#like rally thru the feats

[dollfat]

all ive thought about for days is respecing ranger wyll, he doesn't need a familiar

[rikerofalltrades]

Jesus Isn't Heroine (part 5)

Panicking, you try to drift your car through the upcoming intersection, a valiant attempt at a rally car maneuver called the Scandinavian Flick - basically a u-turn without slowing or losing momentum.

But you're not driving a rally car or a drift car, and you're not Ken Block.

You're driving an 8-year-old Nissan Sentra - a base model that's in good shape and well-cared for, yet ill-equipped to successfully pull this feat of automotive gymkhana off.

Even if it had horsepower in the four figures and had its alignment properly set up, few experts could make this front wheel drive sedan perform such precise asphalt ballet.

You get halfway through the turn at a healthy - well, not for your mortality - 58 mph, but you crank the wheel a bit too hard, causing you to oversteer and swerve out of control.

As you rotate 180 degrees a second time, you make eye contact with a motorcycle cop, just leaving the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru. And not just any motorcycle cop, because of course not.

It's Sid. Sid "Cookie" Monstorr.

Your tires finally grip the pavement and bring the car to a stop, parallel to traffic but facing it on the wrong side of the road. "Fucking Sid. Of COURSE it's fucking Sid. Who else would it be today?!?" you say to yourself.

Sid wasn't always a cop.

Just over twenty years ago, Sid was a neighborhood community leader, organizing block parties, mutual aid events, holiday decorating contests, and even shows for all the kids. Despite his selfless work, he lost his fiancee in a freak accident caused by Candace "Baby" Bop, one of Barney's relatives. In truth it wasn't really anyone's fault, but try telling that to Sid after losing the love of his life.

Sid never really recovered; he tried, of course, but his enthusiasm was damper than a newly-washed comforter. With no one stepping up to supplement or even replace him, his community suffered - and Sid eventually self-medicated, trying to consume the pain away.

For a couple of years, Sid was hooked on sugar - not that corn syrup bullshit, but real cane sugar from south of the border. And for about 6 months, Sid was…well, Sid again: productive, enthusiastic, driven, and almost happy. It was like the accident never happened.

Unfortunately, 2024 had other plans for Sid, and after a series of flash droughts and petty fights over imports, Sid - and the rest of the country - was effectively cut off, cold turkey, from pure cane sugar.

This is known, colloquially, as The Crash, among the country's more recreational citizens.

Sid crashed. Sid crashed hard. Memories he suppressed came flooding back, delivering daily migraines and crippling depression. His eyes became inflamed from hourly crying, his tear ducts running dry days earlier. Sid was scared, angry, and suicidal. Fear enveloped him, and he turned on the same community he once cherished with the greatest love and affection.

Alone and with only the glow of his smartphone to comfort him, Sid was found by The Algorithm, and started binge-watching Sam The Eagle's show. For the first time in two years, Sid seemed to feel truly understood, heard, and cared about. Sam said what Sid was thinking, and inspired him to gather the broken pieces of his life together, to forge a new one.

After successfully completing rehab and declaring himself sober from sugar, Sid's sense of community resurfaced - though scarred, warped and….changed. It was then that Sid enrolled in the local Police Academy, graduated at the top of his class, and eventually made his way to an undercover drug crimes unit.

Sid was great at undercover work, but terrible at managing sobriety. After noticing that certain confiscated evidence started to go missing more than usual, Sid's boss conducted an internal investigation - and caught Sid blue-handed, chomping down a chocolate chip cookie made with real cane sugar. They had no choice but to remove Sid from the unit, and relegated him to a traffic enforcement division.

This broke Sid; it was the final straw. Jaded, bitter and hurt, Sid now spends most of his time watching cop shows and using improper grammar to piss off people on the internet.

His fellow cops teased him with a nickname that soon outshined his actual first name: "Cookie Monster". And with the entire community eventually hearing about it, Sid became more and more butthurt about his addiction, failure to stay sober, and his belief that the government is suppressing facts about the flat earth.

After unmounting his motorcycle, he stepped up to your window.

[vroenis]

When The Best You Can Do Is Shoot A Gun

The Animal Crossing / Doom Eternal Covid19 launch coincidentally seems to be related to this discussion, even tho I’d say Doom Eternal has an excellent combat system and isn’t really relevant to what I’m going to bring up. I don’t have a problem with shooty-shooty, I have purchased, played and will continue to purchase and play plenty of video games that engage with firearm violence. There are plenty of discussions about how intelligent, consenting adults can do this without any problems and I won’t retread them here. Doom is simple game themed vaguely around demons; demons bad, player protagonist good, good player shoot bad demons - OK you got it, apply an incredible movement system into that and enjoy.

What I want to discuss involves of-course that pesky word and idea nuance, which annoys the shit out of more people these days, for its applications and misapplications - fingers-crossed I don’t fuck it up, but first I want to bring up Ubisoft and systems, so now’s as good a place as any for a stolen picture from the internet.

As far as concept art goes, that’s actually very representative of the final product in-game.

Ubisoft appear to have a long-term open-world tech development objective. I believe at some point very soon, these individual objectives will converge into one single middleware product with a mandate to producce retail licenses that combine what each of these individual franchises have been testing and achieving in isolation, those being;

Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint: 3rd person Load-On-Demand

The Division: 3rd Person Cover and interactivity

Assassin’s Creed: Environmental mapping and interactivity

Starlink: Scaling Load-On-Demand

Far Cry: First Person implementation of various combinations of above

I’ll put it another way;

Ghost Recon: Load everything

The Division: stick to everything

Assassin’s Creed: climb everything

Starlink: scale everything

Far Cry: do it in first person perspective

It looks like all of these games are running in Ubisoft in-house proprietary engines. Ghost Recon and Assassin’s Creed are running in Anvil, developed for the very first Assassin’s game and in which the Prince of Persia 2008 and Forgotten Sands also ran in. Oddly, (Rainbow Six) Seige, Steep (lol) and For Honor are also running in Anvil.

Both Division games and Starlink are running in Snowdrop and this appears to be due to The Division having come from Massive Entertainment. I’ll be honest, from the perspective of a consumer (read: punter) and someone with extremely minimal 3rd-hand development experience, The Division looks far more impressive than both the Ghost Recon and Assasin’s games, and former Massive brand and art director Rodrigo Cortes has said of the engine that it was design to “do things  better not bigger” and I think it shows. Anyway, it was still developed with Ubisoft so as I understand it, they own it. Massive is a Ubisoft subsidiary, their studio based in Sweden.

Far Cry is going to be a little different, being a little older and having its roots slightly before... what shall we call this mess... the cynical age? The microtransaciton age? Anyway. The first game used the CryEngine developed by Crytek. At some point, Ubisoft seemed to develop an offshoot of the engine called Dunia because the CryEngine was licensed and clearly lucrative, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but Dunia does appear to remain in-house and under the auspices of Ubisoft Montreal. Where am I going with all this?

Starlink was “toys to life” a-la Skylanders but way too late, combined with No Man’s Sky-lite, but the game itself other than being overstuffed with Ubisoft copy-and-paste template-quests is an excellent proof of concept.

