#lt latimer

[mrm101]

Update: Release/Launch time 16:20BST

The next flight of Virgin's Spaceship Two VSS Unity, Galactic 2, is scheduled for today on its 11th powered flight and second operational commercial flight taking off from Runway 34 Spaceport America, Jornada del Muerto Desert, New Mexico. Pic: VMS Eve and Unity on mission Unity 25 on 25 May 2023. This time Virgin Galactic will televise the mission from 16:00BST

Galactic 02:

Pilot VMS Eve Lt Col Mike Masucci USAF (ret)

Co-Pilot VMS Eve: Nicola Pecile former NTPS, Mojave CA Italian AF (ret)

Commander VSS Unity Col Frederick 'CJ' Sturkow USMC/NASA (ret)

Pilot Lt VSS Unity Col Kelly Latimer USAF (ret)

Instructor 002 Beth Moses NASA (ret) Chief Astronaut Instructor Virgin Galactic (4th flight)

Astronaut 011 Jon Goodwin

Astronaut 012 Keisha Schahaff

Astronaut 013 Anastatia Mayers

Jon Goodwin

British, first Olympian to fly in space, he competed in two C-2 slalom canoeing events in the 1972 Munich Olympics for the UK. Aged 80. He has been a regular and leading competitor in the Ferrari Hillclimb Championship (motorsport) since 1992. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's neurological disease in 2014. he will be the second person to fly with the condition, NASA astronaut Rich Gillford was diagnosed before making his second spaceflight on STS-76

Keisha Schahaff

An entrepreneur, aged 46, won a pair of tickets in a draw competition by NPO Space for Humanity. She will become the first sub-orbital astronaut from Antigua and Barbuda, Caribbean, along with her daughter, also the first mother and daughter pair to fly in space together.

Anastatia Mayers

Daughter of Keisha Schahaff, aged 18. She is studying philosophy and physics at Aberdeen University, Scotland. Second youngest person to fly in space, also second person from Aberdeen University (the first being Cmr Brian Binnie with an honorary degree, who's father taught at the university)

[zuviromania]

Esarfa Doca cu model

Esarfa Doca cu model

Esarfa Doca cu model Material: poliester Lungime: 178 cm Latime: 85 cm Pentru oferta engros de accesorii vestimentare sau decoratiuni de casa, va rugam sa trimiteti un mail la adresa <b>engros@miniboutique.ro</b>

[meant-forsomethingbetter]

1x16 - The Galileo Seven

5/10. An interesting diversion from business as usual with this one, as Spock is sent on an away mission to an unknown quasar with six crewmen, including McCoy and Scotty, only for them to become stranded on a hostile planet. Back on the Enterprise, Kirk must contend with a Starfleet commissioner whose sole purpose is to remind the captain that his duty is to deliver medical supplies to a plague-ridden planet, no matter that some of his crew are missing. Spock takes control of command this episode, although it’s a struggle to do so with dissent rising in the ranks of his subordinates, all of whom are repulsed by his cold logician’s approach to survival. Even McCoy takes his turn stirring the pot, incredulous that Spock refuses to risk the surviving members of the crew in order to bury a dead one, for example. Lieutenants Boma and Gaetano, not-redshirted redshirts, question Spock’s decisions at every moment, suspicious of the fact that he’s not falling over himself in hysteria every time something goes wrong. It’s implied that they probably wouldn’t talk back so much to their superior officer had it been Kirk, or another human, regardless of the decisions made; the chain of command would be adhered to strictly, and should be in times of crisis, lest order collapse completely. They simply don’t trust his Vulcan instincts. McCoy does stand up for Spock later in the episode, and Scotty too, and upon the moment of escape even Boma risks everything to save Spock on a whim; but it’s all done in a manner that belies how superior they think their emotion-driven actions are when compared to logic. It’s fascinating looking at it through the lens of ableism and racism more than 50 years after it was written. (Obviously only contained in a fantasy setting, not comparable to real racism.) I’m sure many POC and neurodivergent people will be able to identify with the rigorous suspicion and interrogation to which Spock is subjected, when he’s only performing his job to its specifications. This is not to say Spock was 100% right all the time, as the story dictated he should have been more prepared to anticipate others’ emotions, instead of assuming everyone and everything will follow logic. But there are interesting parallels to explore.

Favourite quote: “What a mess.” / “Picturesque descriptions will not mend broken circuits, Mr. Scott.” - Scotty and Spock. // Proof that I manage to be both of them in a crisis. Simultaneously bemoaning the state of things while chiding myself for not fixing it sooner. The Enterprise crew really make up one whole functioning person, don’t they?

[jennywboman]

Tiger Woods ‘lucky to be alive’ after crash: Latest updates, details as golf star recovers from car accident

Tiger Woods ‘lucky to be alive’ after crash: Latest updates, details as golf star recovers from car accident:

Tiger Woods was severely injured in a single car roll-over collision in Los Angeles early Tuesday, in accordance to regulation enforcement officers.

Woods was injured within the crash at roughly 10:12 a.m. ET on Tuesday. Reports indicated first responders from the Los Angeles County Fire Department — who reportedly have been notified of the crash by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department at 10:22 a.m. and responded to the scene at 10:28 a.m. — had to use a pry bar and axe to take away the golf star from the car.

The Los Angeles Times reported Woods was transported from the crash website to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center through ambulance with a shattered ankle and two leg fractures, certainly one of which was compound. He is at the moment in secure situation.

The explanation for the crash is underneath investigation.

Woods had been within the Los Angeles space internet hosting The Genesis Invitational golf occasion; the car he was driving — reportedly a 2021 Genesis GV80 SUV — was supplied to him by the match. He had been within the Los Angeles space for a couple of additional days on a Golf Digest shoot with former NBA star Dwyane Wade and actor and comic David Spade.

Woods, 45, not too long ago underwent again surgical procedure, his fifth, after taking part in within the Masters in November. He was aiming to return to Augusta for the Masters in April, as stated over the weekend to CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz.

Here’s the most recent on Woods’ crash:

Tiger Woods crash updates

All instances Eastern

12:54 a.m: Woods’ official Twitter account launched an replace on his standing early Wednesday morning, saying he suffered a number of fractures to his higher and decrease fibula and tibia, which required sstabilization with a rod inserted into the previous. Additional accidents in his foot and ankle have been stabilized with screws and pins. The launch stated Woods was alert, awake and resting in his hospital room following surgical procedure.

7:27 p.m.: Woods, in accordance to somebody with data of his remedy, suffered a shattered ankle and two leg fractures, certainly one of which was a compound fracture.

Latest on Tiger Woods: His accidents included a shattered ankle and two leg fractures, certainly one of which was compound, in accordance to a supply accustomed to his remedy. “Lucky to be alive,” the L.A. County sheriff says. From @latimes crew masking the crash: https://t.co/3sZTsNMmML

— Daniel Miller (@DanielNMiller) February 23, 2021

6:40 p.m.: NBC News studies that Woods is in “stable condition,” including there was no indication he used the brakes in his crash.

6:26 p.m.: Andy Slater of Fox Sports studies that Woods was on his approach to meet NFL quarterback Drew Brees on the time of the accident.

NEW: Tiger Woods was on his approach to meet Drew Brees and was operating late, in accordance to @BretBaier on FOX.

