as to what order everything came out in or what season everything was from. Shoutout them being allergic to click baiting “Lifesteal” or adding season tags to the description. It’s such a mess on Youtube lol.

Soon enough I found Baconnwaffles1. Not 0. 1. Somehow found his second channel first.

The videos caught my eye. I knew they were streams and I was trying to find the vods, but as you know Bacon doesn’t have a vods channel and his streams delete after 14 days. 

But then finally the fated video crossed my path: “This is PrinceZam and he just betrayed his teammates”

Oh my goddess what in the world is going on in this server. 

I needed to know. 

So began the true binge. Found Zam’s vods, watched season 4. And I discovered something amazing.

I have genuinely never resonated more with a character than I resonated with Zam season 4.

Every internal debate of Zam resonated with my own dilemmas. People pleasing and understanding what you value came to a head, and only one could win. But truly your values are the only real option because every moment of people pleasing will rub against your soul like hot coals. 

Remember those chronic stressors? The life I didn’t know if I wanted anymore?

As Zam walked between conversations with friends, teammates, and enemies, I recognized similar conversations in my life. 

I could describe the situation one way, and the person would agree and give advice. But then I realized I could describe the situation in a different light and then maybe they wouldn’t agree anymore. So I didn’t know what advice to take.

And then chat was so funny. The day before the wormhole they started giving too many opinions, the same opinions they had been giving for weeks, and in a flash I was like, omg he’s going to spiral again guys why are you like this. 

And then he was like, OMG chat, YOU’RE the problem! There’s too many of you and I’m trying to make everyone happy.

If I tell you I jumped up, screamed, giggled, and floundered around like a crazy person it wouldn’t even come close to what happened. I was so proud of Zam for realizing his emotions were being swayed by the barest opposition. From that third person point of view, I could so clearly see what was going wrong and I was cheering him on to realizing what he truly wanted.

I did, and still do, see so many of the decision making problems that Zam has, within myself. As a piece of media, and him being a character, it’s the craziest most relatable story I have ever seen. I’ve never resonated with a character more. 

Then we reached season 5. 

The first season I truly watched as it came out. I had gotten too obsessed with this Minecraft world. I wanted more. I loved these kids and their storytelling. 

But it was the first season when people started leaving the server on good terms.

Oh no. This sounds too familiar. People are loosing interest in the server I love. What’s next, a change in the fabric of how lore is created? 

Then there was a change in the fabric of how the lore was created.

We saw the new members approach the server with a recording-mindset. Who weaponized the lore against the old server members. Pretending they cared about the yapping but then revealing that in itself was a complete and total lie used to get you into the perfect position to either spoil the whole riddle or shoot you with an arrow canon.

And then. Not. Care. At. All. Zero remorse.

I don’t know why the betrayals by Jumper hurt so badly. But it hurt. A lot. (I was triggered that’s why) My emotional reaction was out of proportion to reality.

It’s not like it wasn’t a Lifesteal move, people had gotten into position to betray in the past, and would continue to do so in the future with Leo and Clown betraying Minute. 

But it was that “I have no remorse over the hours we spent as a team, not a single thread of care to you or to the yapping lore of this server”. It’s one thing to be betrayed by an enemy. Quite another to be betrayed by a friend.

So here I began. Triggered by something that wasn’t world ending. Quackity’s take on lore didn’t kill the server. Neither did Jumper’s. It was probably going to be fine.

But like. My brain is not agreeing. So I’m pushing back on it. 

Here’s what I’m finding.

This is a fun tidbit - when Mapic said “streams are delayed” when he was in the hospital before the finale I could not convince myself that he didn’t had cancer and wasn’t going to die. Bro. Tell me you’re triggered without telling me you’re triggered. (In case you didn’t see, it was just a concussion)

I’m so hyper aware of everything that could indicate I’m going to loose someone I care about again.

The pattern recognition is going out of control. 

And I keep trying to calm my brain down and catalogue all the reasons I know and believe Lifesteal will be perfectly fine for probably a while. Like how they have meetings all the time to discuss what went down on the server. They’re talking all the time to work out interpersonal problems and lore problems so that everyone is happy and feels heard. And they’re watching movies together. Meeting up and strengthening relationships. Changing admins as necessary. 

And I say it again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Every time something throws the smallest pebble at stability I walk my brain back through all the indicators that everything will be fine. 

Jumper:

Jumper loves being on the server. She’s said it. She’s so excited about it. She did have a plan. She didn’t tell us the plan as it went, but she does stream. She’s getting comfortable with the idea of streaming, she’ll learn to trust chat over time. She’ll learn how to loose gracefully on this server at some point. Probably. hopefully. And since I don’t know when that will be I’ll just have to wait until season 6 and see what happens. It’s out of my control. She’s fine. It’ll be fine. 

Pentar:

Pentar is fine. He doesn’t understand why chat would tell him he’s the most likely to betray even though every video he betrays. Why is he doing that that’s so weird. But he’s a great teammate and everyone likes having him around. I don’t like how he laughs at Zam, but like I can give him the benefit of the doubt that he just doesn’t take anything seriously and laughs in the face of anything serious. I’ll have to wait and see until next time to see how I feel about what he does on the server. Real life can’t be repeated over and over so just let it go. It’ll be fine.

Minute:

Minute is just so happy to be in Lifesteal. He loves it so much. You can tell by how he speaks every time there’s a group moment. He’s going to be admin next season. He loves this server. He may be overly attached to the Rules and have black and white thinking and he sometimes wields that for his own gain and I hate when he does that can he just have fun and take things less seriously? But I think he’ll get it. He’s competent. And he loves the server. He wouldn’t destroy it even on accident because someone would call him out before that happens. It’s going to be fine. 

Ash: 

Ash can be mean and also not care about the good that our side is doing and just wave them away saying they’re just evil. He does’t get it. But also he’s quite the actor. He puts on a lore face when he logs on, you can see it in season 4 with the wormhole. You can see it when he logs on for the justice league returns and he’s so committed to being good and fighting evil and as Zam is killing Mid in the background and he’s all shocked as if he was not the one who goaded Zam into killing her moments before. It’s a character. Even when it feels like it shouldn’t be. He does take random events in stride, pulling up the meditation guidance video when they all got killed. He’s stressed out by it, but also takes it with some levity. He’ll be fine. He just chose a questionable character to act this season and didn’t know how to balance his position as admin separate from his need to win. But he’ll be fine.

Can you see how this is exhausting? This is my brain on the daily. 

Every day I find myself working through each person one after another as something small comes up to threaten the balance, or reinforce the good.

This is when I noticed this wasn’t simple excitement about the lore, thinking and guessing about what might happen.  It was the same thoughts over and over and over. And I couldn’t stop a line of thought until I mentioned all the things. That’s what made me look up ocd. 

But back to it, I’m actually so much more okay with Ash because it’s been a couple seasons with him. I’m starting to see his tells. So I can just let the rough parts slide away. 

And that’s really what I just have to accept. That I can’t self soothe my way into being okay. Resisting acknowledging what I’m afraid of is just making me spiral more. 

We’ve seen people choose to leave after stressful seasons. We know some people become aware that they aren’t cut out for Lifesteal. Or they just don’t want to be. Some of these members might decide that. And Lifesteal has continued despite members leaving. 

OMg can I please stop cataloging how it will be fine?

I have to sit with the reality and realize nothing bad DID happen, NOT that nothing bad MIGHT happen. 

(This is unironically so counterintuitive to my brain. What do you mean I have to just accept that nothing bad happened, what if something bad does happen!) (But that’s what anxiety looks like. That’s not a good)

How do you convince yourself that you can’t predict the future? Asking for a friend.

I think it goes back to caring. I don’t think I’m allowed to care about any of this. That it’s silly, or dumb, or immature. 

It was, in fact, in caring itself that the loss of Techno was so painful.

So I don’t allow myself to care. To get too invested. Any time I see that I’m caring I push up on the walls of my trenches and shove that shit out. Only analytical thoughts in here. Measurable, quote-filled analyses.

But caring does not therefore mean there will be a loss.

So. Okay. Pivot. What am I really afraid of? 

I’m afraid the server will end. That something will make Zam give up and leave. 

Wow. I thought that was going to be a long ass paragraph but it really is just that. I know I’ll stop watching lifesteal if Zam is gone. Unless someone new comes in that has his same spark and dedication. Unlikely. 

So that threat is the worst. 

And I’ve seen his interest wax and wane. I know he can disappear for a month. 

But I also know he can come back. And he’s been a lot more mature and healthy and confident in being the streamer of Lifesteal. In how much he loves the server. 

Which is where pb&j being such a threat to the fabric of how lore is done is so scary, because that changes Zam’s care. But then again. It really didn’t. He just pivots. 

One of the most healing things has been watching the old members leave and continue to make content. And seeing how they choose to make their exit. They honored the server and the time they were there, in Rek’s case uplifting Lifesteal.net, in Parrot’s in completely reediting all his footage into a cohesive story. 

And then they still make content together. All the members make content with each other outside of Lifesteal. (And those that left the internet forever, that was okay too)

So that’s nice. Some bad things came to pass, and they've shown their response to it. Also Zam taking a break didn’t change how the lore was created, so that wouldn’t be a trigger. 

The trigger from that fear would be if he did leave, my brain would go into high gear looking for who was going to die. And I would have a new post to write lol. 