I do need to say that in general, I don’t have any particular affinity for Ubisoft. So I am yes, absolutely fascinated with something I do think is happening as far as tech goes and now I’m writing about it in this piece, and yes you can tell I’ve played and even enjoyed some of the games they’ve produced and published, but there’s a lot not to like about many of their practices, the least of which is the overbearing sense of cynicism pervasive in many of their games.

I played Far Cry 3 long after it released and got perhaps 20% thru the campaign before giving up entirely. For starters, nothing about how it controlled felt right and I appreciate that’s purely a personal preference. Being a Battlefield player, there’s something about DICE’s sense of locomotion that is perfect to me, even tho it varies from title to title from Bad Company 2 all the way to V most recently. Other things about Far Cry bother me tho - if there’s wildlife around, it always attacks the player, guaranteed. Everything about this game seems to be designed to force the player into engagement, to provide you with materials to collect, craft or sell, but also to run you short of ammunition to either scrounge for more or have to buy it because *surprise* - it prompts you to purchase ammunition for real-world money. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Fuck off. I uninstalled the game immediately. I can deal with ridiculous AI with magical aim and irrational scripting. I can deal with absurd narrative for the sake of reading (and roasting later), but the entire package culminating in purchasing more ammunition was otherworldly, it was truly bizarre. To this day, I don’t understand what world Ubisoft inhabits that this is something that makes sense to anyone in management or marketing, and yet there it is and there are consumers that not only accept it but embrace it. No doubt there are metrics from the mobile industry that support it and dear lord the capitalist apocalypse is upon us.

What will Ubisoft do when they can merge these technologies? They definitely want to and likely already have in-house, they just need the engine to run client-side for the Consumer. You and I and Inside Gaming are all laughing it up at Stadia right now, but we’re at the wrong end of the business. For Ubisoft, they can ignore the faltering at the start, it’s the long-term they focus on. The pittance Google are losing now, even if they end-up shuttering the project will be meaningless if they end-up getting the hardware to work, even if the end-result is the hardware sitting in a box in the consumer’s home in 10 years. Sure, that’s a long loop, but the journey still doesn’t matter, only the eventual ROI.

If this piece hasn’t gotten boring for you yet, it’s about to because you’re probably excited for what Ubisoft will do with this impending technological power and development and I rally am not. What will Ubisoft do with it? Probably just more Assassin’s Creed, except you’ll be able to snap to cover and have a fully mapped country. Probably more The Division, but you’ll have a fully mapped city that you can also climb on the outside of buildings and then enter them without any loading. Probably more Far Cry but with bigger maps and more interactivity and less loading. The next generation of consumer hardware consoles from Microsoft and Sony are upon us and as much as PC enthusiasts hate to admit it, the consumer market is largely gated by the generational hardware stepping of these platforms. That may change after this era depending on how Google, Amazon and indeed Microsoft and Sony go with cloud computing, but for the moment the status-quo will remain as alternative products develop. Bear in mind with Covid19, climate change and the general sustainability and ethical standards of working and living being under growing scrutiny the world over, things are changing more each day, our technology development may change in ways we don’t expect so who even knows what’s in store for the future.

So What Do I Actually Want?

Good question. NB: before you ask, Animal Crossing isn’t my thing. I played it years ago on Gamecube. It’s cute, it’s fine. I’ve no interest in it. I’m writing this note in retrospect because I realise you may say “Just play Animal Crossing or The Sims but hopefully I can illustrate by neither of those games is what I’m after, nor do I just want to build a house in something like No Man’s Sky and fill it with crap. Let’s see if I get there... A few weeks ago I wrote about how the best thing Naughty Dog did with Uncharted 4 was Elena and Nathan’s domestic spaces. I did purchase The Division 2 on the cheap a couple of weeks ago and I’ll be honest, there’s a lot about it that I’m enjoying quite a bit. For a start, visually it’s stunning. The art team have done an excellent job of both filling the world with immense detail, but also making every area of Washington unique and distinct which is a huge feat given the total space covered. Thus far, I’ve spent a whole lot of time just walking around and gathering resources, in part just to sightsee and explore without any particular objective in mind. After a while, I got the impression that the map was a bit flat, but the more you explore, the more you find places where you get verticality, and then doing missions always adds verticality and variety in environmental and art design, it’s a marvel to see.

Apologies to James and Thomas (above) for ripping these images, but I’m glad your names are in frame so you have direct credit - outstanding work. The art in this game is without question its strongest element.

And that’s just the thing - The Division is an interesting game in that what I enjoy most is the sense of walking around exploring, gather resources and helping people. I’m not here on an anti-violence kick - I play Battlefield, I actually don’t mind the shooting in The Division, it’s fine, whatever, I’m not going to justify that. What I’m saying is that it gets boring.

THERE ARE A LOT OF GAMES ABOUT SHOOTING.

Like... a lot. More than enough. There will always be a lot of games about shooting and that’s fine. I think I’ll always play them. Hey, I even play games about shooting *in very specific ways* - it’s not like I don’t care about the shooting, I’m playing The Division with only a bullpup DMR and shotgun combo, plus I’m trying to use my sidearm when traversing the streets as much as possible so don’t at me, I’m in the game.

But we seem to mostly get high detail assets in games with guns because shooty games get all the money. I get it - shooty games get all the sales because we as gamers like to play them - sure, I’m one of them, but I didn’t buy The Division until it was under AUD$30 because gotdam the shooting is so boring and even now yes, it really do be just more boring shooting, just like it’s boring in Uncharted, just like it’s boring in Ghost Recon (my goooooood so boring), just like it is in Destiny, and the umpteenth shooty mcshooty game. I’m getting too old for this.

Uncharted 4 had an opportunity to do something more and it almost did. For many players, it probably achieved enough of what I was after by those two visits to the Fisher and North residences but I wanted so much more of that. I want to see Sully’s house or houses, more of his life. I want to know where Chloe’s life is at. I want to know of their lives and emotional engagements outside of the frankly stupid narrative I have no interest in because it’s clearly stupid and an excuse for running and jumping that other games have since done better. If Uncharted as a whole was a subtext for character, then by the fourth game, the focus should have been the characters that carried the series thru to the end - no disrespect to Tom Baker - not the heretofore unrevealed older brother.

For Years I Didn’t Know “Walking Simulator” Was A Pejorative

I think this is why I replayed and continue to replay Dear Ester so much. I remember laughing my ass off at YouTubers making videos about how it wasn’t a game and that it didn’t have objectives. Yet there were still threads and might still be on reddit or Discord wherever gamers congregate these days - about “virtual tourism” and “just chillin’ in place x because it’s so awesome” etc. It’s fine, each generation will rediscover virtual tourism again and again and we can’t denigrate anyone for doing so, it’s certainly nothing we invented given it comes from literature and oral tradition before that, but it’s remarkable that there’s this resistance to experiences crafted purely for the purposes of being immersed in them.