— Andy Slater (@AndySlater) February 23, 2021

6:24 p.m.: The first responding officer on the scene, LAPD deputy Carlos Gonzalez says Woods was unable to stand on his personal, including that he was lucid and calm. Also says Woods was sporting his seatbelt.

6:18 p.m.: Villanueva says the entrance of Woods’ car was broken significantly, however that the inside cabin remained intact; in any other case, he stated, Woods’ accident would have been deadly.

6:11 p.m.: Villanueva says the realm by which Woods crashed has seen frequent accidents due to its downward, twisting format. Says climate isn’t thought of an element within the crash.

6:09 p.m.: Los Angeles hearth chief Daryl Osby within the information convention, says it was decided on the crash website that Woods had “serious” leg accidents and that, based mostly on the crash and the severity of his accidents, it was decided he ought to be transported to the closest trauma middle: Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He additionally reiterated that it wasn’t the jaws of life that eliminated Woods from the car, however a mixture of a pry bar and axe.

6:07 p.m.: Villanueva reiterates there was no signal of impairment in Woods on the scene of the crash, and that there was no effort to draw blood from him on the time or when he was transported to the hospital.

6:05 p.m.: Villanueva says one other crash occurred close to the place Woods’ occurred due to rubber-necking. No one was injured.

6:03 p.m.: Villanueva says the visitors report into Woods’ crash will take a number of days to conclude.

6:02 p.m.: Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, in a information convention, says first responders didn’t see proof of impairment in Tiger Woods.

5:57 p.m.: Woods’ crashed Genesis GV80 has been eliminated from the crash website, as seen on the Golf Channel.

5:26 p.m.: NBC News studies that first responders used an axe — not the jaws of life — to take away Woods from his car.

5:12 p.m.: Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva tells the Los Angeles Times that Woods is “lucky to be alive.”

5:07 p.m.: Kavitha Davidson of The Athletic studies that jaws of life weren’t wanted to extract Woods from his car:

LA hearth captain clarifies that the jaws of life have been NOT wanted to extract Tiger from the car — hand instruments have been used

— Kavitha A. Davidson (@kavithadavidson) February 23, 2021

5:02 p.m.: The Golf Channel studies that Woods was alert and responsive to first responders on the website of the crash.

4:18 p.m.: CNN’s Jake Tapper studies that the jaws of life could not have been used to take away Woods from the car, and that he was pulled from the car’s windshield as an alternative.

4:01 p.m.: CNN’s Kyung Lah studies that Woods is at the moment in critical situation in Harbor-UCLA medical middle.

3:51 p.m.: ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne studies that LA medical doctors are involved with the severity of the leg accidents greater than the surgical procedure on his medically repaired again.

3:50 p.m.: Woods’ accidents aren’t thought of to be life threatening, per Lt. Michael White of L.A. County Sheriff’s Office.

3:28 p.m.: The Los Angeles Times reports that it is believed that Woods was touring at a “high rate of speed” earlier than crossing a divider, inflicting the car to flip a number of instances earlier than coming to a halt, per regulation enforcement officers. The highway that was traveled is taken into account curvy and steep.

2:57 p.m.: Woods sustained moderate-to-critical accidents, per Los Angeles County Public Information Officer Henry Narvez.

Tiger Woods suffered reasonable to vital accidents after being pulled from his car in following a rollover crash in Rancho Palos Verdes, in accordance to Los Angeles County PIO Henry Narvez.

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) February 23, 2021

2:48 p.m.: Woods’ agent says that Woods sustained a number of leg accidents and is at the moment in surgical procedure, per Golf Digest’s Daniel Rapaport.

Story up to date with assertion from Woods’ agent Mark Steinberg:

“Tiger Woods was in a single-car accident this morning in California where he suffered multiple leg injuries. He is currently in surgery and we thank you for your privacy and support.” https://t.co/z7kdbXOmLZ

— Daniel Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) February 23, 2021

2:45 p.m.: Images of the car that Woods had supposedly been driving have surfaced:

2:37 p.m.: There’s no official phrase on Woods’ accidents in the meanwhile. The wreck is described as “major,” with the LA County Sheriff’s Department stating it had to take away Woods from the wreck utilizing the jaws of life. The collision occurred early Tuesday on the West Coast.

The story was initially damaged by Steven Gregory, an iHeartRadio correspondent.

Woods was videoed alongside former NBA famous person Dwyane Wade prior to the accident. The video was posted to Wade’s Instagram account, although the timeline for the video suggests it was from Monday. Woods was additionally videoed with actor and comic David Spade.

Woods underwent his fifth again surgical procedure in December, and was within the means of rehabbing the harm so as to get again to the course.

This story will be up to date.

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source https://infomagzine.tumblr.com/post/643981978666942464

[akemyycloser]

O Slenderman

Em um dia, uma casa abandonada, não visitada a anos, décadas. Talvez séculos! Nada melhor para se passar o halloween, não é? Numa sexta de halloween, amigas decidem passar a noite, na casa abandonada, Alysson, Hanna, Brenda e Katerina. Jovens de 15 a 16 anos.

Katerina diz para Alysson: 

-Olhe! achei esses livros, de histórias de halloween

Alysson responde: -Que legal, aterrorizanteee, com sarcasmo. 

Depois, escutam um barulho de algo batendo na porta, muito forte. 

Brenda diz: -Cadê a Hanna? 

Katerina: -Eu que não abro!

Alysson: -Ok, ok: eu abro. E então elas abrem a porta e.....

Hanna: -BU, assustei vocês?

Então elas dizem: -Hanna, não teve graça!

Hanna: Sério? porque eu achei a maior graça *gargalhadas*

Elas então sentam no sofá velho, e empoeirado, e vão ler os livros: 

Hanna: -A lenda do slenderman? essa é nova, vamos lá!

Diz a lenda que se você falar essas palavras, você invocará o slenderman, grande e poderoso, o assassino!

Alysson: -Pff, besteira. Algm acredita nisso? eu mesmo falo!

Então, ela não sabe o erro que iria cometer:

Alysson diz: -Et ex omnibus viribus tenebras, et satanas, qui vocat slenderman

E então, um raio cai e uma tempestade já prevista, acontece. 

Elas dizem: -Estou com medo.

Hanna diz: -Medo é para os fracos, vocês acham que tal monstro ia ser invocado só de dizer umas palavrinhas em latim idiotas? pff

Katerina, pega a vodka e fala: -Eu sou a primeira.

Todas, bebendo e contando seus segredos. Até que cairam no sono, todas menos Hanna.

De noite, elas acordam e:

Brenda: -Katerna, acordaaaa

Katernina: -Oque foi??

Brenda: -a Alysson e a hanna, sumiram!

Alysson então aparece e diz: -A hanna sumiu, procurei ela em todos os lugares, acho que a escutei gritar...

Hanna então aparece , toda ensanguentada.

Alysson: Onde você esteve, Hanna? 

Logo então, o corpo de hanna sofre deformações, até que vêem que não era mais a hanna, era um homem, branco, grande, de terno e... SEM ROSTO!

Todas gritam ao mesmo tempo: -CORREEE!

Katerine: -Espere, esse não é o homem que estava naquele livro idiota, é... 

Alysson: -O-o Slenderman!!

Brenda: -Então aquilo não era lenda, né?

Alysson: -Lá no livro, diz  que havia um preço ao invoca-lo: a sua alma consumida pelo Sl-lenderman..

Todas, cansadas de tanto correr, pensaram em se esconder. Viram uns papéis: Slenderman, como derrotar.

