#you have two seconds to solve the question though or else i pull the lever. 👋 (: bye bye

[skeletalheartattack]

what rank is lego skeleton?

count how many bones these three skeletons have and you'll guess the number correctly. except you have to multiply that number with a different number. solve for fucking X. we're bringing math questions back to tumblr babey

[selfwriting-sugarquills]

Heat in the rain pt. 3: One of those job things.

(Oof, we’re getting into the fluff now! Also, slightly unrelated but: I have a headcanon that the twins drink an absurd amount of coffee, that’s all - Hope you enjoy it! xxx) 

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 

Description: Reader decides they should get “one of those job things” (points if you get the reference- well I did use the gif so it shouldn’t be hard lol), and heads out, while she’s gone Fred urges George to confess his feelings. 

Warnings: None, just a load of fluff

Word count: 2257

 It was ten-thirty am on Sunday when the twins shuffled out of George’s bedroom looking tired. You were already sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea while reading a newspaper, before you sat a stack of three other newspapers, all open on the same pages, 

“Morning,” Fred yawned, scratching his hair lazily, he beelined for the fridge whilst George headed for the kettle, making himself a cup of coffee. He took a sip and sat down beside you, 

“What are you up to?” He asked, his voice gravely and sleepy, he rubbed his eyes as he squinted at the pages, 

“Are those job articles?” He asked, scooting closer to you, you smiled at him, 

“I figured I should get a job as well, make some money, get back on my feet” You took a sip of your tea, Fred pulled out his wand and behind him, eggs started cracking themselves into the heated pan on the stove, some potatoes leftover from yesterday were being chopped by an enchanted knife and bacon was separating itself from the pack and placing itself delicately onto the pan as well, popping and sizzling with the eggs, 

“You know, Y/n, if you wanted a job, you could just ask us,” Fred said, pouring himself some coffee as well, “Yeah we’d be happy to let you help out with the shop,” George added, eyes glancing up from the newspaper he’d stolen from your pile, 

“That’s sweet, guys but I couldn’t work for you, I’m already living with you for free,” You said, “It wouldn’t be fair be take from your pay as well,” You pulled the newspaper a little closer to you, 

“besides,” You pointed to the newspapers, “There are some pretty good jobs out there, I think,” 

Fred walked over beside you, looking over the black and white pages, 

“Like what? window cleaning?” Fred asked, grinning, “or dog walking?” he broke into a laugh, 

“Well, I wasn’t gonna pick those,” You said, slapping Fred gently on the arm, 

“Madam Malkin’s is hiring,” George said, pointing to an article in the newspaper he was reading, “That might not be too bad,” He added, grabbing a pen you circled it, 

“Thanks, George,” You said, giving him a smile, “You’re welcome,” He answered, sipping his coffee, “But if everything fails you better apply at the shop,” 

“Or just apply now, you know we’ll hire you immediately,” Fred said, scooping some eggs and bacon onto a plate, “Out of the question!” you said, downing the last sip of your tea and standing up, “But I have to head out now, I have to write a killer resumé without mentioning that I have zero experience,” you explained as you headed towards the door, collecting your jacket, George stared at you tying your shoes, 

“And you can’t do that here because?” He said, drawing out the last word, you beamed up at him slightly mischievously, he didn’t let it show, but something inside his chest squirmed when you looked at him like that, “Because,” You said, mimicking the way he’d said it, “you two won’t be working today, which means you’ll be here,” You tied a scarf around your neck as the two twins stared at you, still not getting the point by the look of their faces, “and I have learned from years of trying to study with you two that you can’t be quiet for more than five minutes, so: I’m going to a more quiet place,” finally, you grabbed your bag. 

Fred frowned a little, then said, “Fair point,” smirking behind his coffee cup. 

“What about breakfast?” George asked, 

“I’ve already eaten, I was up at 7,” You said, causing them both to gawk at you like you’d grown a second head, 

“Okay,” Said Fred, swirling the coffee around in his cup with a frown, looking like he was trying to solve a riddle, “Why?” He then asked, looking up at you, 

“Believe it or not, Freddie, some of us like to get up before noon,” 

“Us meaning you and all the roosters in England, I suppose,” Fred laughed, George joining in, 

Chuckling a little as well, you opened the door, 

“Enjoy your Sunday!” You yelled behind you as you stepped out onto the stairs. 