I adore Dear Ester and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture. Absolutely loved What Remains Of Edith Finch and only if you have already played Edith Finch, because it’s full of spoilers but also its own spoiler warnings, I heartily recommend Joseph Anderson’s outstanding video The Villain of Edith Finch. It’s a 53 minute watch so I won’t embed it, and he has a certain style of presentation that won’t gel with everyone, nor do I always agree with everything he says which should go without saying but at some point folks, you have to stop pursuing art, criticism and media that just wholly aligns with your own views. That said, I generally do find most of what he says agreeable, innit. Anyway he’s great and the video is great.

While Dear Esther is more surreal and Rapture and Edith Finch are in part slightly more fantastical than the real-life settings of Uncharted 4′s home and Division’s post-apocalyptic cities, they all visually represent dense, very human object-rich spaces that to me are quite interesting to explore. Dear Esther might be a little more rooted in nature but its human elements tie-in to its narrative in an extremely interesting way. Each game offers different levels of interaction, some that serve the narrative directly, some as subtexts and others quite mildly in the periphery.

I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself but I remember seeing a promo for Battlefield Hardline coming off the back of Battlefield 4 and the ridiculous marketing phrase “levolution” - the term they coined for large-scale environmental destruction (please take the keys away from the marketing department). I remember seeing video footage of a large construction crane falling in a level and thinking

“All this intelligence, all this tech, and this is what we do with it? Is this all we can achieve? This is it?”

That’s how I feel about this emerging technology. Somewhere out there (on YouTube, to be fair), there’s all this footage buried of the Beyond Good And Evil sequel that to everyone’s knowledge is still in development. I’d put my money on that being the first project built in Ubisoft’s convergence engine that they hope successfully implements everything that each of these games executes individually. I know the BG&E fans are frothing for it and when I saw those early demos, what I interpret of the tech did blow me away, but from an experience perspective, I did still think the same thing...

“Is this it?”

Because of-course, a huge part of the new game is going to be combat. I just - don’t - care. When I think about what was lacking in Uncharted 4, what I wanted more of, it was intimacy. What didn’t I like about the conversation and resolution between Elena and Nathan? About the tours of their homes, the little time spent playing as Cassie, the few insights into Sully as a character, the absence of Chloe who was such a great contrast to Nathan, Elena and Sully all-together... it was intimacy. Yea oroight, so I don’t exactly mean the type of real-life intimacy between lovers, do I - that much is clear. But if I don’t mean shooty because there’s enough of that, and I’m leaning into domestic detail and emotional exploration and reflections of that in objects, spaces and interactivity, then that’s what I mean.

Tho I’m loath to bring it up, I feel like in the worst possible way, David Cage is right on the periphery of this discussion (and for that reason, I ain’t tagging him or his games in this entry, get fucked). He has the most vague notion of trying to ground his games in the intimacy of human experience, so he tries to tie human locomotion and objects to the digital representations of interactivity. If we take those as perhaps the worst possible examples and then come back to some really good examples in Uncharted 4 so I can stop whipping it - I maintain that the house tours are strengths and the high-points of the game, and then look at something like The Division and consider opportunities for more complex interactivity centred around helping people and emotional engagement, I feel like that’s what I’m after.

Which is impossible, right? No-one’s going to make a game even a quarter of the scope of The Division, with all that amazing dynamic lighting, with all those awesome textures and mapped objects, animations, rigged character models, complex scripting and AI, interactivity, load-on-demand tech and full voice-talented support, just to be a game about exploring, sightseeing, meeting and learning about people and helping them? Because who would play that?

I would, for a start.

[wednesday-editorials]

Destiny 2: Faction Rallies, Forsaken and Disasters in 3, Oh My...

Saturday, June 9th 2018

Written by: A Curious Wednesday

When it comes to Destiny 2, growing pains have become expected.  In a game with more potential than a designated hitter can swing at, this is ultimately very frustrating.  With the arrival of Season 3 of D2 and the announcement of Forsaken, the trend of uneasiness continues.  In a previous post, I talked about my concerns for Warmind, something that any narrative driven player can relate to.

To briefly recap:  the story aspects of Warmind are abysmal at best.  You get 5 story missions that introduce you to a new NPC and two new villains.  We (wrongfully) assumed that the new host of characters would be properly developed.  Ana Bray, for instance, is a legendary guardian who’d been MIA since Crota and Luna, I believe.  During that pitched battle, she fired her golden gun with such focused power and will that the light from it lingers still.  That battle was supposed to have happened centuries ago. She also has connections to Clovis Bray and is, perhaps, the premiere Gunslinger.  Even better than Cayde-6, whom like her, is an original Risen. Now, this is never really conveyed in those 5 missions. None of her legendary feats are ever really mentioned.  She’s essentially relegated to a throw-away NPC and Vendor.

Compiling this problem, Zavala, the leader of the Vanguard and Consensus is not developed any further.  Instead, he continues to be pigeon-holed as “Den Mother” to all guardians. All you need to do to confirm this, is speak with any of Destiny’s fanbase.  Most, if not all, will agree that Zavala is everyone’s overprotective mommy.

When it comes to the two new characters, both are abused and mistreated.  Nokris has soo much story potential.  He is the exiled son of Oryx and the runt of his brood.  He’s the smart one. A necromancer (possibly a male wizard), which is a rarity amongst the Hive/Krill.  He attempted to usurp his father’s power and place as king and failed. His co-conspirator, Xol (a worm god, a being of unimaginable power, eternal life and knowledge) is essentially defeated as a strike boss, which is an insult and disservice to Xol and the grandeur that is supposed to be the “Worm Gods”.  In fact, both are ultimately just strike bosses. Beating either during the campaign is unfulfilling. Being sent to the Deep by Xol is a joke and possibly the greatest offense for me.

So, with things on the narrative side of the spectrum so weak and lacking, you’d hope that Bungie would make the new season’s Faction Rally topnotch.  Personally, I don’t mind the “Renown” mechanic in principle. During the grind to faction rank 50, it adds to the challenge. However, the vehicle for this delivery is problematic.  By skewing each firefight in favor of the AI whenever a player has active “Renown” it has ended up making every open-world activity more difficult than it should be. With the arrival of Escalation Protocol, this oversight becomes glaringly apparent.  Escalation Protocol is a new feature and endgame mode where you join up with other guardians to take on wave after wave of Hive opponents in increasing difficulty. Ideally, 3 level-capped. 385 light-level guardians should be able to complete all waves if they can communicate and work together.

In practice, it’s usually one fireteam that sparks it once they notice 3 or more random guardians patrolling the Hellas Basin.  Since all guardians need to complete Escalation Protocol waves (a least once), any available guardian generally comes running when EP is activated.  Currently, this means that 1 team ends up trying to complete an EP with underpowered guardians, culminating in failure and frustration.  With the arrival of the first Faction Rally this season and the release of “Renown” its made an already challenging open-world event more difficult, by further handicapping the player in favor of the AI-controlled enemy.

The trend of handicapping the player to up the difficulty is nothing new.  Its an established procedure carried over from Destiny.  Any time you enter a darkness zone (iow “Boss fight”), for instance, you are effectively de-buffed, weakened by the overwhelming presence of Darkness and cut-off from the Traveler’s Light. You’re left with your own strength and light to see you and your team through.  Why does this happen?  Perhaps, each of these areas are influenced by the taint of Darkness to such an extent that it manifests physically.  At least, that is how I like to think of it. As it adds a narrative reason for the game mechanic. 