Até que, não sabiam que na verdade, estavam caindo no jogo do slenderman:

Katerine: -me da isso!

 Alysson: -Eu encontrei, então é MEU *fala no final com uma voz terrivelmente assustadora.

Katerine e brenda vão para trás, e contam em suas mentes: 1, 2, 3, 

Gritam: -CORREEEE!

Então, elas tentando correr, mas já era tarde demais. O slenderman controlou todas as amigas delas, para realmente irem ao lugar dele: Uma abrigo, bem perto da casa abandonada. Entraram lá e escutaram uma voz grossa: 

- Claude ostium ut nemo tibi exire donec binis capitibus suis.

PUMMM: As portas se fecham, e elas tentam abrir, mas nada funcionava!

Elas escutam ele se aproximando e falando: -Tolas e patéticas, vocês nunca vão fugir, até eu ter matado todas vocês!

Ele abre a boca e então, come a cabeça da Alysson, e o corpo dela cai no chão, jorrando sangue pelo pescoço.

Então, katerine grita, e o slenderman diz: -porque me temer, se você é minha filhinha querida? 

Katerine diz: -Você é um monstro, e eu não sou sua filha e nunca serei!

Slenderman: -Então, quem são seus pais? 

Katerine: -E-eu não tenho. Eles morreram!

Slenderman: -ERRADO! 

Katerine, se transformando em uma slenderman, tenta o matar. Mas, ele pega-a pelo pescoço, e ela sufocando diz:

-Me so-lt-e

Slenderman diz: Nunca. E então, ele a matou e fez uma boneca com a pele, a carne dela, e conversa com a boneca

Slenderman: -Eu criei uma linda filha

[a---z]

TRANSMISSIONS

www.twitch.tv/transmissions2020

Our collective isolation highlights that all forms of community are now more important than ever, and it is vital that we find mechanisms to support each other through this precarious time. In this extraordinary landscape that we have found ourselves in, it is clear that many artists, writers and thinkers are having exhibitions, opportunities and subsequent fees cancelled for the foreseeable future. In response to this, we are establishing a new project called TRANSMISSIONS. This is an online platform which will commission artists to share their work within a classic DIY TV show format.

Episode 1

| 23 April | 9PM GMT

REPLAY | 24 April | 9AM GMT

w/ Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg / Bruce Bickford / CAConrad / Salvador Dali / Brice Dellsperger / Tessa Hughes-Freeland / Juliet Jacques / Sam Keogh / Jiji Kim / Quinn Latimer / Mark Leckey / Kalup Linzy / Sade Mica / Laure Prouvost / Christopher Soto / Patrick Staff / The Cockettes / TV Party / Unarius Academy of Science / Su Hui- Yu –  Curated by Anne Duffau, Hana Noorali & Tai Shani Episode 2 | 30 April | 9PM GMT REPLAY | 1 May | 9AM GMT w/ Sophie Jung Episode 3 | 7 May | 9PM GMT REPLAY | 8 May | 9AM GMT w/ Tarek Lakhrissi – Your world is already ending Episode 4 | 14 May | 9PM GMT REPLAY |  15 May | 9AM GMT w/ Johanna Hedva – Tom Cruise Studies with expert guests Vivian Ia and Matthew Miller Episode 5 | 21 May | 9PM GMT REPLAY |  22 May | 9AM GMT w/ STRAWBERRY JAM:  A LITERARY HOUR with Mykki Blanco Episode 6 | 28 May | 9PM GMT REPLAY |  29 May | 9AM GMT w/ CAConrad with invited poets

Season 1 of TRANSMISSIONS will run as six weekly episodes screening every Thursday at 9 pm GMT and repeated on Fridays at 9 am GMT on Twitch. The 1st episode will air on the 23rd of April 2020 which will be curated by Anne Duffau, Tai Shani and Hana Noorali. The subsequent five episodes will be hosted by invited artists.  Each artist included in TRANSMISSIONS will be paid a fee in return for their contribution. With a sense of community, all the money used to pay artists in season 1 has been kindly donated by established UK art institutions and commercially stable artists.

Season 1 is funded and supported by, Artquest+DACS, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Studio Oscar Murillo, Somerset House Studios and Wysing Arts Centre.

  Episode 1 |  23 April | 9PM GMT

REPLAY | 24 April | 9AM GMT

w/ Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg / Bruce Bickford / CAConrad / Salvador Dali / Brice Dellsperger / Tessa Hughes-Freeland / Juliet Jacques / Sam Keogh / Jiji Kim / Quinn Latimer / Mark Leckey / Kalup Linzy / Sade Mica / Laure Prouvost / Christopher Soto / Patrick Staff / The Cockettes / TV Party / Unarius Academy of Science / Su Hui- Yu –  Curated by Anne Duffau, Hana Noorali & Tai Shani

Episode 2 | 30 April | 9PM GMT REPLAY | 1 May | 9AM GMT w/ Sophie Jung

Sophie Jung, The Bigger Sleep, 2019 courtesy the artist and Kunstmuseum Basel. Photo: Julian Salinas

Working across text, sculpture and performance, Sophie Jung’s work navigates the politics of re/er/re/presentation and challenges the reductive desire to conclude. Her texts unfocus on blurring scripted hegemonies and tap, hop, stammer and stumble over and across languaged powers. She employs humour, shame, the absurd, raw anger, rhythm and rhyme, slapstick, hardship, friendship and a constant stream of slippages. Her sculptural work consists of bodies made up of both found and haphazardly produced attributes and defines itself against the dogma of an Original Idea or a Universal Significance. Instead it stands as a network of abiding incompletion, an ever-changing choir of urgencies and pleasures, traumas and manifestations that communally relay between dominant and minor themes. Sophie Jung is invested in triggering a de-categorising of concepts and a deconceptualisation of categories and understands her approach to “stuff” – both legible utensil and metaphoric apparition – as an uncertain queering slash querying of historical materialism. Sophie Jung (lives and works in Basel and London) received a BFA from the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, and a MFA from Goldsmiths, London. Recent projects and exhibitions include Sincerity Condition at Casino Luxembourg, Woman Standing at The National Gallery, Prague, Taxpayer’s Money for Frieze LIVE; Dramatis Personaea at JOAN, Los Angeles; The Bigger Sleep at Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart and Block Universe, London; Come Fresh Hell or Fresh High Water at Blain Southern, London; Producing My Credentials at Kunstraum London and Paramount VS Tantamount at Kunsthalle Basel. She is currently working on solo exhibitions at E.A. Shared Space, Istituto Svizzero in Milan and Galerie Joseph Tang in Paris and works as a guest mentor at Institut Kunst, Basel.

Episode 3

| 7 May | 9PM GMT

REPLAY | 8 May | 9AM GMT

w/ Tarek Lakhrissi

– Your world is already ending

Tarek Lakhrissi is a visual artist and a poet based in Paris. His works have been exhibited in Auto Italia South East (London, UK), Hayward Gallery (London, UK), Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, AU), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France), Grand Palais - FIAC (Paris, FR), Lafayette Anticipations (Paris, FR), CRAC Alsace (Altkirch, FR), Artexte (Montreal, CA), Šiuolaikinio meno centras/CAC (Vilnius, LT), Espace Arlaud (Lausanne, CH), among others. He is a featured artist in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney NIRIN (2020).