The trigger that is still tilting me is that pb&j changed how the lore was made, and my brain went *danger* *danger* This is something that happened last time and you know how that turned out! Start looking for who is going to die!

And it stopped me from seeing how this is not the same situation. The pattern for a death that I think I’m seeing, is not a pattern. 

And sitting with how nothing DID go wrong, that fear did not come to pass, is exposure therapy.

Because nothing went catastrophically wrong with the season 5 finale. I just keep closing my eyes, sitting in the problematic lore, and not accepting what actually happened at the end of the season, and freaking out that disaster is coming.

So what happened?

Season 5, you tried to kill my server. 

But The server resisted. (Hahahah undertale reference!)

Clown came back. Ro came back. Branzy betrayed everyone for Clown. Bacon and Zam sat in vc the entire finale fight. Mapicc fought until he couldn’t.

Spepticle gave his account then fought for it back. Pangi gave his account. Spoke gave his account. Red did the blessings/curses as Zam wanted. 4C said he was glad to give Minute the presidency because he knew Minute wanted peace and he knew peace was not an option in Lifesteal. Actually the quietest of goats. Didn’t realize he thought that deeply about the server. 

And it meant so much that Clownpierce, who hasn’t been meaningfully involved since the season 3 finale, came back and fought for his server. He made Lifesteal season 2. It’s always been his domain and he fought for its soul.

That’s the season 5 finale. 

The Players fought for Lifesteal. The server resisted destruction. 

This chapter is closed. This season got it’s ending. And it’s “not like last time” like my brain keeps thinking. 

The season might have ended with a lot of unknowns for how it will affect season 6. Will these old members still care? Will pb&j be a menace still? 

But what happened was a moment where everyone came together to care about the server. And that means the anxiety was unfounded. If something happens like this again, I have an example where everything didn’t fall apart to counter my fear that it will. 

See you around!

If you actually read to the end you’re amazing. Hopefully this is something you can do in your life to help understand what is the cause of your pain and anxiety. I wasn’t going to post it initially, but working it out as a post I could theoretically show to other people helped make it way more real than trying to work it out in my head, talking to myself. I had to write it in such a way that someone else would understand. Even if I didn’t post it. 

I’ll probably have many more days of writing when I notice a new trigger. Exposure therapy isn’t a one and done. (I probably won’t post any of those.)

But my body feels so much more relaxed now. Something has shifted in my head as a result of writing this all down.

Good luck!

[aois-amaterasu-painting]

Gekirock - Uruha & Kai interview (2021)

The New 10th Album and a Message for the Present Day, Released After Nearly Three Years! "What We’re Always Conscious of, at the Core, is the Live Show."

The long-anticipated full album MASS from the GazettE has finally arrived, marking nearly three years since their last release, NINTH. What’s more, this new work is their 10th studio album. Following the cancellation of their milestone 18th anniversary live concert last spring due to the pandemic, the band has been working steadily behind the scenes. This production involved significant online collaboration, a necessity of the times. The completed album is imbued with meaningful messages reflective of this unique era. Naturally, the release of such a monumental work raises expectations for live performances. Stay tuned for future announcements!

Interviewer: It has been almost three years since your last album, NINTH (released in 2018), and now you’ve completed MASS. Could you first reflect on the journey the GazettE has taken over this time?

KAI: After releasing NINTH, we spent quite a lot of time on an extensive tour, so a significant portion of our efforts as a band went into that.

URUHA: We were touring on and off for over a year, after all.

Interviewer: Indeed, starting with the hall tour PHASE #01-PHENOMENON in July 2018, followed by the standing tour PHASE #02-ENHANCEMENT, the live house tour PHASE #03 -Passion is Ferocious, the world tour PHASE #04 -99.999-, the Japan homecoming semi-final performance PHASE #05 -Mixed-Blood, and the FINAL NINTH LIVE AT 09.23 YOKOHAMA ARENA in September 2019—this LIVE TOUR spanned 61 performances, covering not only Japan but North America, South America, Europe, Asia—a truly massive undertaking.

KAI: Yes, and since it’s hard for us to mentally shift toward starting new material until after the tour is fully completed, this album’s creation followed the same process as usual—beginning about a year after the tour ended.

Interviewer: So when did the band—or even the individual members—begin to form a vision for MASS, even vaguely?

URUHA: The vision became clearer as we progressed with production. There wasn’t any rush to establish a clear direction; instead, we took the time to carefully discuss and decide on our next steps together.

KAI: By the end of 2019, we held our first song selection meeting. After a series of discussions, we gradually narrowed it down, eventually settling on the 11 tracks included in this album.

Interviewer: On March 10 of last year, during what was likely the middle of your album production period, the 18th-anniversary live show “18TH ANNIVERSARY DAY/6576” was originally scheduled to take place at the Musashino Forest Sport Plaza Main Arena. However, the GazettE made the decision to cancel the event after carefully assessing the situation, even before the first state of emergency declaration was issued. After that, it seemed like the band's activities went completely silent. While I assume you were focusing on creating MASS behind the scenes, why didn’t you opt for the types of outreach many artists were doing at the time, like audience-free streaming concerts or video uploads on YouTube?

URUHA: That’s simply because we had already planned to enter the album production phase at that point.

KAI: Actually, we had our second song selection meeting even before March 10. After that, we stopped production temporarily to switch into live mode and started preparing for the anniversary concert. Unfortunately, it ended up being canceled. So, once that was decided, we just returned to production as planned.

Interviewer: I see. When did you actually start recording?

KAI: We recorded in multiple phases, and the first session was last summer. At that time, we recorded just one track, the lead tune of the album, BLINDING HOPE.

Interviewer: Speaking of BLINDING HOPE, could you share why this particular song was chosen as the lead track for the album?

URUHA: It was a song RUKI (vocals) wrote and presented right from the start saying “this has to be the lead.” When we listened to it, it had a convincing impact and a strong presence that made it clear it was perfect as the lead track. All the members agreed on that point without hesitation.

KAI: This isn’t specific to this album; RUKI always thinks about it holistically and presents the main song and album title at the same time. We listened to his thoughts on that and respected his wishes as we continued to produce the album.

Interviewer: From the perspective of each player, what kind of sound did you think needed to be captured for the lead tune, BLINDING HOPE?

KAI: The phrases were already quite developed in the original composition, so I just added some of my own arrangements here and there. As for the sound, it wasn’t just about my approach as a drummer. Instead, we started from the question, “What sound should the band aim for next?” and built from there.

Interviewer: I'm really curious about what kind of conversations you had within the band when you were searching for this "next sound we should aim for."

KAI: Each of us brought up different reference points, including sounds from various international artists, we did talk about wanting to aim for something that focused on a fairly natural sound at first. I think that was because we were conscious of going in the opposite direction to our previous album, NINTH.

Interviewer: When comparing MASS with NINTH, the difference is striking. NINTH had a densely packed, almost enclosed soundscape, but in this album, even the sound of the kick drum seems to carry more resonance and a sense of space.

KAI: At first, we were even saying, “Should we just go back to recording normally for once?” But after further consideration, we decided to stick with the same separate recording method we used in the previous album. Of course, we used samples for some of the sounds, but one of the key changes was having a different drum technician this time. That likely contributed to the final result being noticeably distinct from NINTH.

Interviewer: Was the main change in the drum parts related to tuning?

KAI: It wasn’t just the equipment we used that changed; the change in the tuner was surprisingly significant. This person is very precise in tuning the snare and toms to match the original compositions perfectly. He seems to have great chemistry with me and provides lots of valuable advice. Honestly, I learned so much—it was really eye-opening.

Interviewer: It’s incredible that even with the GazettE’s 19-year career, you were still able to gain new insights like that.

KAI: Yeah, I was genuinely surprised by how much I still don’t know (laughs).

Interviewer: Did the unique drum sound that became the foundation of this album affect the guitar sound in any way?

URUHA: Since we recorded the guitars while listening to the recorded drum tracks, there were moments where I thought, “The sound is different from the pre-production stage. So that's how it turned out.” However, that didn’t lead to significant changes in the guitar sound. The sound changes drastically during the mixing stage, so getting caught up in minor adjustments during recording could cause inconsistencies in the overall album production. That’s why my focus was consistently on the sound of the album as a whole.

Interviewer: So you had to look at things from a big-picture perspective. Speaking of that, what were the key aspects you emphasized while working on MASS? My impression after listening to it is that there are many parts of this album that seem to be made with live performances in mind, starting with the SE track COUNT-10 leading into the lead tune BLINDING HOPE and the energetic ROLLIN’ with its drum solo intro.

URUHA: Absolutely, that’s exactly right. The GazettE rarely creates songs solely for recordings. We often approach music with live performances in mind. Even during the song selection process, we judge whether a track is suitable for live settings. Fundamentally, live performance is always at the core of what we do.

KAI: During the album production, we actually simulated setlists. We experimented with mixing new songs and existing ones to see what combinations would feel cohesive for a live performance. Based on those tests, we identified gaps like, “We need this type of song,” and added tracks accordingly.

Interviewer: Now, for the Gekirock readers, could each of you recommend two personal favorites from MASS?

URUHA: For the Gekirock audience, I have to start with BLINDING HOPE. It’s the one song that encapsulates the various elements contained within MASS. The melodic progression, the sense of speed, the intricacy of each instrument—this track is a condensed representation of the current state of the GazettE. Just by listening to it, you’ll get a good grasp of the album’s overall feel. And since Gekirock readers tend to be metalcore fans, I’d also recommend MOMENT.