However, by further handicapping the player, it ultimately diminishes the feeling of grandeur and heroicness that you’d normally experienced as a maxed-out, veteran guardian (player).  Destiny did a good job of preserving that feeling of being a walking, talking badass.  You were/are the prophesied guardian. The one Saint-14 looked up to, perhaps even idolized.  You were the one that did what no other guardian could do. And, if you were capable and competent, you did it alone.

Destiny 2 does a great job of stripping you of that feeling, making the overall experience occasionally frustrating and lackluster.  The grind to rank-level 50 is long enough and made worse by the fact that some of us have limited time to invest in D2′s grind.  Now, here’s where the two schools of thought diverge. School 1) everyone should have access to and the ability to get everything, so you must level the playing field; School 2) only the dedicated should get everything since they put in the time, effort and hardwork.  I, myself, fall into the second camp or a variation of it.

I believe the unexpected problem that is “Renown” could be fixed by tying the effect to a faction’s emblem, class item or both and enabling factions to recruit and have relevance all year around, like they were in Destiny.  Thereby, turning Faction Rallies into something special and unique.  Something on par with Crimson Days, Festival of the Lost, Sparrow Racing League and the Winter Solstice event.  Perhaps, each faction, dependent upon their beliefs structure needs to accomplish something significant.   Perhaps, its a month long competition for bragging rights and something else.  Something more.  Something like supremacy or even, just something as simple as which faction gets the lion’s share of funding for the rest of the fiscal quarter. 

In Destiny, factions were always relevant.  As soon as you reached level 20, you were allowed your choice of which faction to pledge to, and you could, after a week, decide to pledge your loyalty to a different faction.  Rank progress was limited and constricted. You had to work to progress through the rank levels in Destiny.  You had to represent your chosen faction on your guardian.  As the benefits of pledging to a faction were only available when you, the player, equipped a faction-specific class item and/or emblem.

Once you did that, it was an uphill slog to those coveted exotic items.  Uphill, but worthwhile. Like many of the more obscure features of Destiny, you were rewarded for the time you put into it.  It wasn’t gifted to you; you earned it. There was no time limit.  Thus negating the feeling of artificial pressure. It didn’t matter how long it took you to get those coveted items as long as you were willing to put in the work to get them.  It took me 2 years or so to get Dead Orbit’s exotic cloak.  I didn’t mind the wait.  I also didn’t stick with Dead Orbit exclusively.  A more dedicated player would have gotten that item and others much faster.

In Destiny 2, this psychological/societal feature is not present.  It’s almost as if the Vanguard took pity on those surviving guardians of the Red War.  As if they became Oprah during her final season of her talk show: “you get an exotic! You get an exotic!”  “You get raid gear!” “You get trial gear!” This analogy can be and has been applied to Hawthorne.  I imagine this is what Hawthorne would shout in her best Oprah impression as she tossed out specially encrypted engrams to the throngs of clamoring guardians with their hands out.

Of course, I know better than to believe that fantasy.  There’s no narrative reason for these decisions. There’s no real narrative pull for participating in the Faction Rallies to begin with.  There is for Strikes, the Crucible and the Iron Banner. Strikes, from a narrative perspective are high-level, precision operations that makes assassins out of you.  In order to protect the remnants of humanity from Darkness. The Crucible, on the other hand, is a way to hone your skills and abilities; to sharpen you. It also serves as a way to resolve grievances.  Nothing like a sanctioned fight to the death, to prove your point.  “Fight me for what you believe!” The Iron Banner honors the fallen Iron Lords thru glorious gladiatorial combat and serves to further hone your abilities and skills. Of course, the Iron Banner is also not what it used to be.  Now that level-advantage is disabled, it's no different from the Crucible. This is too bad, because the added difficulty made participating in previous iterations of the IB savoring. It gave rise to water-cooler moments and bragging rights.

The concept of Faction Rallies overall is neat.  However, in practice there’s nothing special about them.  The weapons you can claim are ultimately reskinned versions of likely superior Vanguard and Crucible weapons.  There is no meaningful choice behind siding with a particular faction. Arach Jalaal of Dead Orbit raves about escaping a defined end and little else.  Lakshmi-2 of Future War Cult raves about the inescapability of war and how we all need to prepare for it. Executor Hideo of New Monarchy is obsessed with protecting and preserving humanity’s cradle, Earth.  Beyond some ambient dialogue you might chance upon by standing before each vendor, there is no way to know what each faction stands for or why you should care. The experience has devolved into a loot-grab for the shiniest prizes.  Oftentimes, this means that New Monarchy wins each faction rally because their armor, vehicles and weapons are the most appealing.

For those of us who know what each faction stands for, this is a deathknell of sorts.  I, myself, am a Dead Orbit loyalist. I could be accused of being a fatalist, but by that notion, so too are the Fallen/Eliksni.  They abandoned their homeworld after the Whirlwind, just like Dead Orbit and Arach Jalaal want to do. That is something I agree with.  In Destiny, it was why all three of my guardians sided with DO.  I’ve always distrusted the Traveler. It brought ultimate war and destruction to our doorstep.  Through the usage of the former grimoires I learned that it did similarly to the Fallen and Cabal.  When those two species/peoples could no longer protect it, the Traveler fled. Abandoned those people to their fates.  Dead Orbit believes the Traveler will do that to us, should the time come. I agree. So, they’ve prepared a fleet of ships and supplies.  They fund scouts to search out our galaxy for a home untouched by the Darkness and Traveler. And while, each faction acts with the best interest of humanity in mind, DO is the only one pragmatic enough to plan long-term and realize the survival of our species.

Future War Cult are, in some ways, battle-crazed zealots.  Fanatics that believe crushing their enemies here, now and in the future is the only guarantee for victory.  I consider that to be short-sighted, but still a noble cause. They don’t wish to abandon earth any more than New Monarchy does, but they are willing to if it means our survival.  They also have ties to the Vex and some misunderstood, wonky machine monikered, “The Device” that allows individuals to glimpse future, alternate timelines.  It’s how they prepare for the wars to come. They prepare, though, which is a key difference. They don’t try to avoid those future conflicts.

New Monarchy, on the other hand is the most obstinate.  They are not interested in entertaining a future where humanity no longer resides on earth or in the Sol system.  They are not interested in a governing council. They are not interested in exploration, but rather, reclamation. Their shtick is reclaiming what was lost.  Reclaim the Earth and Luna. Reclaim the Golden Age. Reclaim Earth’s dominance. Sire tons of children to build up our population numbers. They are interested in the absolute power, authority and rule of one individual.  Executor Hideo is a zealot. A diehard. It’s the only way to become an Executor.