Episode 4 | 14 May | 9PM GMT REPLAY |  15 May | 9AM GMT w/ Johanna Hedva – Tom Cruise Studies with expert guests Vivian Ia and Matthew Miller

Tom Cruise Studies is a meander of curiosity. There is no driving inquiry other than the question, "What's, like, up with Tom Cruise?" Hedva considers the various roles Cruise has played onscreen and in public, from religious zealot, to cocky upstart, to a man oppressed by his own masculinity, to couch-jumping love-nut, to an exiled actor who clawed his way back into Hollywood via a maniacal obsession with doing death-certain stunts. Joined by two expert guests, Hedva and Vivian Ia will consider the astrology charts of Cruise and L. Ron Hubbard, while Matthew Miller will share his theory that the Mission Impossible franchise is Cruise's vehicle for making public apologies to his ex-wife, Katie Holmes.

Johanna Hedva is a Korean-American writer, artist, musician, and astrologer, who was raised in Los Angeles by a family of witches, and now lives in LA and Berlin. Hedva is the author of the novel, On Hell. Their collection of poems, performances, and essays, Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain, will be published in September 2020. Their essay, "Sick Woman Theory," published in Mask in 2016, has been translated into six languages, and their writing has appeared in Triple Canopy, frieze, The White Review, and Asian American Literary Review. Their work has been shown at The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Performance Space New York, the LA Architecture and Design Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon, as well as featured in parrhesiades. Their album, The Sun and the Moon, was released in March 2019, and they’re currently touring Black Moon Lilith in Pisces in the 4th House, a doom metal guitar and voice performance influenced by Korean shamanist ritual.  

Vivian Ia lives in Berlin. Their poetry is Pushcart-nominated and has appeared or is forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, Tiny Seed, The Gravity of the Thing, Fourteen Hills, and Berkeley Poetry Review.

Matthew Miller is a video director from Sacramento, California. He works in both live-action and animation to create short films and commercial projects. In the last four years, he’s directed a series of short films for The Getty Museum with artists and authors such as Ellsworth Kelly, Yo-Yo Ma, Mary Beard, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Ed Ruscha. He is currently in quarantine with his wife and Snoopy-esque dog, Millie, in Hawaiian Gardens, California, where he has been dividing his time between starting a garden and collecting ideas for a film project.

Episode 5

| 21 May | 9PM GMT

REPLAY |  22 May | 9AM GMT

w/ STRAWBERRY JAM:  A LITERARY HOUR with

Mykki Blanco

Join musician Mykki Blanco for an hour of music and poetry readings. Spoken word, lyrical breakdowns, a presentation on two  20th century American literary figures Bob Kaufman & Mina Loy as well as a first time listen to new unreleased musical project.

Episode 6 | 28 May | 9PM GMT REPLAY |  29 May | 9AM GMT w/ CAConrad with invited poets

CAConrad's latest book JUPITER ALIGNMENT: (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals, is forthcoming from Ignota Books in 2020. The author of 9 books of poetry and essays, While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books), won the 2018 Lambda Book Award. They also received a 2019 Creative Capital grant as well as a Pew Fellowship, the Believer Magazine Book Award, and the Gil Ott Book Award. They regularly teach at Columbia University in New York City, and Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam. Please view their books, essays, recordings, and the documentary The Book of Conrad (Delinquent Films) online at http://bit.ly/88CAConrad

"CAConrad's poems invite the reader to become an agent in a joint act of recovery, to step outside of passivity and propriety and to become susceptible to the illogical and the mysterious." ---Tracy K. Smith, New York Times.

Thank you to:

All contributing artists, writers, poets, composers and thinkers; Maxwell Sterling; Adam Sinclair; Lori E. Allen; Artsquest. An artist-run programme that uses research about visual artists’ working conditions to provide support for professional artists; DACS; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art; Studio Oscar Murillo; Somerset House Studios; Wysing Arts Centre; Cabinet Gallery; Lisson Gallery & Max Bossier

https://www.twitch.tv/transmissions2020

@transmissions2020

TRANSMISSIONS collective is composed of:

Anne Duffau

is a cultural producer, researcher, and founder of A---Z, an exploratory/nomadic curatorial platform exploring artistic practices and knowledge exchange through collaborations, presentations, soundscapes, screenings and discussions. She has collaborated with a range of projects and organisations including ArtLicks, Southwark Park Galleries, Mimosa House and Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London Please Stand By, or-bits .com, PAF Olomouc Czech Republic & Tenderflix. Anne has previously run the StudioRCA Riverlight, London programme (2016-2018) and is currently the interim curator at Wysing Arts Center, a Tutor at the School of Arts and Humanities, and is the acting Lead in Critical Practice, within the Royal College of Art’s Contemporary Art Practice Programme. She has performed live music under Alpha through a number of projects and collaborations.

Hana Noorali

is an independent curator and writer based in London. In 2019 she was selected (together with Lynton Talbot) to realise an exhibition at The David Roberts Foundation as part of their annual curator’s series. She curated Lisson Presents at Lisson Gallery, London from 2017-2018 and from 2017 -2019, produced and presented the podcast series Lisson ON AIR. In 2018 Hana edited a monograph on the work of artist and Benedictine Monk, Dom Sylvester Houédard. Its release coincided with an exhibition of his work at Lisson Gallery, New York that she co-curated with Matt O’Dell. In 2007, she co-founded a non-profit project space and curatorial collective called RUN active until 2011. In 2020 Hana and her curatorial partner Lynton Talbot will be publishing an anthology that examines the intersection of poetry and film with (p) (prototype).

Tai Shani

is an artist living and working in London. She is the joint 2019 Turner Prize winner together with Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock and Oscar Murillo. In 2019 Tai was a Max Mara prize nominee. Her work has been shown at Turner Contemporary, UK (2019); Grazer Kunst Verein, Austria (2019); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy (2019); Glasgow International, UK (2018); Wysing Arts Centre, UK (2017); Serpentine Galleries, London (2016); Tate, London (2016); Yvonne Lambert Gallery, Berlin (2016) and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016).

[ltleather]

SALIVA, CUSPE, BABA... Salirofilia (Do latim "Saliro" = fluídos salgados e, "filia" = atração por) é o fetiche pela saliva e pelo suor (fluídos orgânicos contendo sal), o que inclui intensa atração e/ou desejo sexual por: 😋 Lamber alguém ou algum objeto erótico; 😋Ser lambido por determinadas pessoas; 😛Ver outras pessoas se lambendo; 😋Ver suor e/ou saliva escorrendo; 😋Lamber suor e/ou; 🤗Sentir o cheiro de suor de determinadas pessoas; 😜 Sugar ou beber a saliva e o suor de outro. Assim como em outras parafilias, essa atração não é necessariamente indiscriminada, costumando estar restrita a atração por suor e saliva em determinados contextos e de determinadas pessoas. Geralmente durante as preliminares ou durante o ato sexual em si com alguém que se sente atraído. Ou seja, não significa que a pessoa tem atração por qualquer suor, por lamber qualquer pessoa ou em qualquer contexto nem por todas as possibilidades. Além do que, a saliva contém testosterona, que durante um beijo é transmitida de uma pessoa para outra aumentando o tesão. Esse fetiche pode incluir também o uso da saliva como lubrificante genital para facilitar a penetração. Fonte: Wikipedia (em LT Bears Cave) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByjKHKpnC0c/?igshid=1n4o3v0va8g31

[un-enfant-immature]

Virgin Orbit successfully takes its 747 flying launchpad out for a spin

In the next step on its path to getting its low earth orbit payload launch system up and running, Virgin Orbit successfully took its LauncherOne system out for a spin with an actual rocket attached under its wing. 