Interviewer: Interesting choice. Why MOMENT specifically?

URUHA: For metalcore fans, I think it’s refreshing to sometimes take a break with a ballad like MOMENT featuring acoustic guitars. I’m guessing many of you don’t often listen to this type of song, and it’s also rare for the GazettE. It had been a while since I recorded with an acoustic guitar, and I hope you’ll enjoy this tranquil atmosphere.

Interviewer: When using acoustic guitars in the GazettE’s music, what is important to you?

URUHA: Normally, acoustic guitar parts are handled by AOI. However, MOMENT is a track where the acoustic guitar takes center stage throughout, including the guitar solo. Since it was such a special case, we emphasized capturing the natural resonance of the guitar body by recording it with a microphone. That said, faithfully reproducing the recorded sound in a live setting might be challenging due to the band’s overall acoustics, so I think we'll have to go through a process of trial and error from here on out.

"The thing is, the GazettE just can’t lie" - KAI

Interviewer: Not just MOMENT, but listening to MASS, I was reminded again of how strong the GazettE’s melodies are in general.

URUHA: I like heavy music, but I this is largely because our roots aren't in metalcore. Our roots are in visual kei, so of course we think about song melodies as the axis.

Interviewer: Meanwhile, KAI, what are your personal recommendations from MASS?

KAI: While I feel like I should pick something different from URUHA’s choices (laughs), I can’t leave out BLINDING HOPE. It’s the entrance to MASS, and more than any other track, it encapsulates what the GazettE is as a band. So, I can't leave it out.

URUHA: So, what about the other two songs?

KAI: Hmm, all the songs are my favorites, so it's hard to pick out just one (laughs).

Interviewer: In terms of drum phrases, HOLD has quite a flashy structure, doesn’t it?

KAI: Ah, yes, definitely. I think readers of Gekirock would probably prefer tracks like HOLD, BARBARIAN, and FRENZY. But personally, I’d like to recommend LAST SONG.

Interviewer: Please tell us why.

KAI: This is the song that concludes the album MASS, and if we do any tours in the future, it's definitely the song we'll play last at live shows.

Interviewer: That's why it's called LAST SONG.

KAI: Yes, it’s a track that really makes the live experience come to life, and I believe it will play an important role in our future live performances.

Interviewer: LAST SONG includes lyrics like "I was dreaming in despair" and "Wandering voices, here and now, screaming like that day." For those who have been eagerly waiting for the GazettE’s live shows since last spring, this song seems like it will be an incredibly emotional moment.

KAI: Yeah, this song carries a very strong message. The thing is, the GazettE just can’t lie—we end up expressing exactly how we feel in the most straightforward way. In that sense, BLINDING HOPE is also entirely that kind of song. Since this album was created during the pandemic, it was only natural for us to want to pack it full of the emotions we experienced during that time.

Interviewer: And which other track would you choose?

KAI: 濁 (Daku). I think this type of track might not be very familiar to Gekirock readers. It’s a song that really lets you immerse yourself deeply in its world, and I believe that’s one of our strengths. And being able to enjoy such a dark atmosphere is one of the best parts of visual kei, so it might actually be something fresh for Gekirock readers.

Interviewer: With tracks like NOX, which incorporates string elements into loud rock, and THE PALE, which evokes vivid imagery as you listen, the 11 songs on this album each stand out with their unique characteristics. That said, with such a wide variety of songs, wasn't it difficult to compile them into one album?

URUHA: If anything, it was actually a bit harder during NINTH. This time, we didn’t really struggle with that.

KAI: The GazettE has been a band that’s experimented with a lot of different things over the years. We’re quite accustomed to blending a variety of elements into a single album, so it’s something we’re pretty good at by now (laughs).

Interviewer: What was the most challenging part of the production process this time around?

URUHA: This time, because of COVID, we couldn’t gather as a band very often. All the string instrument parts were recorded at home. Even beyond the recording process, we had to proceed without being able to clearly see what each member was working on or how they were approaching things.

KAI: We even did the mixing online this time, which was a first.

Interviewer: When working on the guitar ensemble, did you also communicate with AOI online rather than in person?

URUHA: We kept using LINE and Zoom throughout pre-production. Even after the recording phase was done and we moved to mixing, we still had thorough discussions to make sure the ideal form we each had in mind matched up with the actual sound, so we kept communicating until the very last minute before the deadline.

Interviewer: In such a setup, what approach did you take to find solutions to issues as they arose?

URUHA: First, I tried to draw out AOI’s vision as much as possible—what kind of sound he was aiming for. In the past, I might have jumped in with my own ideas first, like, “Here’s what I think.” But this time, I focused on understanding what AOI wanted to achieve and then considered how I could contribute. Luckily, with tools like re-amping and cabinet IRs (impulse responses), we could tweak sounds extensively. We were able to adjust both AOI’s tone and mine in real-time during our discussions to bring them closer to our shared vision. It was a somewhat tedious and roundabout method (laughs), but it gave us ample time to share and refine our ideas. I think the way we aligned as a twin-guitar duo turned out quite well in the end.

Interviewer: Wouldn’t it be fair to say that it wasn’t a roundabout process but rather a meticulous and careful approach?

URUHA: I guess you could put it that way. Also, this time it was necessary to create from a bird's-eye view, rather than from a subjective point of view.

Interviewer: The twin guitar sound doesn’t clash unnecessarily; instead, it achieves a harmonious and refined ensemble, which makes perfect sense now.

URUHA: I'm glad. If you could feel that, it's all worth it (laughs). While it wasn’t to the extent of completely suppressing myself, this time I really focused all my energy on fully embracing the intentions of the composer, each part's preferences and finding the best possible landing point.

Interviewer: After completing MASS, is there anything new you’ve realized or learned from this experience?

KAI: We were able to do the production online, and as a result, we managed to create something like this. I’ve come to understand that the ideal way to work would be for everyone to gather in person for things like mixing. Hearing the sound from the same speakers and discussing it on-site is really important. When each of us listens on different speakers, our discussions can get a bit misaligned (laughs).

URUHA: The sound changes depending on the environment, after all. Things we used to do smoothly without any issues took unexpected extra effort this time. That’s definitely something to address moving forward, but realizing it was itself a significant takeaway from this production.

Interviewer: This album has been titled MASS. I would be grateful if you could explain a little about the thoughts behind this title.

KAI: The word MASS itself carries many meanings, so it’s not like the title is meant to reflect just one of those meanings. But the aspect of "MASS" as "one cohesive entity" is definitely one of them.

Interviewer: It seems like listeners will have the opportunity to explore and find the meanings themselves while enjoying this album. Also, this happens to be the GazettE’s 10th studio album.

KAI: Yes, and we kept that in mind with the jacket design. It’s a collage that incorporates elements from all our album covers since our first full-length album, DISORDER, released in 2004. In that sense, you could interpret MASS as a square within a square*, and I think it can be interpreted in many other ways.

*The term he used is "枡目の枡" (masume no masu). It’s like saying the "unit" or "box" that is a part of the grid. So, it’s a way of emphasizing that the "masu" itself is a part of a larger, organized structure made up of smaller units.

URUHA: That said, MASS isn’t what you’d call a conceptual album. It wasn’t created around a specific theme. It’s more accurate to say it encapsulates the core of the band, distilled into one record at this moment in time. But this doesn’t represent some sort of final destination for the GazettE. If anything, it’s just a checkpoint. This is our best work at this time, but there are still many unanswered questions even after finishing the recording. Those are things we’ll have to discover as we keep moving forward. Creating this album really reminded me, after three years, "Oh yeah, this is what making an album feels like" (laughs).

Interviewer: As the GazettE celebrates 19 years this year and approaches its 20th anniversary next year, we sincerely hope for the day when we can hear the songs from MASS performed live as soon as possible.

KAI: Since we’ve released MASS, of course we want to follow it up with live performances. That’s definitely on our minds. However, we’ll need to consider the timing carefully. Regardless, we’re making preparations so that we’re ready to go whenever the opportunity arises. So, I’d like to say it clearly here: We will do live shows!

URUHA: The issue of COVID-19 is a global one, so for now, saying “We want to do live shows” is really just an expression of our hopes. But if people listen to MASS and feel, “I want to go to their concert!” then we believe it’s our job to create the conditions to respond to that feeling as much as possible moving forward.

Interviewer: How are you feeling about the upcoming 20th anniversary next spring?

URUHA: We had a lot of plans in place for the 20th anniversary, but some of them have had to be changed under the current circumstances. Still, when I think about it, I feel like reaching 20 years is pretty incredible. I'm amazed that we've lasted this long (laughs).

KAI: Hahaha (laughs).

URUHA: But as the years go by, I’ve come to feel more and more that it’s because of the five of us that we’ve been able to keep going. Our members are truly resilient, and their love for the band runs deep. Without that, we wouldn’t have made it through all the rough seas we’ve faced over the years. I felt that once again when we finished MASS.

KAI: That’s why, even beyond the 20th anniversary, all we want to do is keep expressing what we want to convey through our music. That’s everything for the GazettE.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

While many people can conjure up romantic visions of a Montana ranch — vast valleys, cold streams, snow-capped mountains — few understand what happens when the cattle leave those pastures. Most of them, it turns out, don’t stay in Montana.

Even here, in a state with nearly twice as many cows as people, only around 1 percent of the beef purchased by Montana households is raised and processed locally, according to estimates from Highland Economics, a consulting firm. As is true in the rest of the country, many Montanans instead eat beef from as far away as Brazil.