Again, without having prior experience, how many of you would know all of this about each faction?  All you’d readily know is that NM offers armor reminiscent of medieval regalia and bold colors of red, gold, brown and teal-green.  DO offers armor reminiscent to what you’d scavenge in the wild. Something homemade. Its weathered, worn. It’s got miles on it. History.  Their colors are black, white and brown. FWC provides modern, mass-produced armor that strikes a balance between full-plate protection and padding (think “kevlar”).  Theirs is a further balance between the grandiose of New Monarchy and the practicality of Dead Orbit. FWC believes in standing out. Therefore, their colors are white, purple/blue and gold/orange.  This all means that when choosing who to represent, its really a matter of what look you’re going for with your barbie. Maybe, just maybe, one faction has a weapon that is superior to the rest.  And that influences your decision.

I’m all for glamorizing my guardian on occasion or when the mood strikes me, but overall, I’m driven by the narrative.  Wherever I can find it.  It’s why I originally sided with Dead Orbit 4 years ago. It’s why I’m so crestfallen about the state of Destiny 2.  Why I’m so apprehensive about Forsaken.  If you logically think about it, Bungie has likely already finished working on Forsaken.  They’d already finished Warmind by the time they called their “summit”.  Which meant that there was no fixing Warmind, further exacerbating the underlying issues plaguing Destiny 2.  Issues that many have already brought up via Youtube channel hosts.  The likes of My Name is Byf, Mylien Games, Darkside Royalty Lore have all articulated similar points better than I could have.  

Forsaken, undoubtedly, will probably be better than everything prior to it.  The Taken King elevated Destiny to a new level.  It delivered on some of the promises that had until then been cast aside.  Therefore, its an educated leap that the same will be true of Forsaken. Nevertheless, if the underlying narrative problems aren’t rectified, it’ll ultimately be a hollow victory.  Again, take this season’s Faction Rally as an indication. The “Renown” mechanic sounds like a good idea. It could have been a good idea. The Good Idea Fairy would agree. This, is, however, why we don’t acknowledge “good ideas”.  In order for a good idea to be implemented properly, it needs to be tested and tested and measured and reigned in by the physicalities of the circumstances. This is why you only deliver on things you can promise.

By stripping D2 bare in the 11th hour and starting anew, they threw away too much to make way for a different direction.  A disastrous direction that they are now scrambling to retract. All the features that Forsaken is adding back in, should never have been removed in the first place.  To charge for it is narcissistic at best. If you have doubts, look to this month’s Faction Rally and last month’s Iron Banner (the one about that emote.).  Exotic ornaments and catalysts are available dependent upon which faction you choose to pledge to. However, you can only pledge to one. Meaning, if you want them all, you must grind to 50 in each faction ranking system before the Rally event ends.  The decision isn’t based upon a narrative reason. It isn’t based upon which faction best suites you. Its based upon the loot offered. If you’ve got a busy life and can only hop into Destiny late at night or on the weekends, you’re s.o.l. Bungie attempted to fix this by making loot rewards from all activities available to all, regardless if said player contributed or not.  That didn’t work out well. The playerbase decried this practice. So it was rescinded in the form of a compromise: instead of getting high-level engrams from anywhere, you’re now only rewarded high-level engrams from either the Vanguard or Crucible engram pool.

Previous iterations of the Faction Rally had systems similar to this rally’s “Renown”, skewing combat in the the favor of the enemy and penalizing idiotic player practices.  Those proved unsuccessful as well, which is why they were removed. Like the Dodo, “Renown” will likely disappear as well. It will be replaced with some other, newer good idea that will ultimately not pan out as intended and the cycle will continue.  Until Destiny 3, where Bungie gives up on their plans of creating a new sub-genre: MMORPG-based FPS and settles on a Call of Duty clone/knockoff/lesser version.  Except instead of the “good” CoDs, it’ll be Black Ops IV with no narrative or campaign, entirely multiplayer and group-content driven.  Does anyone remember Shadownrun?  How can I predict this? Bad things happen in 3s. We’ll experience some other, new Faction Rally system and gimmick before Bungie gives up on that and attempts to circle back to D1 standards for factions, by which point it may be too late.

[trigjoh]

Ragnaring it to the beach

You may have heard of the ‘Reach The Beach’ (RTB) running relay, the 200 mile, mountain to ocean run thru New Hampshire that has occurred each of the last 19 years.  This year a chance came up to join a group of fellow Medfield Soles as part of a 12 person team that was going to take on the 20th anniversary edition of the race.  I’ve had RTB on my bucket list for a while, and while true that I didn’t start 2018 thinking this was the year I was going to get Reach The Beach done, when the chance came, and knowing the people going into the run, it was too good an opportunity to miss.

The Inception

Some of our regular Saturday running group had done this Reach The Beach relay before, teaming up with a group out of New York and Connecticut who ran under the team banner of ‘Fox Chase’.  When young Adam Graber floated the idea of the 2018 edition as a challenge and started looking for a team of 12 from Medfield, a chance to bring us together with the New York/CT group arose.  Thanks to the coordination of Heidi Lusby and Matt Parnell, we were able to form one half (6 people) of a 3rd team under the ‘Fox Chase’ banner. It was the first time the ‘Fox Chase’ folk were putting in a 3rd team, and meant that 36 people needed coordinating and communicating.

This operation is efficient. As in, military precision efficient. Matt P is a man with the right tools, and communication brilliance to collect data, plan and distribute information effortlessly and in a timely fashion. We received detailed plans on leg assignments, shopping and packing lists, timings, expectations. Every time I sent an email back to Matt I got a response immediately.  Doing that across 36 people is no mean feat.  The fact, as you will see, that this went off smoothly is down to the efforts of Matt and his supporting crew.  ‘Fox Chase’ were the perfect guides for us entering this race and they left nothing to chance or the unknown.

The Basics

1 team. 12 runners. 2 vans. 200-ish miles (just a little bit more), 36 legs, each leg typically between 4 and 8 miles, though some are shorter, some are longer. You and your 5 fellow van mates take turns at running 6 consecutive legs. The other van waits at the end of those 6 legs and then takes over running the next 6. Lather, rinse, repeat.  When you and your van are doing 6 legs, you are either running or supporting - watering, cheering, getting your runner thru their leg and readying the next runner.  When you and your van are waiting for the other van to do their thing, you maybe get a meal, some sleep, some cleaning up. Time goes quickly.

Our Setup

Our 6 Medfield-ites (actually 5 current Medfielders and 1 ex-Medfielder) left the ‘052 at 6:30am on Friday to get to Bretton Woods, the starting point, and the rendezvous with the rest of the Fox Chase crowd, by 10:30am. We had a race start time of noon, and needed to ensure we had time to have our safety equipment checked, watch the Ragnar safety video, get t-shirts, numbers and vans pimped out.  A quick swing off 495 to pick up our ex-Medfielder, and a stop in Tilton, NH to pick up breakfast, and we were in Bretton Woods in plenty of time.

‘Hit The Mountain George!’

There is of course an app to show you the various legs of the relay and allow you to spend hours thinking about what you are stepping off into.  Our runner #1, George, knew what was in front of him when he toe’d the start line - run up the slope of Bretton Woods ski mountain before coming back down to hand off number 1. Never. Any. Doubt. Crushed it! And with that we begin the process that would define the next 26 hours.