*** 

Walking down Diagon Alley, you glanced at the storefronts as you passed them by, taking in the fresh winter air. It was a busy scene, which wasn’t unusual, however with Christmas coming, it was even more crowded than usual. You walked for a while, trying to find somewhere that would be quiet enough for you to work out your essay, you’d figured a library at first, but you didn’t feel like walking all that far, you stopped in front of a small café, looking through the windows, something about the warm lights, plants and the various other small trinkets drew you in. 

Stepping inside you sighed quietly as you were taken out of the cold and instead stood in the warm, coffee-filled, air. A woman behind the counter greeted you, then moved on to make someone else’s drink, you eyed the menu hanging on the wall for a bit, then something caught your eye, a small note was stood on the counter, 

“Looking for baristas to work Wednesday-Sunday, 

if interested, please ask after Beatrice.” 

“Can I help you?” The woman behind the counter said, you glanced at her name tag and saw that she was the Beatrice mentioned on the note, 

“Uhm yeah, I’m looking for a job and I was wondering if you’re still hiring?” The words slipped out of your mouth almost automatically, Beatrice’s lips split into a warm smile, 

“Sure, when can you start?” She asked you blinked, 

“Erh, don’t you have to interview me first?” You asked, Beatrice, grinned even wider, “I probably should but truth be told I hate job interviews, too formal,” She explained, “How do you like your coffee?” She asked. You took a moment to think, this was all happening very fast, however, Beatrice had that kind of warm, welcoming energy about her, so you decided to go along with it, 

“Uhm, can you make me a flat white, please?” you said the first thing your eyes saw on the menu, your voice still slightly timid, “Sure thing,” Beatrice said, beginning to scoop some coffee powder into a small cup, you noticed how she didn’t use magic to prepare the coffee, she looked up at you and seemed to notice your slightly questioning look, 

“My mother was a muggle, she owned a coffee shop too,” Beatrice pulled what looked like a small lever, “-and even after she married my dad she swore that coffee tasted better when it was made by hand, even if magic is faster,” She explained, a look of fondness in her brown eyes, “And I have to say that I agree,” She chuckled a little, pouring some milk into the cup and handing it to you, “There you go, now let’s go over there and we can talk a little, not an interview though, just a conversation,” She said, chuckling again at the last bit, you smiled as you followed her to a comfortable corner of the café. 

***

In the shop, the twins were in the very back of their store, having been bored upstairs, so now, they were stacking boxes onto shelves and unboxing others, placing their content onto a small cart, meant for restocking the shelves in the storefront, 

“So,” Fred said, opening a box, 

“So?” George said, stacking a few boxes on Wonder Witch onto the cart, 

“Are you gonna tell her how you feel soon?” Fred asked frankly, George paused, put down the boxes and spun around meeting his brother’s grinning face, “What do you mean?” George said. He knew exactly what Fred meant.  

“C’mon Georgie, you’re not still pretending that you don’t love her, are you?” 

“I never pretended anything,” George said, sulking a little, 

“Oh sure,” Said Fred, a smirk growing on his face as he turned around and opened another box, “And you two never left the yule ball early to snog in the common room either,” He said, the immediate silence from his twin told Fred that he’d struck gold, 

“How do you know about that?” George’s voice asked Fred, who still had his back turned to him, Fred strained not to laugh, 

“I have my sources,” Fred said mysteriously, still stifling a laugh, George went back to the pink boxes, then regretted doing so. He knew damn well that those products were inspired by you, as you’d given them the idea for it at breakfast one morning, he remembered clearly how he and Fred had been exhausted from trying to come up with new ideas, and for the first time in a long time, with little luck, he still remembered how his stomach had done a somersault when your e/c eyes met his and asked, 

“Why don’t you try and make something for girls? like, colour changing mascara or something?” You hadn’t been trying to look pretty when you’d said it, mouth half-full of toast, but to George, you’d looked so gorgeous as you sat there, bathed in the morning light, streaming in through the big windows in the Great hall, he’d had to stop himself from leaning over the table and pressing lips to yours, 