Here’s a common fate of a cow that starts out on Montana grass: It will be bought by one of the four dominant meatpackers — JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill and Marfrig — which process 85 percent of the country’s beef; transported by a company like Sysco or US Foods, distributors with a combined value of over $50 billion; and sold at a Walmart or Costco, which together take in roughly half of America’s food dollars. Any ranchers who want to break out from this system — and, say, sell their beef locally, instead of as anonymous commodities crisscrossing the country — are Davids in a swarm of Goliaths.

“The beef packers have a lot of control,” said Neva Hassanein, a University of Montana professor who studies sustainable food systems. “They tend to influence a tremendous amount throughout the supply chain.” For the nation’s ranchers, whose profits have shrunk over time, she said, “It’s kind of a trap.”

Cole Mannix is trying to escape that trap.

Mr. Mannix, 40, has a tendency to wax philosophical. (He once thought about becoming a Jesuit priest.) Like members of his family have since 1882, he grew up ranching: baling hay, helping to birth calves, guiding cattle into the high country on horseback. He wants to make sure the next generation, the sixth, has the same opportunity.

So, in 2021, Mr. Mannix co-founded Old Salt Co-op, a company that aims to upend the way people buy meat.

While many Montana ranchers sell their calves into the multibillion-dollar industrial machine when they’re less than a year old, never to see or profit from them again, Old Salt’s livestock never leave the company’s hands. The cattle are raised by Old Salt’s four member ranches, slaughtered and processed at its meatpacking facility, and sold through its ranch-to-table restaurants, community events and website. The ranchers, who have ownership in the company, profit at every stage.

The technical term for this approach — in which a company controls various elements of its supply chain — is vertical integration. It’s not something many small meat businesses try, as it requires a huge amount of upfront capital.

“It’s a scary time,” Mr. Mannix said, referring to the company’s sizable debt. “We’re really trying to invent something new.”

But, he added, “No matter how risky it is to start a business like Old Salt, the status quo is riskier.”

[mariacallous]

Forty-seven years ago today, everything changed. True believers might already know what it was: On May 25, 1977, Star Wars hit movie theaters and irrevocably altered nearly everything pertaining to the act of moviegoing. Lines around the block, overly excited nerds, an appetite for action figures. Star Wars taught Hollywood that certain genres—sci-fi, fantasy, anything that percolated in the offbeat TV shows, books, and comics of the 1950s and ’60s—had fans, and those fandoms would show up. Star Wars made a meager $1.6 million in the US in its opening weekend. But people kept coming back, and by the end of its initial run it had made more than $300 million. Hollywood’s Next Big Thing had arrived.

Common wisdom dictates that Jaws, which came out in 1975 and made some $260 million, was the first summer blockbuster. That’s true, but it was Star Wars that shifted the idea of what kind of film future popcorn flicks tried to be. In the years after its release, a trove of sci-fi and genre films landed in theaters: Blade Runner, Alien, E.T., the Mad Max sequel The Road Warrior. By the ’90s, the summer movie energy had shifted to action fare—Twister, Speed, Jurassic Park, Independence Day—but nerd stuff still ruled. For every Forrest Gump there was a Batman Returns or Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Then came a little juggernaut called Marvel. By the time Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies started clearing nine-figure opening weekends in the aughts, it was obvious that comic book heroes’ true superpowers involved making your money disappear. The Avengers opened in early May 2012 and nearly recouped its $200-million-plus production budget in three days. Suddenly, there were at least two superhero movies every year, if not every summer, and some new Star Wars flicks at the holidays.

The one-two punch of Covid-19 theater closures and streaming pretty much kneecapped this entire process. The summer of 2020 had virtually no blockbusters, and by the time moviegoers returned to multiplexes in 2021 and 2022, there had been a vibe shift. Movies like Black Widow and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness did well, but they weren’t events. Rushing to Fandango for tickets didn’t feel as urgent as it once did. Last summer, Barbenheimer was the buzziest thing in movies. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 made money, but they still got beat by Barbie’s might.

Overall, this year could be a wake-up call for studios that superhero fatigue has fully set in, says Chris Nashawaty, author of The Future Was Now, a new book out in July about how the movies of 1982—Blade Runner, E.T., Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, among others—ushered in the current blockbuster era. That epoch, he says, “was always going to be something that couldn’t last forever; I’m frankly surprised that it lasted as long as it did.”

Nashawaty says the success of Barbenheimer—both movies—indicates that audiences are hungry for smart films, but Hollywood’s risk aversion likely means studios will greenlight more projects based on toys and games like Monopoly rather than movies about physicists. “This is a real existential moment in Hollywood right now,” he adds, and studios need to be bold to stay relevant.

Summer 2024, which unofficially begins this weekend, promises a move away from the formula that has been in play for decades. There are only a handful of big popcorn-ready movies coming, and they’re decidedly less family-friendly than the blockbusters of yore. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which dropped on Friday, is a teeth-chatteringly gritty prequel about a kidnapped woman (Anya Taylor-Joy playing the younger version of Charlize Theron’s character from Mad Max: Fury Road) who ends up in a war between two overlords and has to fight her way out. Deadpool & Wolverine is a Marvel movie, yes, but it’s apparently a paean to pegging and cocaine so hard-R that Ryan Reynolds won’t shut up about it.

The series of weird indies coming in the next few months—the thriller Cuckoo, Ti West’s latest horror flick MaXXXine, a new collab from Poor Things pals Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos called Kinds of Kindness—finally have some room to get into the summer movie conversation.

Make no mistake: I am typing these things with glee and admiration. Glossy family movies have their place, but they’ve grown awfully predictable. Safe—not necessarily in their plots, but in their substance. No matter how fun last year’s barn-burner The Super Mario Bros. Movie was, you can’t say anything about it was surprising, much less new. No one walked into the theater for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and walked out as gobsmacked as they were when they saw Star Wars, or even Speed.

This is not a “Hollywood is so homogenized” argument. Rather, it’s a reminder that Tinseltown wasn’t always this way. Its influence used to introduce people to the future. What’s happening now has the potential to mark a return to the kind of startlingly original movies that used to be hits. Between the pandemic, streaming, and the Hollywood strikes of last summer, a lot of old habits got broken, and there’s a sense that a renaissance is afoot.

This revitalization won’t come easy, if it comes at all. Summer 2024 still has its share of redos and sequels—a new Inside Out movie, reboots of ’90s summer staples The Crow and Twister. (The latter is the aptly-named Twisters; there are more tornadoes this time, apparently.) But even those movies at least feel like they’re grasping for the prefranchise days, even if they’re birthing franchises in the process.

Furiosa is currently projected to bring in more than $40 million at the US box office this weekend, a figure that would bring it close to Fury Road’s tally but may not convince Hollywood execs that it should bankroll more R-rated, original shockbusters. It would, presumably, best The Garfield Movie, which is also out this weekend and has the makings of a more surefire hit: well-known IP, animated, PG-rated. (For the record, though: Critics seem to think it sucks.) Early ticket sales for Deadpool & Wolverine are already breaking records for an R-rated movie. Should it dominate the conversation for a couple weeks while also raking in money, that embrace of a very not-Disney Disney movie—coupled with Furiosa and Hot Barbenheimer Summer—could signal a tipping point.

Look, nothing will ever completely derail Hollywood’s reliance on sure things. Video game adaptations remain poised to take the crown long held by superhero flicks. (Borderlands, starring Cate Blanchett, is coming to theaters this August.) But if this summer’s ever-sprawling slate turns up just enough weird hits, maybe we’ll once again know the feeling of walking out of Star Wars for the first time.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

New model predicts solar storm particle acceleration and escape

The sun, a searing hot sphere of gas primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, boasts surface and outer atmospheric temperatures ranging from 10,000 to 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit on its surface and its atmosphere's outermost layer. This intense heat causes the sun to continuously emit a stream of plasma, made up of charged subatomic particles—mainly protons and electrons. These particles, possessing significant energy, escape the sun's gravitational pull and drift into space as solar wind. Understanding how charged particles interact with other transient eruptions of energy from the sun can help scientists study cosmic rays emitted in supernova explosions.

Thomas Do, an astronomy graduate student at Michigan State University, published a paper predicting how particles accelerate under a wider net of circumstances than previous models. His model could be applied to solar storms that impact technology in space.

Do started working on charged particles three years ago during an undergraduate research project at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. His research aimed to illuminate how charged particles accelerate when they're swept along by powerful ejections of mass from the sun. Those explosions are called coronal mass ejections, and when they're fast enough, they can create shock waves.

"As they fly out from the sun, they interact with charged particles along the way. During those interactions, particles gain energy from the shock wave," Do said.

As the particles gain energy, they hurtle faster and faster into space and toward Earth. Sometimes, particles gain so much speed that they catapult past the crest of the shock wave, escaping from behind it and into the cosmos.

To understand how charged particles escape, Do expanded on a model developed in 2021 by Federico Fraschetti, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics. Fraschetti and Do's updated model predicts how particles accelerate and escape under a wider range of energies than previous models. In particular, their model accounts for the escape from the accelerating region of particles over a range of higher and lower energies. That's important, Fraschetti said, because previously only high-energy particles were thought to break free from riding a shock wave.