Load up in the van

Get to the next transition area (or ‘TA’ but now known forever in our van-speak as a ‘trannie’) or an intermediate spot on longer legs to check in with the runner and offer water or words of encouragement/harassment. All in good humor (rarely in good taste).

Watch. Wait. Watch. Cheer

Line up the next runner

Hand over the ‘baton’

Repeat

Every 7th trannie, get the other van started. It’s simple, it’s exciting. You are never in the van for long. 

The Running Bit

OK, so this is my running experience. Everyone has their own set of stages, temperatures, challenges, sights, running ‘partners’ and goals. Those who’d done this before knew where the tough parts lay, their strategies, and what they had set out to conquer for themselves.  

I was representing the ‘Clyde army’ in van 1 (I often represent the ‘Clyde army’ in the runs I do with others). The others are all stellar runners - awesome form, strong, steady. Great people to be around, learn from, and great encouragement for one another.

(If you want to follow along in the next part, you can find the course description, and details of each leg here)

My first leg was leg 4, 2.9 miles. And most of that downhill. Like seriously downhill. Like brakes on the whole way down, downhill. My running app, Strava, reckons I clocked my best 1 and 2 mile runs ever; the power of gravity! I felt great, though knew all that downhill was likely to show up later in my legs.  And passing a guy, whom I’d had in my sights for about a half mile, as we got to ‘trannie 4′ made me feel fabulous.

My second leg was my nighttime leg. And I had the privilege of running from Friday into Saturday, starting around 11:45pm and finishing at 12:45am. So I’d been prepping myself for this section.  6.2 miles was the distance. No problem. I knew the leg was rated ‘HARD’ which given the distance meant one thing - challenging hills.  And it didn’t disappoint.  Straight up right out of the start area. Climbing 400 ft over the first mile & a bit.  The top of that hill was a long way away, broken by a group of neighbors partying 3/4 of the way up and handing out water.  That was a real lift.  Then 2 miles of steady downhill. And then another mile of a similar climb.  That 2nd climb was brutal, but from that peak it was straight and downhill all the way to the finish.  I loved getting to this finish line.  So much so I busted out my ludicrous dance moves with some dude dressed as Prince. That is now forever enshrined on the internet.  And I’m am happy for it.

My third leg, on Saturday morning was leg 28.  It was also rated hard.   This time 5.7 miles, so again not a massive distance. And elevation netted out from start to finish as a drop.  But the trick in this leg was the rolling nature of the run.  My legs at this point were garbage from the prior runs and the miles along this stretch were hard earned.  Getting over the finish line, to the cheers of the guy dressed as ‘Santa’ plus those awesome teammates cheering me up that final rise, was a massive lift.  Plus now I know that all the elves in Santa’s workshop will be called ‘Johnnie’ this year; Santa promised it to me.

Being done with your running is a great feeling.  There is still work to do getting your friends to their own finish lines and cheering on the next runner.  But the healing of your body can begin.

The In-Between Bits

Time flew. 26 hours just melts.  Sure you maybe running for around 3 hours in total, but those other hours are not a time to catch up on your reading, or meditate.  You’ve got work to do.  Get out and rally your fellow runners, across all the teams.  Get your van to the next TA. Catch up with the other van, other teams at major changeovers.

We had a couple of folks in our van with some good local area knowledge. At the end of our first set of legs, this allowed us to

Jump in the river at Echo Bridge. Man that felt great. Nature’s ice bath was just what I needed

Get a quality dinner & a beer at a Mexican restaurant. No one said you needed to be on an Olympian’s diet.

We got to the next major changeover (TA12) in time for some folks to rollout sleeping bags and lay under the night sky for some rest.  A couple of us decamped inside the high school to sit in comfortable chairs, chat and listen to the country and the western music of the Crunchy Western Boys.  Slipping into sleep would have been sooooo easy.

Now more driving - it’s the overnight legs.  We were running legs 13 to 18 from 9:45pm to roughly 2:30am. This is a key part of the Ragnar experience; overnight running. Again we would ensure every runner could check in with us every couple of miles, able to get water and for safety.  On my leg, it was great just to hear my teammates voices at the top of each hill.  As hard as my leg felt, seeing Sarah M power thru leg 17, barefoot, which felt in the van like it was 6 miles of one long climb, was jaw dropping. Our team was crushing this course and at night when the temps were cooler and ‘Quiet Zones’ were in effect, we made sure our runners knew we were there for them every step of the way.

The handover back to van 2 at TA18, again at a HS, delivered the spectacle of runners lights & a mob of people who shouldn’t be as happy and chatty and full of encouragement at that crazy early time of the day.  Everyone was buzzing.  But now we motored to the next major trannie to get some rest. Again local knowledge prevailed as Jodi motored us thru the countryside to maximize our rest time before we were running again. We were the first at TA23 and took advantage to spread out on the ground and get some sleep.

Sleep of course is subjective. Some got 2-3 hours. I got maybe an hour, but just being laid out was rejuvenating. It had to be, because by 7:30 we were rolling again. Breakfast was ‘on the fly’. People grabbed from dishes prepared by locals at the TAs. Or what they had brought.  We were going and the end was in sight.  

The handover to van 2 at TA30 was the last major one. For us it was the end of running. And the one where the local HS had opened their locker rooms for runners to be able to shower and change. A $5 charge felt like the best $5 I’d ever spent.  We’d of course been sweating and running and then ‘cleaning up’ in the van with little to no more than time to change into dry clothes between runs. The ‘Dude Shower’ wipes helped keep the ‘race funk’ down, but nothing cleans like warm, soapy water. Oh sweet, happy, funny soap and toothpaste. Such simple pleasures.

Van Life

You get the right people, van life is awesome.  Van life in Fox Chase Team 3 Van 1 was awesome. From the time we loaded up in Medfield on Friday morning, to the time we unpacked back in Medfield on Saturday evening, van life was fantastic. I had gotten to know 3 of my van mates over the last couple of years (thru running). Two of the folks I barely knew.  Not a problem. I can now count all 5 of them as good friends. Banter was natural. Stories shared, laughs spread throughout.

A 12 passenger van carrying 6 people and all their stuff may sound like its plenty of room for everyone. And sure, no one was on anyone else’s lap. But with sleeping bags, food, changes of clothes, towels, water, trash (be environment friendly - carry it with you), there was a lot to keep moving.  Folks had to change in the van at discrete moments. Jokes, stories, van humor, van speak all develop thru this continuous experience you are putting yourself thru. Don’t think about your next leg. Share the story of those who’ve gone before you. 

We joked on the way home that we should rent a van every weekend and just drive around together for 26 hours, just to repeat the laughs and stories and events that had entertained us so thoroughly. Maybe every weekend might be pushing it, but go into this experience with an open mind and readiness to be a part of a team, you’ll have no problems and nothing but laughs.

Other Thoughts

Volunteers - make this race.  Throughout New Hampshire, the folks who staffed the trannies, waved flags, served food, helped at first aid stations, counted people in and out, were phenomenal.  They were out for huge numbers of hours, day and night.  They came to cheer, to support. They came with food, with music. They came dressed as Santa and as Prince. Every TA was well staffed. Had a full set of portapotties. This race would not function, nor be as popular or as ‘easy’ to do without these generous and warm people giving of their time so completely. Thank you NH!