“I don’t think she feels that way about me,” George heard himself say, his eyes still fixed on the boxes, 

“If she didn’t then why did she agree to ditch her actual date to the ball, sneaking off to snog you?” Fred asked, glancing at his brother, who still seemed fixated on the boxes, Fred came to a halt as well and turned to face his brother again, 

“George, I’m pretty sure there’s a reason she came here, and I’m pretty sure that reason revolves around you,” Fred said in an unusually quiet manner, “The worst that can happen is that she says she doesn’t like you in that way, and even then, she’ll still be your friend,” 

“We don’t know that” Said George hopelessly, Fred took a step towards him, 

“We do know that, George, otherwise she wouldn’t be here in the first place,” Fred clasped a hand onto George’s shoulder, “You just have to buck up some courage and grow a pair,” He said, George looked at him, looking a little too beaten down for Fred’s taste, “And then what?” He asked quietly, causing Fred to laugh, “Tell her, mate.” 

***

Exiting the café you felt positively euphoric, Beatrice turned out to be the nicest, calmest and most charming person you could have ever imagined as a boss, during your talk she’d introduced herself as a single mother of a young son, who was starting pre-school soon, hence why she needed some extra hands, who loved everything coffee related, though her secret obsession was baking, she’d laughed when she’d told you how much time she spent watching muggle baking shows, besides owning the shop, she’d always wanted to go on a tour of France, visiting various hotspots for cuisine and wine. When it had been your turn to speak, you’d told her everything, feeling safe in the little nook of the coffee shop amongst pillows, blankets and flowers, she hadn’t spoken when you’d told her about your whole situation with the war and your parents, she’d simply put a warm, soft hand on top of your own as a tear slipped down your face. All in all: She’d proven to be a fantastic person. You were pretty sure, as you turned a corner, heading towards the twins’ shop, that meeting her and getting the job there was the universe trying to make up for the many misfortunes that had hit you in the past half-year. 

Walking into the flat you were met by George, who seemed to be doing some of the accounting work that came with owning the shop, he glanced up at you and gave you smile, 

“How was writing?” He asked as you shrugged off your coat, “Well, not that great, since I didn’t write a resumé at all, however,” You said, walking up to him, “I got a job instead!” You announced, beaming at the redhead who looked at you with raised eyebrows, “Really? that’s amazing!” He said, standing up to hug you, “I know! I start on Tuesday,” You said, wrapping your arms around George. 

There was something different about the way he hugged you, you thought, it was… slower? softer? You couldn’t really name it, but something in the way he held onto you so gingerly compared to the way he used to hug you (which you’d once described as trying to hug a bludger coming at you with full speed, same went for Fred) however he also kept his arms wrapped around you for way longer than he’d ever held onto you, well safe for one time, you blushed as you remembered suddenly all too well how the yule ball had played out for you, the feeling of George’s lips pressed against your own, his hand steadily placed on your waist, the other on your face, softly caressing your cheek with his thumb - It all came to you as he held you, his head resting on top of your own, you felt your cheeks burning. You didn’t say anything. 

What you didn’t know was that George’s mind was also racing, fleeting memories of you smiling at him, quickly touching his hands and arms to get his attention in class, hugging him tightly after winning a quidditch match, the way your hair looked in the sunlight as you came running onto the pitch to congratulate him and, of course, you kissing him in front of the fireplace in the common room, the feeling of your soft lips engulfing him, making him lose all sense of time and space. 

Fred was right, George thought,  all he had to do was tell you.

__ Taglist: @lilcutekittykat​ 

[pagan-raider]

Vikings / Sons of Anarchy Crossover Fic

So here it is! I didn’t come up with a fitting title so far but maybe next chapter. I already got the feeling that this will turn into a monster. I’m dying to throw an OC into this and see what happens, so this can be seen as a prologue. I really hope you guys like the idea because the next chapter is already in the making.

Naturally this is a bit off canon for both shows. Out of practical reasons the timelines are a bit different, also in this Ivar can walk and is a bit older then he currently is on the show. Later chapters might require more changes (I totally want Opie to be alive) but we will see.

I’m a bit nervous because this is so different from everything I have written before. I hope you guys like it.