The company’s specially modified 747-400 carried a 70-foot-long rocket as part of a test flight proving that the carbon-fiber, two-stage rocket works with the plane.

It’s a necessary step toward Virgin Orbit’s plans to begin launching rockets early next year.

The launch took place in Victorville, Calif., near Virgin Orbit’s Long Beach factory and the Mojave Air and Space Port, which serves as an operational launch site for Virgin.

“The vehicles flew like a dream today,” said Virgin Orbit Chief Pilot Kelly Latimer (Lt. Col, US Air Force, Ret.), in a statement. “Everyone on the flight crew and all of our colleagues on the ground were extremely happy with the data we saw from the instruments on-board the aircraft, in the pylon, and on the rocket itself. From my perspective in the cockpit, the vehicles handled incredibly well, and perfectly matched what we’ve trained for in the simulators.”

The company said that it expects to conduct several more flights of its 747-400, both with and without the LauncherOne rocket. The critical culmination of all of these tests will be a drop test, when a rocket will be released from the 747 (dubbed “Cosmic Girl”) without igniting. 

That test is designed to provide data about the systems aboard the 747 that control detachment and about the rocket’s performance in an atmospheric free-fall.

Virgin Orbit is one of several new companies racing to get new launch systems in orbit. Already capacity-constrained as companies push to launch new satellites into low earth orbit, companies like Virgin Orbit, RocketLab, Relativity Space, ARCA, AstroSpace, Blue Origin, Generation Orbit, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, and others around the world have raised hundreds of millions to take payloads into space.

[gallery ids="1748677,1748678,1748679,1748680,1748682,1748683,1748684,1748685"]

[zuviromania]

Esarfa Doca cu animal print

Esarfa Doca cu animal print

Esarfa Doca cu animal print Material: poliester Lungime: 180 cm Latime: 13 cm Pentru oferta engros de accesorii vestimentare sau decoratiuni de casa, va rugam sa trimiteti un mail la adresa <b>engros@miniboutique.ro</b>

[teeky185]

"It's a totally upside-down world" for John Bolton, said Sen. Chris Von Hollen (D-Md.), one of the Democrats who recently called President Trump's former national security adviser a "warmonger" and now wants him to testify under oath. as the star witness in Trump's impeachment trial.On the other side, some of "Bolton's longtime Republican friends are just as abruptly tossing him to the curb, painting him as a disgruntled former adviser who just wants to sell books," writes Peter Baker at The New York Times. "Some of the same senators who allied with him, promoted his career, consulted with him on foreign affairs, and took his political action committee money are going along as he is painted as 'a tool for the radical Dems and the deep state,'" as Fox Business host and former Bolton fan Lou Dobbs said Monday night.Dobbs showed some confusing charts trying to connect Bolton, a Republican stalwart and hardline national security conservative, to various figures Dobbs also distrusts, like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). The charts link Romney to Bolton and Trump's current national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, for example, but don't connect Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother. But in tarring "Bolton as a tool of the president's enemies," Baker notes, Dobbs also cited as proof that Bolton "used the same literary agents as James B. Comey the FBI director fired by Mr. Trump — prompting one of the literary agents to point out that one of their other clients was Mr. Dobbs," among other conservatives.> Dear @LouDobbs, you forgot to list some other notable @JavelinDC clients: Don Rumsfeld, Tucker, numerous GOP officeholders, @mikepillsbury, conservative organizations, oh, and you! Are you part of the conspiracy? https://t.co/nZdaNvkkMW> > — Matt Latimer (@matt_latimer) January 28, 2020Whether or not Dobbs is also a "tool for the left," Bolton "still wants a future in Republican politics," Baker reports, citing Bolton's friend. "He also remains as contemptuous of Democrats as ever and has not explicitly expressed support for impeachment or conviction." So maybe the world isn't so upside-down after all.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi 7 witheringly funny cartoons about the GOP's John Bolton problem

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Oc1Wp5

[deniscollins]

Behind Illicit Massage Parlors Lie a Vast Crime Network and Modern Indentured Servitude

Law enforcement officials said there were an estimated 9,000 illicit massage parlors across the country, from Orlando to Los Angeles. Many of the women are Asians smuggled into the country to pay off debts. What would you do if you found out that a friend was going to use the services of an illicit massage parlor: (1) Say nothing since it’s freedom of choice, or (2) try to intervene and prevent him from going? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

She was 49, a recent immigrant and deeply in debt to a loan shark back home in China when she answered an employment ad three years ago that promised thousands of dollars a month, but offered no job description. She realized too late that she had been tricked into working at a massage parlor in Flushing, Queens, where besides kneading backs, she was expected to sexually service up to a dozen men a day.

Some of the clients were violent, and the boss charged $10 a day for her to sleep on a sofa in a room at the parlor where rats nibbled on her food. “The customers were very terrible,” said the woman, who, ashamed of the stigma of her former profession, asked that her name not be used. “After you perform a service, they would find an excuse to take the money away.” They would, she said, “do even worse things.”

In strip malls across the country, neon signs and brightly colored placards promise hot stones, acupuncture and shiatsu with photos of women or couples receiving relaxing shoulder rubs. But a traditionally Asian form of therapeutic relaxation with deep roots in big-city Chinatowns has spun off a different kind of massage parlor that has little to do with traditional remedies. It has exploded into a $3 billion-a-year sex industry that relies on pervasive secrecy, close-knit ownership rings and tens of thousands of mostly foreign women ensnared in a form of modern indentured servitude.

The frequently middle-aged women who work in parlors with names like Orchids of Asia and Rainbow Spa are often struggling to pay off high debts to family members, loan sharks, labor traffickers and lawyers who help them file phony asylum claims. In some cases, their passports are taken and their illegal immigration status keeps them further in the shadows, with some of them rotated every 10 days to two weeks between spas operated by the same owners. Forced to pay for their own supplies and even their own condoms, many women must sleep on the same massage tables where they service customers and cook on hot plates in cramped kitchens or on back steps.

“We stopped thinking about just cages, bars and chains as the means of coercion,” said John Richmond, the State Department’s top anti-trafficking official. “They are using nonviolent forms of coercion.”

The recent arrest warrant filed against Robert K. Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots — and the solicitation charges filed against nearly 300 men in multiple jurisdictions as part of the same case — riveted national attention to a stretch of Highway 1 along Florida’s Treasure Coast dotted with strip malls, gas stations and sapphire ocean views. Across the region, parlors were empty and many frequent clients were phoning their lawyers, wondering if more warrants were going to drop.

Law enforcement officials said there were an estimated 9,000 illicit massage parlors across the country, from Orlando to Los Angeles. The epicenter of this national underground is the bustling Chinatown in Flushing, in the New York City borough of Queens. Women — typically Chinese, but also Korean, Thai and East European — arrive at Kennedy International Airport, learn the trade and are sent out to places like Virginia, Iowa, Texas and Florida. Women are recruited locally through ads in Chinese-language newspapers or over the social network WeChat.

“Flushing is the center of this network,” said Lori Cohen, the director of Sanctuary for Families’ Anti-Trafficking Initiative, which has interviewed around 1,000 massage workers over the past five years and helped the 49-year-old immigrant who was sexually assaulted leave the business after she was arrested. “They are showing up in different parts of the country, but all of them have addresses in Flushing, Queens,” she said.