The previous model scientists used to make predictions about charged particles—developed around 50 years ago—didn't include low-energy particles. Using multiple energy levels in their updated model, the team created a set of equations that predict how particles accelerate over time and how many particles escape at each energy level.

"We're trying to allow for more particles to escape because we believe that's more physically realistic," Do said.

After expanding the model, he and Fraschetti wanted to compare it to an actual solar event.

They knew it was only a matter of time before they would have a chance, Fraschetti said. That's because the sun reaches its solar maximum when solar activity is at its highest in its 11-year cycle. During a solar maximum, the massive explosions needed to generate shock waves are more frequent and more intense.

The team didn't have to wait long for such an event. On Sept. 5, 2022, the sun spat a huge wad of energy into space just as NASA's Parker Solar Probe took one of its closest dives toward the star. The probe recorded data such as particle speed and temperature as the explosion's shock wave smashed into it.

"We were so lucky in September 2022 to see the very beginning of this process," Fraschetti said. "This is one of the events that Parker Solar Probe was designed to measure."

They found that their model's prediction matched what the Parker Solar Probe reported: particle acceleration and escape across a range of energy levels. The probe was very close to the sun—for scale, if the Earth and sun were a meter apart, the probe would only have been about 7 centimeters away. That proximity meant that the particles it passed had recently crossed paths with the shock wave, so the team could see data on particles that hadn't gained much speed yet.

"The model showed an excellent agreement with the data and confirmed that our physical expectation of what happens to young shock waves close to the sun is correct," Fraschetti said. "We had never tested this expectation, and it did not have to be this way."

"This model can be used in other areas of space research that involve charged particles," Do said.

[beardedmrbean]

A seaside hotel and former bank offices on the Isle of Man have been used by scammers conning victims in China out of millions of dollars, a BBC World Service investigation has found.

The dining room and lounge at the Seaview Hotel in Douglas were packed with dozens of Chinese workers, we have been told, on computers hooked up to fast broadband. A specialist wok hob had also been delivered to the hotel’s kitchen.

The deception, which happened between January 2022 and January 2023 according to Chinese court documents, used a method known as "pig-butchering". It is so-called because the process of “fattening the pig” - gaining the victim’s trust - is vital to its success.

The BBC spent nearly a year establishing how the investment scam was carried out from the island, which is a British Crown dependency with an independent government.

We also uncovered other details, such as how bosses had big ambitions to build a state-of-the-art office complex overlooking the Irish Sea.

As well as obtaining court papers, we have accessed leaked documents and spoken to company insiders.

One former member of staff, Jordan [not his real name], told us he had no idea of the murky world he was entering when he arrived on the Isle of Man. He says he was relieved to have found what he thought was a stable administrative job.

He did notice, however, that his new employer seemed quite secretive - for example, he and his colleagues were forbidden from taking photos at company social events. What he says he didn’t realise was that many of his Chinese colleagues were actually scam artists.

In late 2021, nearly 100 people had been transferred to the Isle of Man to work for a company which Chinese court documents refer to as "MIC". They had come from the Philippines where they had worked for another scamming firm. The BBC has discovered that MIC stands for Manx Internet Commerce.

On the Isle of Man, MIC was part of a group of associated companies - all with the same owner.

An online casino, run by King Gaming Ltd, was the most prominent. In mainland China, gambling is illegal. Setting up halfway around the world meant the group's founders could target Chinese customers, but also take advantage of the Isle of Man’s low gambling taxes.

A few months after being based at the Seaview Hotel in Douglas, the MIC workers were moved to former bank offices on the east side of town.

And this is where Jordan says he would hear sporadic cheering from his new colleagues - who worked in groups of four. He now believes they were celebrating moments when they had successfully scammed another victim, some 5,000 miles away.

Six people who worked for MIC in Douglas have now been convicted - upon their return home to China - of carrying out investment scams against Chinese citizens.

The cases, heard in late 2023, detail the illicit money stream. Victims were lured by the defendants and their accomplices from bases on the Isle of Man and in the Philippines, according to the Chinese court papers.

They say the defendants would work in teams to pull Chinese investors into chat groups on QQ - a popular Chinese instant messaging service similar to WhatsApp. One scammer would play the role of an investment "teacher", and others would pretend to be fellow investors.

The BBC has seen evidence - including in the court papers - that many of those who arrived in Douglas from the Philippines were engaged in the scams. All used the same computer equipment, depended on QQ for their work and, with the exception of a few managers, all held the same job title.

The fake investors would build an atmosphere of hype and excitement around the money-making skills of the "teacher", who would then tell the victim to put money into a particular investment platform, the Chinese court found.

Dazzled by the hype, the victim would comply, only for their funds to be syphoned off by the scammers, who actually controlled these platforms and could manipulate them from behind the scenes.

The Chinese court said it was difficult to verify the victims' total losses - but it said 38.87m renminbi (£4.17m/$5.3m) had been taken from at least 12 victims.

Relying on evidence including the defendants’ own confessions, as well as travel and financial records and chat logs, the court found the six defendants guilty.

This was not only a profitable but also a sophisticated scam, say the court documents, requiring front line teams to deploy the "pig-butchering" techniques with persuasiveness and skill.

The BBC has discovered the identity of the companies' sole beneficiary. His name was hidden behind layers of administrative paperwork.

MIC and its affiliate companies were all held by a trust set up by an individual named "Bill Morgan" who, documents show, was also known as Liang Lingfei. Employees called him "Boss Liang", says Jordan.

The Chinese court papers refer to a man called Liang Lingfei being the co-founder of MIC on the Isle of Man - which it described as "a fairly stable criminal organisation established in order to carry out scam activities". Mr Liang was not one of those prosecuted or represented at the hearings.

The court stated that Mr Liang was also co-founder of the scamming organisation in the Philippines. The BBC has seen evidence that many MIC employees worked there before being transferred to the Isle of Man.

Our investigation has also found that Mr Liang obtained an Isle of Man investment visa and attended multiple company events on the island. His wife also owns a home in the town of Ballasalla, near the island’s airport.

The group of companies on the Isle of Man was ambitious, having signed a planning agreement late last year for a glitzy "parkland campus" headquarters on the site of a former naval training base. A spokesperson for the developers described it as the "largest single private investment in the Isle of Man".

Architects’ images show office buildings set on a hill above the seafront in Douglas. Inside would have been penthouse apartments, a spa, multiple bars and a karaoke lounge.

The campus was to be used by MIC staff and those working for MIC's "affiliate" companies, including those involved in online gambling, planning documents state.

Conservative estimates put the global annual revenues of the "pig-butchering" industry at more than $60bn (£46.5bn).

"This is the first such case we've seen of one of these [pig-butchering] scam operations setting up in a Western country," says Masood Karimipour, South East Asia representative at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Trying to stop the scams is like a "game of whack-a-mole", he says, and it is a battle that "organised crime is currently winning" as criminals engage in what he calls "jurisdiction shopping" where they perceive there to be legal loopholes and little oversight.

Any ambitions the group of companies may have had on the Isle of Man - legitimate or otherwise - appear to have come to an end.

In April, police raided the former bank offices. They also targeted an address next to the island's Courts of Justice building - using a ladder to enter through a first-floor window in the early hours of the morning.

In a statement released shortly afterwards, police said the raids had been in connection with a wider fraud and money laundering investigation in relation to King Gaming Ltd IOM. Seven people had been arrested and released on bail, they added.

Since then, a further three people are known to have been arrested.

Receivers were appointed earlier this month for companies in the group - including MIC and King Gaming Ltd IOM - at the request of the Isle of Man's attorney general.

The island's gambling regulator has stripped MIC's gambling affiliate companies of their licences.

The parkland campus site was cleared of trees and signage went up - but the redevelopment is now on hold indefinitely.

The BBC has made repeated attempts, via several methods of communication, to contact the companies involved - as well as Bill Morgan/Liang Langfei and company directors - but has received no replies.

We have also attempted to contact the Seaview Hotel, but have received no response, though there is no suggestion that anyone there was aware of any illegal activities taking place on the premises.

[dansemacabre]

genuine question, do you actually keep up with any of the cricket crew ccs? because it sounds like you might just be out of the loop. the stream gets mentioned semi-regularly now, tubbo (the one who planned it the first time) is considering doing another halloween stream this year, almost all of them are currently close friends and most never stopped being friends. the tom thing was supposedly not a bit but idk if he ever gave a full explanation, i think he was going through it that day.

in truth and honesty i do not, i sort of fell off w the fandom last year so i’m working mainly off of memory? i haven’t opened twitch in like a year and a half lmao. i still watch tommy’s stuff a bit and ik a clip of it was in tommys new video which really brought back The Recollections. i remember at least in 2021 that there was definitely a silent aftermath and probably not a falling out or anything but they’ve just never been in anything together since, and for a while i know it never really got brought up or if it did it was Awkward. im sure it wasn’t anything horrible or crazy and even if it was its deeply not our business but im just so fascinated by it as like. a historical event. a marker of its time. so much of 2021 was weird as shit and i feel like it’s just taken everyone a bit to Process it so now people are talking abt that content more. im also just fascinated by content groups as a community and what brings people together whether it’s friendships or business or just like similar audiences, and cricket crew is definitely one that i LOVED but also really want to understand. but maybe that’s my underlying trust issues now that folks who seemed close to w*lbur have said not only were they never friends off screen he was a weirdo around them WHAT WHO SAID THAT….. SCARY……….