Food - you need to bring your own. You’ll likely have time with your team mates to have at least one meal before the end of the race, whether dinner or breakfast. So bring portable, run friendly foods with you. But don’t overload your bags with food. Know what is good for you before a run. Know what you need post race. My teammates who’d done this before had sensible, portable options beyond cereal bars and protein drinks. Hard-boiled eggs. Fresh veggies. Nut butter.  Pepperoni. Share, learn, I know I did and would pack some different options for the next time.

Water - bring lots of it.

Communication - you have to communicate not only within your van, but also with the folks in the other van.  For us the other van consisted of people most of us didn’t know. They were from the core of the ‘Fox Chase’ team and among them had some veterans who shared many tips and stories between major changeovers.  It would have been great to spend more time with these fine people who had extended a warm welcome to us, as well as a chance to spend the night before the race and the night after the race with them at ‘Fox Chase’ back near Sunapee.  Another time we will likely take them up on their offer.  Communication via text made things straight forward .... apart from when the cell coverage was poor.

Finish & Home

We’d headed to the town of Hampton Beach after leaving TA30 all showered (well most of us) & ready to celebrate. We had time for a relaxing lunch, a beer and a walk down the beach to the finish line.  Now we represented one van (6 people) of one (12 people) of three teams (36 people) running under the Fox Chase banner. That is 36 people running over 200 miles over 26 hours. Just getting those folks organized before the race was an operation on the same level as organizing a major military campaign.  Yet Matt Parnell from the Fox Chase group did this effortlessly. With weeks of planning he’d devised team rosters and leg assignments to get each team as close to finishing at the same time as possible.  Then throw in last minute withdrawals and then in-race retirements due to injury, and surely timing was out the window and we’d see who finished when.

Not a problem. People stood up and took on extra legs. Our own George Mix picked up an extra leg and did 2 legs back to back on Saturday morning, basically banging out a half marathon after running and driving and waiting for 20 hours.  Phenomenal. Others did similar. And the net result? All three teams coming down the beach to the finish line at the same time!  That was an amazing sight.  All the runners across all the teams getting into a group and running those last 100 yards thru the finish line, celebrating, being pictured, shaking hands, hugging all together.  

We were done. Bling collected. Friendships established, plans for next year starting to come together.  We departed Hampton Beach leaving the rest of Fox Chase to enjoy their annual dip in the water before heading back to their compound and celebrate the completion of another RTB relay.

We loaded back up in our van and headed south. The spirit didn’t fade. Yeah, everyone was tired, looking forward to seeing family, your own bed, and stretch out. But also with a tinge of sadness that such a great adventure and experience was done.  

Done, but not to be forgotten. Pictures were exchanged. Emails, contacts, social media profiles set up. In the hours immediately after the race, texts flew back and forth. In the next few days laughs exchanged at the expense of folks and their inability to walk/run/sit down/handle stairs.  The photo exchanging between us and between the wider Fox Chase group continues. It’s great to see such a wider view of the relay thru the eyes of the others.

The Big Questions

Would you do it again?

YUP ... I’d do it with the same people, in the same setup. Or bring some new friends to the experience. I’d even volunteer to do the same 3 legs. Why? I want to get the challenge of those hills down cold. Then I’ll look at other legs.  I don’t know if the others feel the same, but I am all about getting those legs (16 and 28) done better, faster, stronger.  That may take the entire next 12 months of hill work and leg workouts and dieting. But I’m going to get those bastards.

What I recommend it to others?

YUP .... if you are looking for this sort of challenge.  Endurance. Distance. Hills. Discomfort. Close relationships. I’m no adventure seeker, but this for me was a chance to break out of suburbia and put myself out there.

Would you try another Ragnar event?

Think so. Have talked with some folks of a destination race. Maybe a Ragnar event would be the one.

Done

So that was me and my first Ragnar experience.  Hopefully you got a taste for 26 hours of running, laughing, living and traveling. Running for me is all about the challenge and all about the friendships.  Ragnar Reach The Beach gets you both in greater amounts than you may find in any other experience. 

Go try one! 

[dani-qrt]

Supreme Court, Disney, Unions: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

1. Big news from the Supreme Court. In the morning, justices dealt a heavy blow to labor unions, saying that nonmembers are not required to pay agency fees.

Public-sector unions, including those for teachers, could lose major funding and see membership drop, but our analysis is that labor will not necessarily become weaker.

In the afternoon, Justice Anthony Kennedy, above, made even bigger headlines by announcing his retirement. A Reagan appointee, he was the court’s leading champion of gay rights and often a crossover vote. Our Supreme Court correspondent called the news a “judicial earthquake.”

3. It was the World Cup’s biggest day so far, the next to last day of group play.

Germany, the 2014 World Cup champion, suffered a humiliating 2-0 defeat by South Korea. Above, a German player after the loss. It was the first time since 1938 that his country failed to advance out of the first round.

And Mexico lost 3-0 against Sweden, but both progressed.

Keep up with all our World Cup coverage here.

_____

4. Rifts among House Republicans sank a major immigration overhaul, embarrassing the House leadership and President Trump.

It was the latest congressional failure to resolve the fate of the young, unauthorized immigrants knows as Dreamers.

Separately, the Trump administration said it would be difficult to meet the family reunification conditions a federal judge ordered on Tuesday: that children must be able to speak to their parents within 10 days and most families reunited within 30.

We’ll listen for Mr. Trump’s comments on these topics at his rally in North Dakota this evening.

5. The Justice Department approved Disney’s $71 billion bid to take over 21st Century Fox assets.

Disney and Fox first agreed to a deal in December. But two weeks ago, Comcast made a rival offer worth about $64 billion, prompting Disney to hit back with an even richer proposal.

The governmental approval could thwart Comcast’s efforts to take over Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment empire.

_____

6. Speaking of Fox, one of its alumni may become the White House communications director soon.

Bill Shine, above, the former Fox News executive who was ousted over his handling of sexual assault scandals at the network, has been offered the job by President Trump, two people familiar with the decision said.

White House officials say they are bracing for blowback for appointing a figure so closely tied to Fox’s culture of harassment. The post has been vacant since Hope Hicks departed in March.

_____

7. President Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will have a private meeting soon, officials said.

The prospective encounter, possibly in Finland, is stirring anxieties among European leaders. And it could overshadow a NATO summit meeting in July.

Asked why the meeting was taking place, John Bolton, the national security adviser, above right, said, “I’d like to hear someone say this is a bad idea.”

8. Overlooked no more: Emma Gatewood, the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail in one season, alone.

When she accomplished the feat in 1955, she was 67, a mother of 11, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. Her citation at the Appalachian Trail Museum concludes: “She inspired two distinct movements in long distance hiking, women thru-hikers and the ultra-lite movement.”

But it took many years for a crucial element of her story to emerge: decades of severe beatings and sexual abuse by her husband.

_____

9. Planning your summer vacation?

We’ve collected tips and techniques from our writers and experts, touching on everything from frugal travel philosophy, packing pointers and more.