The women are paid just a sliver of the $60 or more the client pays for an hourlong massage. Their real money — and chance at a better life — comes in the form of tips, which they are encouraged or forced to amplify through illegal means.

A 60-year-old former massage worker from Taiwan, who agreed to be identified only by the nickname she commonly uses, Tina, said she was lured into working at a massage parlor in New York a decade ago by the travel agency broker who helped secure her visa to travel to the United States. “People come here and don’t have a place to live,” she said. “These places offer a place to live, and it seems like a nice idea. They say, ‘It’s not safe to keep your passport on hand,’ and they will ask to hold the passport.”

She was arrested several times before getting out of the business, and feels comparatively lucky. One close friend was spirited to Texas by traffickers, she said, had her passport taken and was forced to see eight to 12 customers a day. One day the tearful calls she often received from her friend came to an abrupt halt.

“A lot of the businesses that look like either nail salons or massage places, especially the places that offer massage, there are bad things happening there,” she said. “It’s 100 percent organized crime.”

The ubiquity of the massage parlors offers an accessibility and sheen of normalcy not offered by traditional brothels. And as the massage parlors have expanded even into small-town America in recent years, meticulously detailed review sites like Rubmaps have served as the Yelp and Foursquare of the illicit parlor business, with graphic anatomical descriptions of the women and explicit breakdowns of the sexual services proffered.

Even at illicit parlors, owners and managers can claim ignorance of the additional services offered by employees behind closed doors. The evidence gathered during raids and searches often tells a far different tale. The police say it is common to find ledgers tracking the number of “dates” women have had, as was found in a bust in Dallas in 2016. In one case in Kansas, a search of the premises yielded a notebook with handwritten Chinese-English translations that “included sexually explicit phrases such as ‘did you bring condom’ and ‘happy ending.’”

A federal law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because this person is involved in active cases, said that the most common method for smuggling women from Asian countries was either a fraudulent tourist visa or a fraudulent work visa, such as for nursing work. Many came as students, then overstayed to work in the sex industry.

Many women arrive in the United States from China bearing heavy debt burdens and try to find work in restaurants or nail salons. But the money isn’t good enough for the five-figure debts weighing them down. The massage jobs are presented as opportunities for fast, easy money.

“They will talk about how they used to work in a restaurant and it was really hard physically and they couldn’t make that much money, and then they heard from somebody or saw an ad saying they could make a lot more money in a massage parlor,” said Leigh Latimer, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society’s exploitation intervention project in New York.

One reason the Asian massage parlors remain so poorly understood is the extreme reluctance of the women to speak with the police and even with their own lawyers.

“Even though I’ve represented many, many women arrested in unlicensed massage parlors, because of the level of distrust of people working, almost all immigrants, almost all undocumented, they don’t trust even their attorneys enough to let them know what’s happened to them,” Ms. Latimer said.

Some fear retaliation by traffickers to their families in China, and some feel morally indebted to those who helped find them a job, said Chris Muller, the director of training and external affairs at Restore NYC, an anti-sex-trafficking organization.

“This is a powerful exploitation tactic,” he said. “Any favor is implied there is going to be a payment back. ‘Look at what I have done for you. I found you a job. I found you a place to live and this is how you repay me?’”

Small networks of spas are also common, and their ownership structures are complex and opaque. “It’s rare that you have a mom-and-pop business where they’re just running one,” said Lt. Christopher Sharpe of the New York Police Department’s vice section. “Usually if they’re running one, they have a second or a third business.”

Bradley Myles, chief executive of Polaris Project, a nonprofit that works to combat human trafficking, said that the madams arrested on big raids like the recent ones in Florida — known as “mamasans” — are often women in their 60s and 70s who have spent decades in the sex trade but are usually pretty far down in the organization.

Above these site managers is usually a person who appears on paperwork as the massage parlor owner, but is often just a frontman running a shell company. The payouts from the shell company go to what is legally known as the “beneficial owner.”

“Very little is known of the behind-the-scene owners,” Mr. Myles said. “They are hiding behind shell companies, hiding behind mamasans. They are hiding behind fake people.”

In addition, the networks have groups of drivers that help move the women from place to place. Some networks are only two or three layers deep, others four or five.

“I’ve certainly seen indicia of larger networks and indicia of powerful transporters,” said the federal law enforcement official.

The Florida Department of Health disciplined 62 massage parlors or therapists last fiscal year, up from 14 the year before, records show. The agency receives upward of 300 complaints about unlicensed massage facilities each year.

Department inspection reports described women inside the spas living in tight quarters cluttered with essentials, including rolling bath carts stuffed with toiletries, shelves lined with coffee mugs and cooking pots and stashes of assorted snacks. The women slept on individual cots and in some cases appeared to keep their belongings and blankets inside locked plastic trunks.

Their IDs showed that several of them had addresses outside Florida, including in Flushing, N.Y.; Lilburn, Ga.; San Gabriel, Calif.; and Temple City, Calif.

Those who are arrested are not necessarily left to their own resources. When sheriff’s deputies in Martin County, Fla., were interviewing Lixia Zhu, 48, one of the massage parlor employees arrested two weeks ago, it wasn’t long before a New York lawyer arrived and identified himself as her lawyer. The lawyer, Baya Harrison IV, told The New York Times that Ms. Zhu used to work in New York and that her friends had hired him to defend her.

The county sheriff, William D. Snyder, said Ms. Zhu had tearfully told deputies and a public defender about how her passport was kept from her in a locked safe and how the woman she worked for once threatened her by brandishing a gun.

One woman in the Florida sting has been charged with human trafficking, after police officers conducting surveillance saw her shuttling two other women carrying suitcases in and out of a spa in Vero Beach.

Bob Houston, a former F.B.I. agent who now works as a consultant to combat trafficking, said that Thai traffickers often employ elaborate schemes to help women intended for the massage industry apply for tourist visas. The traffickers create false back stories, giving women the appearance of an established life at home, including a spouse and bank account, all to help them qualify for a tourist visa. They even produce fake diplomas from massage schools. The tab is usually $40,000 to $60,000, he said.

“They owe a bunch of money to the people who recruited them,” he said.

In December, 36 people in Minnesota were convicted for their roles in a Thai sex trafficking ring that shuttled hundreds of women from Bangkok to cities across the United States, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Minneapolis.

The women, referred to as “flowers” by the criminal organizations, were forced to work at massage parlors with no choice about where, when and with whom they performed sex acts until their debts were paid off. They were permitted to move around outside the parlors only with so-called runners working for the organization, evidence in the case showed.

The decision by law enforcement in Florida to focus on patrons of the establishments in such a public way rather than the women working there has generated a lot of fear among clients.

John Musca, a criminal defense lawyer with an office in Vero Beach whose website advertises sex crime defense, said he has received panicked phone calls from many men who frequented the establishments and are worried that the police are about to come knocking.

“There are a great number of folks who are on pins and needles,” Mr. Musca said.

[bangaloreaviation]

Virgin Orbit completed the first test flight of it’s modified Boeing 747-400 carrying the 70 foot long LauncherOne rocket.

Richard Branson’s small satellite launch company is proving the feasibility of using the modified 747 to launch its carbon-fiber two-stage rocket. The company uses the fifth engine pod mount built in on the 747 to carry the rocket.

The LauncherOne pod mounted to VirginOrbit’s Cosmic Girl.