[sussex-newswire]

"Once upon a time, Meghan Markle was a TV actress who worked on a successful show and ran a popular lifestyle blog called The Tig on the side. In her adopted home of Toronto, Canada — where Suits filmed for seven seasons — she spent most of her time hanging out with her castmates, practicing yoga and taking her beagle, Guy, for walks. Then she met Prince Harry.

"The pair wed in May 2018 and welcomed son Archie the following year. Meghan had found her Prince Charming, but life behind palace doors was no fairy tale. There was tension with Prince William and Princess Kate, and Meghan took a beating in the U.K. press. 'You’re established in one world and then you enter another and your narrative is dictated by external forces,' a family friend shares in the latest issue of Us Weekly. Amid intense backlash, Meghan, 43, and Harry, 39, left the U.K. in early 2020. They eventually landed in scenic Montecito, California (they purchased their $14 million mansion in July 2020), and had their second child, daughter Lilibet, in June 2021.

"While trying to process the events of the previous few years, she and Harry spoke candidly about some of the trauma they say they faced within the monarchy, first in a March 2021 bombshell TV sit-down and again in their hit 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan. Harry covered similar ground in his more expansive 2023 memoir, Spare. Meanwhile, Meghan shared additional revelations about royal life on her Spotify podcast, 'Archetypes,' until mutually parting ways with the streaming giant in June 2023.

"She briefly appeared to take a breather. But in recent months, Meghan’s been back in the game full throttle. She’s set to launch her lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, and her new Netflix series, centered around cooking, entertaining and gardening, has finished filming. In July, she joined a slew of Hollywood heavyweights, including Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow, at the Hamptons home of power broker Amy Griffin for a one-day business summit. 'Meghan was there to network,' says an insider. 'She was very kind and humble and eager to learn.'

"She’s been busy with philanthropic endeavors, too. In August, Meghan and Harry sat down with CBS News to discuss their new campaign, The Parents’ Network, which aims to protect kids from online harm. Two weeks later, they wrapped up a four-day visit to Colombia, marking their second international tour of the year following their May trip to Nigeria. '[I’m] looking at this as my chapter of joy,' Meghan said while attending an August 18 panel.

"'Meghan has transitioned from actress to royal to entrepreneur,” says a second insider. 'She’s worn many hats, but she believes age and experience have [prepared her] for a bigger purpose in life. She’s very happy with the role she’s carved out.'

"Here, Us talks to insiders close to Harry and Meghan about how she’s boldly stepping into her next act."

[eetarot]

The first official post.

I posted some preliminary work over on @qwertyfingers a few days ago, but I've decided to be organised for once and stick everything on it's own blog, so here's an intro post for organisational clarity. I'll be posting any and all updates about the project here, and that's all it'll be used for, to keep the streams from crossing.

What is this project?

I’m aiming to produce a full major arcana for a tarot, using themes, imagery, characters and places pulled from Everything Everything lyrics and odds and ends like interviews, song Q&As and so on.

Some major arcana cards have immediately evident analogues in EEs body of work. For example, The Empress is a ‘great mother’/'mother nature’ figure, protective and wrathful in turn, obvious parallels to Tin (The Manhole).

They will embrace me tonight as a A father and a son And I will carry homo sapiens through the night

Our Empress can be represented by the Fox, and potentially bring in some evolution imagery from Choice Mountain, Leave the Engine Room.

Judgement meanwhile is a representation of a rapture-like apocalyptic event that rewrites everything we know - which is heavily telegraphed in much Mountainhead but especially Wild Guess and The Witness.

Do you know what I saw? Nothing but endless fields of bodies swimming in the pit There was blinding light There were many eyes How could I know that? How could I know that? If I wasn’t there?

The role of Judgement in this deck will be played by this great accident in the pit. The exact visual it will take on is less apparent, but we have our basic inspiration already.

Other cards are more difficult. The Devil is hard precisely because there are almost too many options to draw from, but few prominent or recurrent enough to be the obvious choice. There are multiple places to draw lyrical inspiration for The Hermit from, but none of them provide any visual information. But this whole thing is a process and I’ll get there eventually.

Why are you doing this?

I had the initial idea for this project in 2021. I became really intrigued by tarots status as a sort of agreed-upon set of glyphs and stories shared across time and spent a lot of time researcing the different designs and meanings of cards throughout time. I don’t “believe” in the power of tarot any more than astrology (i.e. not at all), but I’m fascinated by the function of the imagery and art of the cards themselves.

During my reading I got to thinking about what I feel strongly enough about to consider creating a deck and I struck upon this. The first card I ever had a plan for was The High Priestess. Described as a sort of spiritual or social leader-by-example, a representative of the best of humanity and our collective knowledge. In a tounge-in-cheek way, that’s exactly what Come Alive Diana is about.

Her phantom head is thinking for all mankind I saw her portrait in the Mail Her phantom head was directing the holiest of hunts

I was immediately struck by the image of a spectral Diana cradling her own severed head in a pretty gruesome pastiche of the traditional depiction of the card, and haven’t been able to get the thought of it out of my mind since. It’s spiralled out of control since then.

So yeah. Mostly I’m doing this because it interests me on a purely artistic level, and because it’s a fun challenge to approach something really creative in a strangely scientific way. Like I’m dissecting and analysing a bunch of art I really enjoy and creating horrifying chimeras with the remains. I love it.

How will it all get done?

I’m a relatively experienced watercolour and gouache painter and illustrator, though I’ve never tackled a project this big before. The thing that scares me most is having to learn architectural drawings for at least two of the cards I have planned so far. But I look forward to it.

Right now I’m working on typing up all of the notes I have scattered between sketchbooks and notepads about my ideas for different things and making sure I know which areas need my attention most right now. Otherwise, I’m just vibing.

I welcome any questions or suggestions you might have in my ask box or messages! In an ideal world I’d like to complete all of the card artwork myself, but I have no pre-existing skill in graphic or product design and have no idea how to go about choosing a font or designing a card beyond the illustration and so if that’s something you do know about and would like to get involved please do.

Currently I have no plans of printing these up or making any overtures towards this being more than a casual passion project. My only experience with the professional art world is very informal local gallery shows and I don’t feel ready to change that!

[experimentik]

Experimentik #71 / February 21. 2024 / Peter Cusack / Kaffe Matthews / DuChamp

February 21. 2024 / 20:30- (doors 20:00)

3 x Solo:

Peter Cusack - field recordings, guitar

------

Kaffe Matthews - live processing the Ripley and Worm. 15th century alchemical systems

------

DuChamp - no-input mixer

------

FB event: https://fb.me/e/1clG9gmh3

----------------------

Peter Cusack is a field recordist and sound artist/musician with a long interest in the sound environment. He initiated the “Favourite Sounds Project, which started in London and has since taken place in Beijing, Prague, Manchester, Taranto, Hull, Berlin, Braunschweig. His project ‘Sounds from Dangerous Places’ (sonic journalism) has investigated the soundscapes of sites of major environmental damage like the Caspian oil fields, the Chernobyl exclusion zone and the Aral Sea, Central Asia, and asks the question, “What can be learnt about dangerous places by listening to their sounds?”. He is a member of Crisap (Creative Research into Sounds Arts Practice) at the University of the Arts, London and during 2011/12 was a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. His current work – field recording, audio streaming, soundwalks, guitar playing on location – often concerns the environmental crises as it is heard close to home, particularly in Berlin where he lives.

----------------------

Kaffe Matthews is a pioneering music maker who works live with space, data, things, and place to make new electroacoustic composition. Site, accessibility and the physical experience of this music has always been central to her approach and so she has also invented some unique interfaces – the sonic armchair, the sonic bed and a variety of sonic bikes which enable new paths into composition for makers, and ways in to listening for wide ranging audiences.

2021 and she developed the breathing Enviro Bike to enable riders to hear music made by the pollution of the air as they ride.  Summer 2022 saw the Buzz Bike in street compositional research in Berlin, now ready to make new vibrational composition.

Today, Matthews is back live on stage with no laptop. Instead a new DIY instrument the Ripley, a noise filter system designed on alchemical discoveries made by G.Ripley, a 15th British alchemist, flanked by 2 processing ipads.

Long concerned with community and the environment, Matthews has also established the collectives ‘Music for Bodies’(2006) and ‘The Bicrophonic Research Institute’(2014) where ideas and techniques grow within a pool of coders and artists using shared and open source approaches, publishing all outcomes online.

Since 1995 Matthews has performed and taught worldwide, receiving awards such as the NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship; Honorary Professor of Music, Shanghai Music Conservatory; a Scottish BAFTA with Mandy McIntosh & Zeena Parkins; Distinction Prix Ars Electronica Sonic Bed_London and Honorary mention for cd cécile. She is the first woman to have received the Edgar Varèse guest professorship, computer music, TU Berlin. Kaffe has also been releasing solo works on Annette Works since 1996.

photo © Samuel Carnovali

----------------------

DuChamp is an Italian scientist, musician and curator based in Berlin, religiously devoted to drone. She released albums for Boring Machines ("Nar"), Idiosyncratics ("Sculpture"), Full Body Massage ("A Blazing World"). Since 2017, aside baritone guitar and keys, DuChamp incorporate real field recordings in her music, related to her personal memory, into her drone compositions, by adding layers of sounds and noise in attempt to recreate some kind of apophonias.