@belle-scarre @nekodalolita

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„Have you heared the news from Oaktown?“ Juice came running towards him as soon as he had pulled into the TM lot.

Jax took off this helmet and sunglasses. “Calm down, Juicy. What news are you talking about?”

“There’s a new crew in Oakland. They’ve taken over Lin’s territory.”

Jax narrowed his eyes. “Really? I suppose Lin’s not all too happy about that?”

“He was found dead yesterday morning.”

“Not too much of a loss for the world” Jax stated as they joined Chibs, who was sitting at the picnic table in front of the club house. “So what do we know about this new crew?”

“It’s an MC. They call themselves Vikings. No one knows where they came from, they seem to have appeared out of thin air.” Chibs said taking a long swig from his beer.

“They pop up out of nowhere, kill Lin and take over his territory? They must be more than bold to pull of such a thing. And smart if they’ve found a way of doing that without having to fear the retaliation of the Chinese.”

Chibs gave a shrug. “Or maybe they’re not so smart and the problem will solve itself soon.”

“There’s more. About Lin, how he was found.” Juice added.

Jax looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s just rumors so far but they say that his back was cut open and his lungs were pulled out. Then he was left like that to bleed out or suffocate or whatever. That is really brutal shit, man.”

“And it changes the whole dynamic in Oaktown. What does that mean for us, Jackieboy?” Chibs asked.

Jax rubbed his chin. “I don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and see. But in the meantime I want you guys to find out everything you can about this MC. We’ll deal with this later. Nero is waiting for me in Stockton to talk about that Diosa expansion.”

 On his way to Stockton the news about this new MC were going round and round in Jax’ head. The road was long and straight and there was not much to see besides slight hills and low bushes. Deep in his thoughts, he noticed the dark van that suddenly appeared next to him seconds too late. The side door slid open and Jax hit the brakes, just in time to fall behind as three masked men started to shoot. He managed to get behind the van and out of their sight but relief only lasted two seconds as the driver of the van hit the brakes and he had to take a fast swing to the left in order not to crash into the vehicle in front of him. He looked around for anything that could be helpful, but there was only the straight road ahead and the desert around him. That meant there was only one chance to get out of this alive. He turned the gas lever and accelerated his bike to maximum speed. By pure luck he dodged a few more bullets that came flying past him, but soon the shooters realized that at this speed their chances to hit their target were going towards zero and settled for just following him. For now.

Jax let out a relieved breath as the outskirts of Stockton came into sight. He barely slowed down his bike as he passed the first buildings, desperately trying to come up with a plan to get rid of his followers. Obviously he couldn't show up at Diosa with them still in tow. He spotted a deserted looking factory hall to his right and managed to drift into the gateway at a deadly tempo, wheels smoking and brakes shrieking. A small smirk appeared on his face as he looked over his shoulder and saw that the van hadn't made it and had to stop and reverse. He drove around the building and hid his bike behind a pile of scrap metal, although he knew it probably made no difference. Looking for a way in, he found a small dirty window just above his head. He smashed it with the handle of his gun and managed to pull himself up and inside.

Jax heard the van pull up outside and soon after there was a rattle on one of the doors. He found cover behind a rusting dumpster just next to that door. If they came through it and marched right in, he would be in their backs, maybe that would give him the advantage he needed.  A single shot echoed through the hall, followed by a loud crack as the door was kicked open. His plan seemed to work out, for the three men stepped in, totally unaware that he was that close. He waited until they had passed him before he left his covert, gun pointing straight at them as he flicked the safety off.

“Don't move. Guns down. Don't turn around. You can try and shoot me if you want but then at least one of you dies here.” He was almost surprised as they obeyed immediately, slowly bending down to place their guns on the ground. “Good. Now slowly turn around.”

The men did das they were told and slowly turned to face him. The moment he realized that all three were grinning through their masks it was already too late. He heard the metallic klick of a gun lock behind his back.

“Drop our weapon and raise your hands.” A voice commanded from behind him.

He had seen three men shooting from the van, of course there had to be at least one more. He cursed himself for his stupidity. He was screwed now. There was no way out of this one.