The aircraft is a 17 year old Boeing 747-400 which was delivered to Virgin Atlantic in October 2001 and was given the name Cosmic Girl. The aircraft which continued with her name was transferred to Virgin Orbit in 2015.

Kelly Latimer (Lt. Col, US Air Force, Ret.), Chief Pilot, Virgin Orbit “The vehicles flew like a dream today, Everyone on the flight crew and all of our colleagues on the ground were extremely happy with the data we saw from the instruments on-board the aircraft, in the pylon, and on the rocket itself. From my perspective in the cockpit, the vehicles handled incredibly well, and perfectly matched what we’ve trained for in the simulators.”

This successful flight marks the start of a new phase in Virgin Orbit’s test flight campaign. As part of that program, the company will conduct several more flights of its 747-400, some with a LauncherOne rocket attached and some without. This phase of testing will conclude with a drop test, during which a rocket will be released from Cosmic Girl — without igniting.

Video: Vigin Orbit completes first flight with launcher rocket Virgin Orbit completed the first test flight of it's modified Boeing 747-400 carrying the 70 foot long LauncherOne rocket.

[dizzedcom]

In the next step on its path to getting its low earth orbit payload launch system up and running, Virgin Orbit successfully took its LauncherOne system out for a spin with an actual rocket attached under its wing. 

The company’s specially modified 747-400 carried a 70-foot-long rocket as part of a test flight proving that the carbon-fiber, two-stage rocket works with the plane.

It’s a necessary step toward Virgin Orbit’s plans to begin launching rockets early next year.

The launch took place in Victorville, Calif., near Virgin Orbit’s Long Beach factory and the Mojave Air and Space Port, which serves as an operational launch site for Virgin.

“The vehicles flew like a dream today,” said Virgin Orbit Chief Pilot Kelly Latimer (Lt. Col, US Air Force, Ret.), in a statement. “Everyone on the flight crew and all of our colleagues on the ground were extremely happy with the data we saw from the instruments on-board the aircraft, in the pylon, and on the rocket itself. From my perspective in the cockpit, the vehicles handled incredibly well, and perfectly matched what we’ve trained for in the simulators.”

The company said that it expects to conduct several more flights of its 747-400, both with and without the LauncherOne rocket. The critical culmination of all of these tests will be a drop test, when a rocket will be released from the 747 (dubbed “Cosmic Girl”) without igniting. 

That test is designed to provide data about the systems aboard the 747 that control detachment and about the rocket’s performance in an atmospheric free-fall.

Virgin Orbit is one of several new companies racing to get new launch systems in orbit. Already capacity-constrained as companies push to launch new satellites into low earth orbit, companies like Virgin Orbit, RocketLab, Relativity Space, ARCA, AstroSpace, Blue Origin, Generation Orbit, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK and others around the world have raised hundreds of millions to take payloads into space.

Virgin Orbit successfully takes its 747 flying launchpad out for a spin In the next step on its path to getting its low earth orbit payload launch system up and running, …

[theinvinciblenoob]

In the next step on its path to getting its low earth orbit payload launch system up and running, Virgin Orbit successfully took its LauncherOne system out for a spin with an actual rocket attached under its wing. 

The company’s specially modified 747-400 carried a 70-foot-long rocket as part of a test flight proving that the carbon-fiber, two-stage rocket works with the plane.

It’s a necessary step toward Virgin Orbit’s plans to begin launching rockets early next year.

The launch took place in Victorville, Calif., near Virgin Orbit’s Long Beach factory and the Mojave Air and Space Port, which serves as an operational launch site for Virgin.

“The vehicles flew like a dream today,” said Virgin Orbit Chief Pilot Kelly Latimer (Lt. Col, US Air Force, Ret.), in a statement. “Everyone on the flight crew and all of our colleagues on the ground were extremely happy with the data we saw from the instruments on-board the aircraft, in the pylon, and on the rocket itself. From my perspective in the cockpit, the vehicles handled incredibly well, and perfectly matched what we’ve trained for in the simulators.”

The company said that it expects to conduct several more flights of its 747-400, both with and without the LauncherOne rocket. The critical culmination of all of these tests will be a drop test, when a rocket will be released from the 747 (dubbed “Cosmic Girl”) without igniting. 

That test is designed to provide data about the systems aboard the 747 that control detachment and about the rocket’s performance in an atmospheric free-fall.

Virgin Orbit is one of several new companies racing to get new launch systems in orbit. Already capacity-constrained as companies push to launch new satellites into low earth orbit, companies like Virgin Orbit, RocketLab, Relativity Space, ARCA, AstroSpace, Blue Origin, Generation Orbit, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, and others around the world have raised hundreds of millions to take payloads into space.

[gallery ids="1748677,1748678,1748679,1748680,1748682,1748683,1748684,1748685"]

via TechCrunch

[fmservers]

Virgin Orbit successfully takes its 747 flying launchpad out for a spin

In the next step on its path to getting its low earth orbit payload launch system up and running, Virgin Orbit successfully took its LauncherOne system out for a spin with an actual rocket attached under its wing. 

The company’s specially modified 747-400 carried a 70-foot-long rocket as part of a test flight proving that the carbon-fiber, two-stage rocket works with the plane.

It’s a necessary step toward Virgin Orbit’s plans to begin launching rockets early next year.

The launch took place in Victorville, Calif., near Virgin Orbit’s Long Beach factory and the Mojave Air and Space Port, which serves as an operational launch site for Virgin.

“The vehicles flew like a dream today,” said Virgin Orbit Chief Pilot Kelly Latimer (Lt. Col, US Air Force, Ret.), in a statement. “Everyone on the flight crew and all of our colleagues on the ground were extremely happy with the data we saw from the instruments on-board the aircraft, in the pylon, and on the rocket itself. From my perspective in the cockpit, the vehicles handled incredibly well, and perfectly matched what we’ve trained for in the simulators.”

The company said that it expects to conduct several more flights of its 747-400, both with and without the LauncherOne rocket. The critical culmination of all of these tests will be a drop test, when a rocket will be released from the 747 (dubbed “Cosmic Girl”) without igniting. 

That test is designed to provide data about the systems aboard the 747 that control detachment and about the rocket’s performance in an atmospheric free-fall.

Virgin Orbit is one of several new companies racing to get new launch systems in orbit. Already capacity-constrained as companies push to launch new satellites into low earth orbit, companies like Virgin Orbit, RocketLab, Relativity Space, ARCA, AstroSpace, Blue Origin, Generation Orbit, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, and others around the world have raised hundreds of millions to take payloads into space.

[gallery ids="1748677,1748678,1748679,1748680,1748682,1748683,1748684,1748685"]

Via Jonathan Shieber https://techcrunch.com

[funnythingshere0-blog]

Fantasy Football: The Case Against Evan Engram

New Post has been published on https://funnythingshere.xyz/fantasy-football-the-case-against-evan-engram/

Fantasy Football: The Case Against Evan Engram

This article is part of The Fantasy Court series, be sure to check out The Case For Evan Engram by Matthew Betz (@TheFantasyPT). Check out where Andy, Mike, and Jason have Evan Engram projected in the Ultimate Draft Kit.

Opening Statement

Today, we tackle the difficult case of Evan Engram’s questionable — nay, downright criminal — acquisition of a top-five ranking in fantasy football. The defendant’s spokesman, the esteemed Matthew Betz, will likely cite Engram’s incredible rookie season as evidence of his innocence. And I admit, the evidence appears strong: the man had 64 receptions for 722 yards and 6 touchdowns, truly revelatory stats for a first-year talent at the position.