-----------------

Experimentik 2024 is kindly supported by inm

[usafphantom2]

Viper Shield electronic warfare suite advances in the integration test with the F-16 AESA radar

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 11/09/2023 - 16:00 in Military

Artistic design of an F-16 Block 70 fighter, where during the recent integration tests of Drop 2, the Viper Shield demonstrated full radio frequency compatibility with the integrated APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar of the F-16. (Photo: L3Harris)

L3Harris' advanced electronic warfare (EW) Viper Shield set is proving that it is more than up to the challenge. During the recent Drop 2 integration event at the Lockheed Martin Systems Integration Laboratory, the Viper Shield demonstrated full radio frequency compatibility with the APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar aboard the F-16.

The tests included continuous exposure of the Viper Shield with APG-83 energy for more than 12 hours to test whether radar pulses would interfere with the functionality of the EW assembly. The test proved the ability of the Viper Shield to filter signal processing streams from APG-83 radar pulses without any performance impairment.

In short, the Viper Shield passed the test and demonstrated perfect interoperability, which means that the customer will enter the battlefield protected by the most advanced EW and radar features available.

“Situational awareness is essential to the success of the mission, especially in highly dynamic and unpredictable situations,” said Patrick Creighton, vice president and general manager of L3Harris Electronic Defensive Solutions. "When these two systems work together, they are able to detect and protect effectively against threats like never before."

The Drop 2 event marked the second interoperability test for the two systems; the first occurred in mid-2022, with equally successful results.

“These tests continue to highlight the advanced capabilities of the Viper Shield and the ability to smoothly integrate with the on-board systems of the F-16,” Creighton said. "All this results in more effective missions in the coming decades."

The success of Viper Shield is already spreading around the world, with several international partners already committed to the system, and many other air services around the world also involved in discussions about Viper Shield.

Introduced in 2021, the Viper Shield EW was custom designed to provide EW protection and offensive features in the fourth-generation Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72 multifunction aircraft. Software-defined technology components create a virtual electronic shield around the aircraft, revealing digital radar threats and providing robust countermeasure capabilities in a fully integrated and internally assembled system.

With lower life cycle costs, easier upgrades, greater reliability and reduced weight, the Viper Shield sets a new industry standard as the highest performance, lower risk and most cost-effective EW system for advanced F-16.

Tags: Military AviationEW - ELECTRONIC WARF-16 Block 70L3HarrisLockheed Martin

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[ruthannabelleckl]

Is social media useful in spreading information on Covid-19 in Malaysia?

Covid-19 is claimed to have originated in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019 and ultimately expanded to 200 nations globally (Salman, 2021). Social media, with over billion users, is vital for Malaysia’s government to spread Covid-19 awareness timely and educate the public on precautionary conduct. Social media enables people to generate and share information while socializing, enabling the flow of opinions, notions, and insights in online communities (Hussin et al., 2021). Governmental initiatives to enhance public health via social media have sprouted in the last several years (Dawi et al., 2021).

Navigating the Pandemic Wave: How Social Media Amplified COVID-19 Response in Malaysia

Malaysian citizens have access to Covid-19 updates through social media, including the official Facebook page, YouTube channel, and Twitter account of the Ministry of Health Malaysia, known as “Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKM)”. Besides, the Director-General of Health live-streams Covid-19 information on Facebook (Hussin et al., 2021). Notably, the Malaysian Ministry of Health and National Security Council reported Covid-19 cases on Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Twitter when Covid-19 initially affected Malaysia. This move was made because social media can approach individuals quickly with crucial information and updates.

Twitter represents one of the social media channels that the Malaysian government has selected in providing updates on the Covid-19 situation to alert people about maintaining good hygiene practices to prevent the spread of the virus and to share dos and don'ts during the outbreak (Hussin et al., 2021). It was overwhelming when users gave input, participated in online conversations, commented on status or live video broadcasting, tweeted the news, and shared within communities. Public questions, complaints, and misunderstandings can be published on government official pages for speedy replies. Social media content can change people's behavior and reduce the efficacy of government remedies. The Malaysian Ministry of Health (MOH) tweeted Covid-19 information, covering daily cases, deaths, new patients, discharges, hospitalization, and verified cases to caution the citizens (Hussin et al., 2021). Roughly 20 posts on SOP reminded Twitter users of SOPs such as business operations, purchasing processes, or social events daily. Additionally, MOH published 164 Covid-19 instructions and precautions. For instance, postings mentioned the red zone, where numerous cases were found, and special precautions. Notably, hashtags are frequently included to prioritize Covid-19 information from reliable organizations to make it easy for individuals for browsing later.  

Empowering Malaysia’s COVID-19 Response: MySejahtera

In April 2020, the government launched the MySejahtera mobile application to assist individuals in tracking their health status and registering their locations, allowing authorities to collect timely information in fighting Covid-19 which had a positive impact on people's inclination to be involved in protective behaviours (Dawi et al., 2021). Public health guidelines were more probable to be followed when citizens realized the scenario and government response. The COVID-19 epidemic is updated daily by MySejahtera. For instance, this includes the cumulative confirmed cases and the daily new cases.

Dangers of Social Media Reliance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dissemination of False Information

Social media during the Covid-19 epidemic has enabled a rapid dissemination of unverified content, potentially deceiving and perplexing a considerable segment of the public. This encompasses misinformation about drinking warm salts or lemon water and taking hydroxychloroquine for curation (Balakrishnan, 2022). In Malaysia, a notable occurrence was the rise in the dissemination of false information pertaining to the lockdown measures and Covid-19-related information. This surge prompted Malaysian government to establish the Rapid Response Troop as a means to combat the proliferation of fake news, namely sebanarnya.my. Several instances of false information being spread in the country can be observed, such as the circulation of a compilation of locations within the Klang Valley that purportedly have a significant concentration of Covid-19 cases (Balakrishnan, 2022). Relying extensively on social media might increase dread, dissatisfaction, anxiety, and paranoia. Disinformation was spread in Malaysia by locals using fake or anonymous accounts (Salman, 2021). Many people detect deceptive information poorly, particularly on social media. Following the MCO's adoption, people panic-purchase and buy vast amounts of items and non-essentials at supermarkets (Ngadiron et al., 2021).

Disseminating false information is akin to spreading the Covid-19 virus. The battle against fake information persists, and the community requires daily education via diverse platforms. Social media platforms have a significant impact on fostering societal awareness and enhancing interpersonal connections within Malaysian communities.  However, individuals should be cautious, as the proliferation of fabricated information on these platforms is intended to captivate netizens and generate sensationalized or trending discussions.

In my opinion, social media is useful in spreading essential COVID-19 information in Malaysia. It enables the government to swiftly provide updates, guidance, and safeguards to Malaysians. The MySejahtera mobile app, Facebook, and Twitter have allowed direct interaction with individuals, encouraging safety and behavioural alterations. Nevertheless, fighting disinformation is vital. Overall, social media is useful, but it demands careful scrutiny to guarantee information authentication.

List of References

Balakrishnan, V. (2022). COVID-19 and fake news dissemination among Malaysians – motives and its sociodemographic correlates. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 73, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102900

Dawi, N. M., Namazi, H., Hwang, H. J., Ismail, S., Maresova, P., & Krejcar, O. (2021). Attitude toward protective behavior engagement during COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia: The role of e-government and social media. Frontiers in Public Health, 9, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.609716

Hussin, R., Rahman, S. H. A., & Azudin, N. (2021). Social media approach to crisis communication during COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis from Malaysian perspective. Ulum Islamiyyah, 33(S5), 77–88. https://doi.org/10.33102/uij.vol33nos5.404

Ngadiron, S., Aziz, A. A., & Mohamed, S. S. (2021). The spread of COVID-19 fake news on social media and its impact among Malaysians. International Journal of Law, Government and Communication, 6(22), 253–260. https://doi.org/10.35631/ijlgc.6220024

Salman, A. (2021). Knowledge, curiosity, communication channels and panic during COVID-19 movement control order. International Journal of Media and Communication Research (IJMCR), 2(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.25299/ijmcr.v2i1.6205

Statista. (2022). Distribution of main news sources during MCO COVID-19 Malaysia 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1118979/malaysia-main-news-sources-during-covid-19/

[wdcsuae]

What Is a DApp and Why Is It Central to Blockchain Development Services UAE?

In just a few years, the United Arab Emirates shot to the top of the global blockchain chart. A mix of clear laws, an ambitious national agenda, and an insatiable appetite for fresh ideas keeps money streaming into decentralized tech.

At the heart of this movement sits one shining star: the Decentralized Application, usually called DApp.

So, what exactly is a DApp, and why has it become essential for almost every blockchain project in the UAE?

Let's take a closer look and see why DApps are more than just a buzzword; they are fast becoming a cornerstone of the UAEs digital makeover.

A DApp is an application hosted directly on a public blockchain instead of locked on a corporate server. Unlike Instagram, Netflix, or any other service that relies on one company for control, DApp stands alone because tiny self-running programs called smart contracts take over as soon as agreed rules are met.

- Decentralization: Data and processing are spread across the whole chain, so nothing lives in a single central folder.

- Smart Contracts: Guidelines are coded in a way that's set in stone, so they can’t be adjusted on a bad day or swapped out after a last-minute brainstorming session.

- Token Economy: Most DApps create their own tokens, letting users pay fees, vote on changes, and earn rewards whenever they join.

- Open Source: Most of these decentralized apps keep their code public, so anyone can scan it for bugs, suggest fixes, or even clone the project.