“What the hell do you want?” He asked as his gun landed on the floor with a clatter.

There was no answer, instead a shot rang out. Jax was startled and for a moment he was sure that this was the end. Surprisingly he didn’t feel anything. Then he heard the dull thud of a body hitting the ground.

The three men in front of him grabbed their guns from the ground and ran for cover. As more gunshots echoed through the factory, Jax decided that it probably was the smart move and followed suit. He found a place where he had good cover but was also able to see what was going on.

Three more men had entered the hall, unlike the first ones they weren’t masked. Two of them had bold heads and thick beards, the third one was dark haired and seemed to be younger than the others and even though they all were wearing cuts, he didn’t recognize any of them.

They were going to work expertly, giving each other cover while moving in on the masked men. It seemed as if the bullets flying towards them didn’t concern them in the slightest. Jax had to admit that he was impressed with their combat skills. He fired a few bullets as well but from his position he had a shitty angle at his former capturers and from what he saw these new arrivals weren’t in need for his aid. As soon as they were close enough one of the two bolds made a hand sign and the dark haired man started to move around the old truck the masked men had found cover behind. As he circled the truck, Jax could see the back of his cut. Vikings MC it said over some strange sign. The conversation with Chibs and Juice this morning came back to his mind. He obviously had found the new Oakland crew. The other two Vikings were keeping the men behind the truck down with steady fire and soon the dark haired one had reached them. No questions were being asked. Three quick shots and then in got quiet.

This was probably the time to get out of here, but to reach any possible entrance he had to get past them. He wasn’t sure if they knew that he was still here until the dark haired one gestured into his direction, addressing the others in a strange sounding language.

Jax tightened his grip around his gun as they approached him. “Who are you?” He asked, raising his gun.

A split second later he was staring into the muzzles of two hand guns. Only the bold guy in the middle hadn’t raised his gun and Jax spotted a President’s patch on his chest.

The President clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Is that the way to treat the guys that just saved your ass?” He was talking with a slight accent Jax had never heard before. “You can put that gun away, we have no quarrel with you.” He gestured for his companions to do the same.

The other bold man slowly lowered his gun but the younger one didn’t move. He was watching Jax through narrowed eyes, his finger tense around the trigger.

The President nudged him with an elbow. “Ivar.”

Jax could see the hesitation in the other man’s eyes and slowly let his gun sink in de-escalation. Ivar followed suit, but he made sure to move just a little bit slower than Jax did and unlike everyone else he did not shove the weapon back into pants but kept it his hand, radiating an air of silent threat.

The President nodded. “Now that that’s settled, my name is Ragnar and this is Ivar, my VP and Floki, my Sergeant.” He said, introducing the group. “And you’re Jax Teller, President of the Sons of Anarchy.”

Jax narrowed his eyes. “You know who I am?”

The Sergeant gave a strange giggle. “Of course we do. We always do our homework, otherwise we wouldn’t be around anymore.”

“Then maybe you also know who these guys were.” Jax said, gesturing towards the four dead men. “And what they did want from me, because I seriously got no clue.”

“A crew of drug dealers from Oakland.” Ragnar explained. “Shitheads mainly, but they thought now that Lin is gone they could become all big and influential. And they don’t seem to like competition, killed one of my guys two day ago. I had someone following them around ever since then and this place seemed perfect to make our move.” He dramatically waved his hand around. “This is how we ended up here.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. My club isn’t selling drugs.” Jax argued.

“Well then, maybe they just didn’t like your hair.” Floki said with another giggle.

Jax ignored him. “We are trying to keep drug out of Charming.”

“Ah.” Ivar made, tapping his temple with two fingers  and Jax knew what he meant, maybe that was the point.

“Well, maybe we should continue this conversation elsewhere.” Ragnar suggested. “If the people of Stockton aren’t deaf, the cops should be here soon.” He looked at Jax. “There’s a little party tonight at our clubhouse. Why don’t you and your crew show up? Maybe we can work together in some way to both of our benefit.”

[chasingthecosmos]

Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 5/40 Read on AO3 here.