Yet, 2017 in MetLife Stadium was much like London and Paris at the beginning of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Namely, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the spring of hope for Engram and his young, blossoming career, but it was also the winter of despair (read: “injury”) for everyone else in New York.

As such, if it pleases the court, I will attempt to show why Evan Engram’s suspect possession of 115 targets in 2017 was the direct result of his inflated fantasy production and why said production will dip considerably in 2018, robbing drafters of their championship dreams.

The Return of the King (and a Prince or Two)

As I’m sure you all remember, Odell Beckham Jr. — arguably the most talented young receiver in the game and certainly the best pass-catcher on the Giants — missed the final 11 games of 2017 with a fractured ankle. What you may not remember is that the next two names on New York’s opening depth chart also missed hefty chunks of the season. Sterling Shepard was officially inactive for five total games and less than 100% in several others, as he dealt with ankle, hamstring, and migraine issues throughout the year. Additionally, then-newly-acquired Brandon Marshall missed every game after Week 5, leaving Roger Lewis and Tavarres King (who only played eight games himself) as the WR target leaders behind Shepard.

If you just said, “Who?!” to the monikers of Lewis and King, you’re starting to get the picture. The Giants’ dearth of wideouts in 2017 reached truly epic proportions and was — I would contend — directly responsible for the astronomical 115 targets accrued by Evan Engram. For reference, that was the second-most in the league, behind only Pro Bowl shoo-in Travis Kelce.

Now, OBJ will return to a field he unquestionably dominates. The super-elite wideout had totaled no fewer than 130 targets in a season before last year — and the 130 was in his 12-game rookie season. He’s a lock for 150-160 targets, or around double the target count of any WRs playing alongside Engram last season.

We haven’t yet mentioned the touchdowns. Beckham’s yearly 16-game pace has been about 13 receiving touchdowns … and he tied for the most among Giants’ wideouts last year with 3 TDs in four games. There will be a lot more competition in the red zone with OBJ on the field, which could easily knock a couple scores off Engram’s total.

Tony Quinn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Throw in a healthy Shepard entering his third season in the NFL, and you may have another guy capable of 110-plus targets and several scores. We’re already running out of room for Engram to repeat his 2017 target-hoggery and corresponding fantasy brilliance.

While the WR3 position is still less than impressive (New York only added Cody Latimer and Russell Shepard in the offseason), there is another pass-catcher entering the fold that could have a big impact on Engram’s prospects.

A New Hope

Unless you just came back to fantasy football today, you’ve probably heard of Saquon Barkley. Barkley was the No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft this spring and enters the league with more hype and expectation than any rookie running back since Ezekiel Elliott — and possibly more. I won’t go into the justifications for the hype here, but check out Corey Evans’ Rookie Profile and my own mini-breakdown of Barkley’s landing spot. Suffice it to say, the young man can play football.

So how does this affect Evan Engram, a tight end? Funny you should ask! In fact, it’s in more ways than one.

First, if it isn’t obvious, Barkley is the heralded pass-catcher I referenced above. With 102 receptions in three college seasons, the Penn State product is potentially a Le’Veon-Bell-level receiving talent. Where the shell of Shane Vereen managed to lead NYG backs in targets (53) and receptions (44) last year, Barkley figures to step in and explode. If you have access to the Ultimate Draft Kit, you can find Andy, Mike, and Jason’s projections for Barkley (and all other relevant fantasy players) — all three have the rookie down for between 60 to 69 receptions. (If you don’t have the UDK, go get it, I’ll wait). Personally, I think he could top 85 targets and 70 receptions, but whatever the exact number, he will snag a hefty share of Eli Manning‘s pass attempts in 2018.

Not only that, a chunk of those targets are likely to be just the sort of safety-valve opportunities that Engram thrived on in 2017. Engram’s aDOT (average depth of target) last year was a middling 8.8 yards, lower than Gronk and Kelce, veterans Greg Olsen and Delanie Walker, and fellow rookies O.J. Howard and David Njoku. If Manning needs a reliable target when the line breaks down, Engram could now be the fourth read behind OBJ, Barkley, and even Shepard, instead of the first.

The second big reason for concern is red zone usage. The one place Engram could have potentially improved on his 2017 numbers, to make up for the expected drop in targets, would be touchdowns. He had a respectable six scores as a rookie, but all of them came on red zone targets and five of them came on plays inside the 10-yard line. Expect the Giants to look to Barkley often in these critical situations (not to mention veteran thumper Jonathan Stewart), further limiting Engram’s upside in fantasy.

Back to the Future (of Game Scripts)

Okay, I’m stretching the awesome-movie-series-headings bit to the breaking point, but hear me out here. The New York Giants have not had a running back break 225 carries since Ahmad Bradshaw did it in 2010. They haven’t topped 405 rushing attempts as a team since 2014 — league average is around 425. Last year, in Engram’s voluminous rookie season, they led the NFL in pass attempts with 608.

It certainly didn’t help that their defense ranked 31st in yards allowed and 27th in points allowed in 2017. They were truly atrocious, with down years from edge defender Olivier Vernon and cornerback Janoris Jenkins, and inconsistency from a former top-10 pick, cornerback Eli Apple. Still, they have some highly talented players and an overall rush defense and secondary that Pro Football Focus ranks in the top half of the league (14th and 15th respectively). It won’t take much to improve on last year’s debacle.

Combine a potential defensive improvement with a bolstered offensive line (including LT Nate Solder and rookie LG Will Hernandez) and the addition of Saquon Barkley, and you’re looking at a team in far fewer negative game scripts than they saw in 2017 (when they went 3-13). Heck, Jason Moore himself considers them a dark-horse Super Bowl contender! Theoretically, all of that means fewer pass attempts, which means that Engram’s already-reduced target share will translate to even less raw production. Especially with Eli Manning on the waning side of his long and semi-illustrious career, it would not be surprising to see the team’s pass attempts to drop by close to 100 in 2018.

Conclusion

Let me be clear, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I do not intend to besmirch Evan Engram’s talent or personal character, lest I open myself to a countersuit for defamation and/or libel. The young man is an extremely gifted football player with a bright future. However, I refuse to allow Engram’s 2017 impersonation of an elite, target-hogging tight end to adversely affect his draft price in 2018. Over the past five years, top-five tight ends in fantasy have averaged a cool 120 targets per season. To truly reach a stratosphere worthy of the TE5 ranking and 6th-round ADP to which Engram currently holds the claim, he would likely need to improve on his 2017 production.

Simply put, it’s not happening this season. Engram’s target count will drop well into the double-digits, and even if he improves on very poor 2017 efficiencies, that won’t be enough to break the top five. Engram will be a TE1, but I would take seven tight ends ahead of him in drafts (including Jimmy Graham, Delanie Walker, and Trey Burton), and wouldn’t even sniff him until the 8th round. Sadly, you will never get him at that price, and will instead be forced to roster Engram over upside RBs like Rex Burkhead and Marshawn Lynch or strong WR2 candidates like Sammy Watkins and Julian Edelman. Steer clear Foot Clan, or end up sniffling your way through the loser’s bracket when fantasy playoffs roll around.

Source: https://www.thefantasyfootballers.com/articles/fantasy-football-the-case-against-evan-engram/