By cutting out middlemen, DApps offer a clear, secure, and censorship-proof way to run software, and that promise is pushing their rapid rise across the UAE.

Why Are DApps Key for Blockchain Development in the UAE?

1. Keeping Step with the UAE's Blockchain-First Vision

Under the Dubai Blockchain Strategy and the Emirates Blockchain Strategy 2021, the federal government is steadily swapping public services and business tasks for blockchain-backed solutions.

A big piece of this plan calls for DApps in:

Identity verification

Supply chain transparency

Property and land registration

Healthcare data management

Digital payments and wallets

Plugging DApps into so many government and market workflows is sparking demand for local dev teams that can build to national standards and meet fast-moving business goals.

2. Security and Transparency for High-Stakes Industries

The UAE hosts finance, real-estate, energy, and logistics-businesses that depend on trust and clean data. Ordinary apps can be hacked, altered, or frozen at peak hours. DApps, however, run on locked blockchains and public ledgers, so users see proof they can't dispute. When coders build well, a DApp can promise:

full traceability on every shipment

records no one can tamper with

voting totals sealed the moment they are cast

lending circles that function without banks

Because of these wins, UAE blockchain teams now chase industry-specific, bullet-proof DApps.

3. Tokenization and Fresh Business Models

Most DApps offer tokens that turn everyday exchanges into something richer. Whether loyalty coins, shared ownership, or DeFi tools, tokens open the door to:

reward apps that keep shoppers coming back

platforms that let anyone buy a small piece of real estate

governance where holders vote on new rules

bonuses for choosing clean power

These token-powered projects are booming in the UAE, riding the Gulf fin-tech surge.

DApps lie at the core of Web3, allowing people to trade, chat, and save data without a middleman. While the region pilots Metaverse ideas-from Dubai's Metaverse Assembly to various digital twins-these apps drive:

virtual land shops

shared identities and avatars

NFT tickets for events

social hubs beyond big tech

Forward-looking UAE companies now partner with blockchain teams to ready themselves for this next-gen online world.

Across the Emirates, decentralized apps (DApps) are already making a real splash. Here's a look at the action:

- Real Estate Tokenization

Developers use DApps to break expensive buildings into tokenized shares. Each token stands for a small piece of the property, letting everyday investors chip in. The system runs KYC steps on its own and keeps a clear, tamper-proof ledger, so everyone knows who owns what. The result is faster sales and many more people able to join the real-estate market.

- Decentralized Voting Platforms  

Public elections and private board votes now run on smart-rule apps that save each ballot on an open ledger. Because anyone can check the code, people trust the result, and outside tampering gets very hard.

- Health Data DApps  

Some hospitals are piloting chain apps that let patients and doctors own their medical files. Records move easily between clinics but stay private, matching the UAEs push for modern, safe health tech.

- Blockchain-Based Logistics   Merchants track boxes, review invoices, and verify documents in real time with shipping apps. Clear sight at every port powers the UAEs huge trade business and keeps goods moving fast and fair.

4. Why Businesses in the UAE Are Turning to Custom DApp Development

The United Arab Emirates welcomes new tech regulations, its people live online, and the government pushes fresh ideas. Ready-made apps still tempt firms, yet they never line up perfectly with local ways of working. Because of that gap, building a custom decentralized app (DApp) has become the go-to move for:

An architecture that can grow with one industry.

Full compliance with UAE data and crypto laws.

Smooth links to local banks and payment gateways.

Interfaces that speak Arabic, English, and more.

A single easy experience for Web2 visitors and Web3 wallets.

Pick the right team, and your DApp will meet today's goals and quickly adjust to tomorrow's UAE tech scene.

5. How to Begin Your Blockchain Project in the UAE

Thinking about your first DApp? Follow this clear, step-by-step plan:

Define the Use Case. Decide exactly what problem you want to fix and check if decentralization adds real value.

Choose the Blockchain Platform Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Smart Chain, or another ledger each brings its own strengths and costs.

Hire Expert Developers Work with a studio skilled in smart contracts, friendly UX/UI, and the protocols you choose.

Prototype and Test Build a quick model, watch people use it, and tweak it based on what they say.

Do this, and you can roll out a DApp that works, feels safe, and fits local rules.

Deploy and Scale After launch, listen, adjust the code fast, and let speed and users grow.

A reliable dev partner guides you, keeping your DApp secure, legal, and noticed.-

Partner with the Right Blockchain Firm in the UAE

As banks, hotels, and other sectors rush to release DApps, skilled builders are in high demand. WDCS Technology is here.

At WDCS Technology we design blockchain tools in the UAE, delivering custom DApps that lock down security, stretch with traffic, and respond the moment users click launch.

Our services include:

Full-cycle DApp development

Smart contract design and audit

Token creation and integration

UI/UX for Web3 platforms

Private and public blockchain solutions

From a smooth NFT store to DeFi plumbing or an in-house app, our local insight and solid tech skills help you succeed in the UAE.

[pink-city-to-datascience-city]

Data Science– The Power Skill That Can Take You Anywhere

Data is everywhere. From your social media applications, the games you play, and the advertisements that follow you all over the internet, data drives almost all digital processes. However, raw data is junk until an analyst lends it form. On this task, it is assumed that there is a person who is a data scientist.

The data science trend has become one of the most highly-demanded sectors of activity in the last ten years. If it is about solving one's health problem, managing funds, ordering something online, or predicting a team's performance, data science is used. There is no doubt that attending a data science course in Jaipur is a good investment, and here's why.

Why Data Science Is in High Demand

Today’s organizations don't just measure; they want to forecast future events. Data scientists come in handy, as they can explain the most complex concepts and intricacies in a comprehensible and straightforward manner. They sift through vast amounts of data to identify patterns, find solutions, and enable wiser decisions.

Here is the breakdown of how, in detail, data science looks like in practice:

Retail: Amazon and similar companies suggest related products based on the browsing history of the products and the customer's buying history, as well as the prevailing climate.

Healthcare: In the domains of patients and hospitals, some examples of utilisation are using image recognition to predict readmissions or diagnose earlier diseases.

Finance: Real-time alert systems are used by banks to identify fraudulent activities and also to customize financial products.

Television networks and streaming services such as Netflix determine which shows to advertise or develop so that they are catering to an audience.

To sum up, data science is not only about having excellent technical knowledge, but it is a necessity for every organization in the modern world.

Career Flexibility Like No Other

This implies that one of the biggest gains a person is rewarded with through learning data science is freedom. Freedom can occur in any occupation and any geographical area. It could be beginning with a startup company in Jaipur, then getting into a multinational firm in Bangalore, or working from home for clients worldwide.

The roles are diverse too:

Data Analyst

Machine Learning Engineer

Business Intelligence Developer

AI Researcher

Product Analyst

And the best part? You don’t need to come from a computer science background. With the right data science training in Jaipur, even students from commerce or arts can break into this field.

What to Expect from a Data Science Course in Jaipur

Choosing the right course matters. A well-structured data science course in Jaipur will usually cover:

Python/R Programming

Data Visualization Tools like Power BI and Tableau

Machine Learning & Deep Learning

Statistics & Probability

SQL and Database Handling

Real-life Projects & Internships

Institutes that offer hands-on training with real-world datasets make learning more effective. Whether you’re a college student or a working professional, a course tailored to your pace can make a big difference.

Several reputed data science institutes in Jaipur provide hybrid or weekend options for those juggling jobs or other responsibilities. And if you’re wondering about the investment, most data science course fees in Jaipur range between ₹50,000 to ₹1.5 lakhs, depending on the depth and duration of the course.

Real-Life Example: How Data Science Changed a Career Path

Take the case of Aditi Sharma, a former marketing executive in Jaipur. She was always curious about why some campaigns performed better than others, but lacked the tools to dig deep. In 2021, she enrolled in a data science course in Jaipur that included modules on customer behaviour analysis and A/B testing.

Six months later, Aditi was working as a Marketing Analyst at a tech firm, building data models to predict customer churn. She didn't just change jobs—she changed how she thought about marketing. That’s the kind of transformation data science can bring.

Is It Worth It?

Short answer: yes. Data science is one of those rare skills that combines high demand, good pay, and career flexibility. According to industry reports, even entry-level roles in India can fetch between ₹6–10 LPA, with experienced professionals earning much more.

Besides, as AI and automation continue to grow, the need for human insight to interpret and act on data will only increase.

Tips to Get Started

Choose the Right Training: Look for a program that offers both theory and hands-on learning. Good data science institutes in Jaipur often collaborate with companies for internships and placement assistance.

Don’t Skip the Basics: A strong foundation in statistics and logic will take you far, even before diving into machine learning.

Work on Projects: Employers love portfolios. Even if you're new, build small projects—like analyzing local business trends or predicting cricket match outcomes.

Stay Updated: Follow industry blogs, podcasts, and LinkedIn voices in data science. It’s a fast-moving field.

Final Thoughts

Data science is it if you're thinking of a skill that can open doors across industries, geographies, and job roles. And if you're based in or around Rajasthan, starting with a data science course in Jaipur is smart.

With strong local training options, flexible class formats, and a growing tech ecosystem, Jaipur is becoming a quiet powerhouse for data science talent. Whether you're just starting or looking to pivot careers, now is a great time to explore your options. Ask the right questions about data science course fees in Jaipur, training quality, and placement history, and you're well on your way.

In a world ruled by data, learning how to read, understand, and act on it is no longer optional—it's essential. And that's why data science isn't just a career skill—it's a superpower.