“‘Oh, dear. Looks like we might have picked up an extra passenger,’ the Doctor grumbled to himself. His gaze raised to Rose’s once more and she was struck by the sheer intensity of it and the way that he managed to look at once so familiar, and yet so different from what she was used to. ‘Best find something to hold on to,’ he warned her ominously.”

A Season 8 & 9 AU centering around Rose Tyler and her newly-regenerated Doctor as they both struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of some unknown force that seems to be drawing them together. Will they be able to solve the mystery of who is pulling the strings before it’s too late?

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first. Tags will be updated as I go.

The Doctor ended up leaving Rose behind again in order to chase after the half-face man, but at least this time, the Doctor didn't abandon her on her own. Rose managed to make it out of the spaceship disguising itself as a restaurant with the help of Jenny, Vastra, and Strax while the Doctor sailed off on his own solo mission to put an end to the cyborg who seemed to be in charge of the whole operation.

He was still keeping his side of their bond eerily, stubbornly silent, though, and Rose had all but given up on trying to reach out to him as she settled back into her strange, day-to-day life in Victorian England with a green woman from the dawn of time and her strange band of misfits. That is, until one morning when she woke up and - for some reason completely unknown to her - changed into her old, modern-day clothes instead of the nineteenth-century dresses that she had been forced to wear ever since the Doctor had left her behind. She knew that she should have been more surprised when she heard the whirring sounds of the TARDIS engines later that day, but she couldn't spare time for such trivial thoughts when she was already running headlong after the achingly familiar sound of home.

Oh, dear, I've missed you! Rose called out desperately as she finally reached the old blue box and practically threw her arms around its girth in excited reunion. The ship's song in her head was back to its usual, steady melody, and the TARDIS greeted her with a warm apology, making sure that Rose knew that it was on her behalf as well as the Doctor's.

Where's he been? Rose asked curiously. What have you two been up to?

The TARDIS merely made an amused, mysterious noise in response and beckoned her forward, eagerly unlocking the doors for her so that she could step freely through the threshold. As soon as the doors were opened, Rose realized immediately that the interior had been changed again, though the alterations were a bit more subtle this time - just a few changes to the console controls and a row of bookshelves that lined the upper levels of the room, along with a glowing orange rotor rather than the cool blue that she had grown so accustomed to.

"You've redecorated," she murmured appreciatively as she gazed around the ship's sleek, modern surfaces.

"Yes." The Doctor's unexpected, quiet response instantly drew Rose's gaze up to the second level of the room, where she could see him reclining in a high-backed leather armchair and watching her with a pensive expression. She could tell that he was waiting for more - possibly eager to hear her opinion on whether or not she approved - but she obstinately refused to give it.

It's lovely, she admitted to the TARDIS silently as she ran a loving hand across her console, using the one form of communication that she knew the Doctor wouldn't be able to hear while he was so stubbornly closing himself off from her.

The ship's consciousness trilled appreciatively in response, causing the Doctor's gaze to narrow on Rose in suspicion as he finally pushed himself out of his chair and slowly descended the steps to meet her on level ground.

"I'm the Doctor," he told her, his voice low and weighty and filled with the many other things that he refused to say, "I've lived for over two-thousand years, and not all of them were good. I've made many mistakes, and it's about time that I did something about that." He circled the console the long way around, his gaze never once leaving hers as he slowly came to a stop before her, still making sure to keep a generous distance between them.

Suddenly, Rose felt his consciousness within the back of her mind grow and blossom until she was able to reach out over their bond and feel the solid outline of his presence once more. He still didn't open up to her, not all the way - but it was enough to take her breath away as she eagerly embraced the partner who she had been missing ever since he had decided to cut himself off from her.

I'm sorry, he muttered gently. For everything ...

Rose pulled against his thoughts, silently willing him to give her the full connection that she still so desperately longed for, but he continued to restrain himself as he met her gaze steadily and waited for her to make some sort of response.

Finally, she narrowed her eyes on him as she muttered out loud, "'Two-thousand years'? Is that the number you're going with, now?" She shook her head at him exasperatedly, but she couldn't suppress her smirk as she glanced back up at him and added, "You always were rubbish at keeping time. Seems like you're getting worse in your old age."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" the Doctor demanded, his brows furrowing as he gazed down at her in confusion, clearly not expecting this to be her response.