And happy second anniversary to Smarter Living, helping you make the most of the world. This week: tips on managing envy and how to clean your (probably filthy) laptop.

_____

10. Finally, some good news. About bees.

You may know about the falling populations of these all-important pollinators.

But a new study in Britain notes that they seem to be able to adapt to urban settings — even the very center of London.

With that, have a great evening.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning.

Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

The post Supreme Court, Disney, Unions: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2yOAubJ via Online News

[newestbalance]

Supreme Court, Disney, Unions: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

1. Big news from the Supreme Court. In the morning, justices dealt a heavy blow to labor unions, saying that nonmembers are not required to pay agency fees.

Public-sector unions, including those for teachers, could lose major funding and see membership drop, but our analysis is that labor will not necessarily become weaker.

In the afternoon, Justice Anthony Kennedy, above, made even bigger headlines by announcing his retirement. A Reagan appointee, he was the court’s leading champion of gay rights and often a crossover vote. Our Supreme Court correspondent called the news a “judicial earthquake.”

3. It was the World Cup’s biggest day so far, the next to last day of group play.

Germany, the 2014 World Cup champion, suffered a humiliating 2-0 defeat by South Korea. Above, a German player after the loss. It was the first time since 1938 that his country failed to advance out of the first round.

And Mexico lost 3-0 against Sweden, but both progressed.

Keep up with all our World Cup coverage here.

_____

4. Rifts among House Republicans sank a major immigration overhaul, embarrassing the House leadership and President Trump.

It was the latest congressional failure to resolve the fate of the young, unauthorized immigrants knows as Dreamers.

Separately, the Trump administration said it would be difficult to meet the family reunification conditions a federal judge ordered on Tuesday: that children must be able to speak to their parents within 10 days and most families reunited within 30.

We’ll listen for Mr. Trump’s comments on these topics at his rally in North Dakota this evening.

5. The Justice Department approved Disney’s $71 billion bid to take over 21st Century Fox assets.

Disney and Fox first agreed to a deal in December. But two weeks ago, Comcast made a rival offer worth about $64 billion, prompting Disney to hit back with an even richer proposal.

The governmental approval could thwart Comcast’s efforts to take over Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment empire.

_____

6. Speaking of Fox, one of its alumni may become the White House communications director soon.

Bill Shine, above, the former Fox News executive who was ousted over his handling of sexual assault scandals at the network, has been offered the job by President Trump, two people familiar with the decision said.

White House officials say they are bracing for blowback for appointing a figure so closely tied to Fox’s culture of harassment. The post has been vacant since Hope Hicks departed in March.

_____

7. President Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will have a private meeting soon, officials said.

The prospective encounter, possibly in Finland, is stirring anxieties among European leaders. And it could overshadow a NATO summit meeting in July.

Asked why the meeting was taking place, John Bolton, the national security adviser, above right, said, “I’d like to hear someone say this is a bad idea.”

8. Overlooked no more: Emma Gatewood, the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail in one season, alone.

When she accomplished the feat in 1955, she was 67, a mother of 11, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. Her citation at the Appalachian Trail Museum concludes: “She inspired two distinct movements in long distance hiking, women thru-hikers and the ultra-lite movement.”

But it took many years for a crucial element of her story to emerge: decades of severe beatings and sexual abuse by her husband.

_____

9. Planning your summer vacation?

We’ve collected tips and techniques from our writers and experts, touching on everything from frugal travel philosophy, packing pointers and more.

And happy second anniversary to Smarter Living, helping you make the most of the world. This week: tips on managing envy and how to clean your (probably filthy) laptop.

_____

10. Finally, some good news. About bees.

You may know about the falling populations of these all-important pollinators.

But a new study in Britain notes that they seem to be able to adapt to urban settings — even the very center of London.

With that, have a great evening.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning.

Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

The post Supreme Court, Disney, Unions: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2yOAubJ via Everyday News

[dragnews]

Supreme Court, Disney, Unions: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

1. Big news from the Supreme Court. In the morning, justices dealt a heavy blow to labor unions, saying that nonmembers are not required to pay agency fees.

Public-sector unions, including those for teachers, could lose major funding and see membership drop, but our analysis is that labor will not necessarily become weaker.

In the afternoon, Justice Anthony Kennedy, above, made even bigger headlines by announcing his retirement. A Reagan appointee, he was the court’s leading champion of gay rights and often a crossover vote. Our Supreme Court correspondent called the news a “judicial earthquake.”

3. It was the World Cup’s biggest day so far, the next to last day of group play.

Germany, the 2014 World Cup champion, suffered a humiliating 2-0 defeat by South Korea. Above, a German player after the loss. It was the first time since 1938 that his country failed to advance out of the first round.

And Mexico lost 3-0 against Sweden, but both progressed.

Keep up with all our World Cup coverage here.

_____

4. Rifts among House Republicans sank a major immigration overhaul, embarrassing the House leadership and President Trump.

It was the latest congressional failure to resolve the fate of the young, unauthorized immigrants knows as Dreamers.

Separately, the Trump administration said it would be difficult to meet the family reunification conditions a federal judge ordered on Tuesday: that children must be able to speak to their parents within 10 days and most families reunited within 30.

We’ll listen for Mr. Trump’s comments on these topics at his rally in North Dakota this evening.

5. The Justice Department approved Disney’s $71 billion bid to take over 21st Century Fox assets.

Disney and Fox first agreed to a deal in December. But two weeks ago, Comcast made a rival offer worth about $64 billion, prompting Disney to hit back with an even richer proposal.

The governmental approval could thwart Comcast’s efforts to take over Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment empire.

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6. Speaking of Fox, one of its alumni may become the White House communications director soon.

Bill Shine, above, the former Fox News executive who was ousted over his handling of sexual assault scandals at the network, has been offered the job by President Trump, two people familiar with the decision said.

White House officials say they are bracing for blowback for appointing a figure so closely tied to Fox’s culture of harassment. The post has been vacant since Hope Hicks departed in March.

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7. President Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will have a private meeting soon, officials said.

The prospective encounter, possibly in Finland, is stirring anxieties among European leaders. And it could overshadow a NATO summit meeting in July.

Asked why the meeting was taking place, John Bolton, the national security adviser, above right, said, “I’d like to hear someone say this is a bad idea.”

8. Overlooked no more: Emma Gatewood, the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail in one season, alone.

When she accomplished the feat in 1955, she was 67, a mother of 11, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. Her citation at the Appalachian Trail Museum concludes: “She inspired two distinct movements in long distance hiking, women thru-hikers and the ultra-lite movement.”

But it took many years for a crucial element of her story to emerge: decades of severe beatings and sexual abuse by her husband.

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9. Planning your summer vacation?

We’ve collected tips and techniques from our writers and experts, touching on everything from frugal travel philosophy, packing pointers and more.

And happy second anniversary to Smarter Living, helping you make the most of the world. This week: tips on managing envy and how to clean your (probably filthy) laptop.

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10. Finally, some good news. About bees.

You may know about the falling populations of these all-important pollinators.

But a new study in Britain notes that they seem to be able to adapt to urban settings — even the very center of London.

With that, have a great evening.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

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