Rose chuckled lightly under her breath as she tentatively took a step forward, watching intently as her one, small movement immediately made the Doctor grow tense and defensive. She bit her lip as she hesitantly raised her gaze back to his and deliberately reached out to him with her mind instead.

What's wrong? she asked gently. Why won't you talk with me?

Rose held her breath as the Doctor's gaze dropped to her lips for just the smallest fraction of a second before he spun away from her and quickly pulled a lever on the TARDIS console that instantly put them into flight. When he twirled back to her face again, he had his new coat thrown open to reveal the bright red lining within and his hands were stuffed into his pockets in a casual stance that belied his stiff posture.

"What do you think?" he asked, deliberately seeking her approval yet again.

Rose took a long moment to look him over, a smile turning up her lips as she slowly met his gaze once more. He was still tall, though he was a bit skinnier than he had been before. The jacket he wore was perfectly tailored to him, and she found that she liked the strict, professional air that it gave him. This version of him clearly favored dark colors, as her gaze skimmed over his matching black boots and trousers. He was also wearing a crisp white Oxford that he kept completely buttoned, though Rose thought it looked oddly empty and a bit too formal with no tie of any sort to hold it in place. All in all, she thought he looked rather dashing, but she wasn't about to stroke his ego and tell him so, especially when he still insisted on being so withholding himself.

"Where are you taking us?" she murmured off-handedly as she pointed dismissed his request for her input once more. She saw his expression fall in disappointment as she slowly began to circle the TARDIS console and he moved to mirror her steps in order to meet her on the other side of it.

"Thought I'd take you back home," he replied with a casual shrug, not meeting her eyes as he stopped and leaned his arms against the console a good distance away from her. "I thought you might still be looking forward to that Christmas dinner."

"'Home'?" Rose repeated in confusion, screwing up her eyebrows at him as she watched his distant, weary expression. "What, you mean the Maitlands's house?"

"If you like," the Doctor replied with another disinterested shrug.

Rose realized suddenly that she was longing to go home - but not to that strange house on Earth that she barely even knew. Her home was the TARDIS - it always had been, and it always would be. She wondered if the Doctor was subtly trying to tell her something as she looked up at her in consternation at the old ship's time rotor and contemplated what she was going to do if he actually didn't want her to travel with him anymore. Could she really go back to a normal, human life in a world that she didn't even rightfully belong to anymore?

"And ... if I don't?" Rose asked, her voice barely more than a whisper as she managed to catch the Doctor's eye again from across the console. He was watching her with a hard expression on his face, but she thought she saw the slightest lift to the edges of his lips before the moment was interrupted by the cell phone that Rose still had in her pocket - the one that the Doctor had given her when she had returned to Earth earlier in an attempt to prepare a normal, happy Christmas for them.

Rose quickly retrieved the ringing device from her pocket and flashed the Doctor a look of confusion as she glanced down at the unknown string of numbers on the screen before her. Who else could possibly have this number? Who else would even care to call her?

"You'd better get that," he told her gently, the smile on his lips growing slightly as he watched her, "it might be your boyfriend."

Rose furrowed her brow at him in silent question as she hit the green button on the phone's screen and held it up to her ear. "Hello?" she asked as she turned away from the Doctor and waited for the person on the other end of the line to answer.

There was a long pause before a familiar male voice replied, "It's me."

"Sorry? It's who?" she replied in confusion.

"It's me, Rose - the Doctor." His voice sounded breathless and strained, as though he had just finished running a marathon and was still fighting to recover.

"What do you mean, 'the Doctor'?" Rose repeated, feeling her heart skip a beat in her chest as her mind instantly reached for the source of her bondmate's familiar voice. Instead of finding his familiar, comforting presence, however, she was met with a cool wall of indifference as he continued to resolutely shut her out of his thoughts.

"I'm phoning you from Trenzalore," he explained slowly, "from before I changed. I mean, it's all still to happen for me. It's coming - oh, it's a-coming. Not long now. I can ... feel it."

Rose turned around in breathless wonder to stare hard at the other man on the opposite side of the room from her. It was clear that he was fighting very hard not to fidget as he watched her every reaction, still waiting for her response, even now.

"Why?" she demanded into the phone as she felt the first of her heartbroken tears break free and trail down her cheek. "Why would you do this?"

"Because I think it's gonna be a whopper," he replied simply, "and I think that you might be scared. But you mustn't be scared, love. Never be scared of change. It happens to all of us, after all."

"So who is it?" the man across the room called out to her suddenly.

"Is that the Doctor?" the man on the phone asked.

"Is that the Doctor?" the man in the TARDIS echoed knowingly.

"Yes ..." Rose replied breathlessly, not even sure which man she was addressing any more.

"He sounds old," the Doctor on the phone muttered ruefully. "Please tell me I didn't get old, anything but old ..."

"Says the man who doesn't even know his own, proper age," Rose replied, laughing out loud despite herself as she shook her head at his vanity. "He says you're over two-thousand-years-old, now. How's a girl supposed to keep up when you keep doubling your age like that."

The Doctor in the room with her glanced down at the console controls to hide his smile, but the Doctor on the phone sighed heavily as he muttered, "I've missed you, Rose - still do. Always have ... always will." He paused for a moment before he added, "Say you'll stay with him, Rose, eh? For me? He needs you."

"Is that what this has all been about?" she asked in breathless wonder as realization slowly began to dawn over her. "Is that seriously why you're phoning?" She shook her head again as she stared hard a the man across the room from her who was currently watching her with an intense look from underneath his furrowed brows. "You daft, old idiot."

The Doctor on the phone chuckled under his breath before he replied, "Goodbye, Rose. I'll be seeing ya." She hung up the phone before she could be tempted to beg him into staying on the line with her, just to hear his familiar voice for a little bit longer.

"Well?" the Doctor before her asked leadingly as he struck another forced, casual stance.

"Well what?" Rose demanded, placing her hands on her hips as she flashed him a blank, unamused look.

"He asked you a question," the Doctor replied awkwardly, clearly struggling to say the words that he knew needed to be said. "Will you help me?"

"Well, are you going to let me?" Rose asked him pointedly.

That seemed to throw the Doctor for a loop, and his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as he shifted his weight awkwardly from side to side and murmured hesitantly, "What?"

Rose rolled her eyes at him exaggeratedly before crossing the TARDIS console room in four long strides to stand directly in front of him, stubbornly invading the bubble of personal space that he had been upholding around himself ever since he had come back into his right mind again. She narrowed her eyes up at him as she purposefully poked at his silent, sealed off thoughts with her own and waited for him to catch her hint.

He watched her for a moment with a dark, haunted expression before he carefully obeyed and allowed the walls around his thoughts to crumble and fall away. What Rose found waiting for her there was enough to take her breath away as she was nearly overcome by the conflicting emotions of both love and fear. It seemed that the Doctor had been keeping her at arm's length in an attempt to somehow shield her from himself, afraid of hurting her, both physically and emotionally. But there was no denying the heated flame of longing and desire that burned through it all, making him desperate for her approval and acceptance.

Rose narrowed her eyes on him as she attempted to dig deeper, to get him to show her the full extent of all that lay within his mind that he was being so oddly cagey about, but he silently begged for her to respect his wishes and let him come to terms with things on his own time as he continued to shutter away parts of himself outside of her reach.

You really are a daft, old idiot, Rose reminded him as she heaved a loud sigh and suddenly threw her arms around his neck, instantly forcing him into a hug that the Doctor's new body didn't seem to know how to reciprocate. She made sure to project into his mind all of the long hours of her own desperation and longing that she had been forced to endure while she waited for him to come around, all of the worry and hurt that she had felt when his thoughts had suddenly gone silent inside of her head. Don't you ever think of doing that again, she warned him dangerously as she felt the tense line of his body relaxing slightly into her.

"I ... I don't think I'm a hugging person now," the Doctor muttered quietly as he fidgeted his arms awkwardly around her, never quite returning her embrace as he seemed to struggle with what to do or say next.

"I'm not sure you get a vote," she replied pointedly as she turned and placed a hard kiss against the side of his cheek.

There was another hint of a smile on his lips as he hesitantly met her gaze, but Rose smiled wide enough for the both of them as he easily agreed, "Whatever you say ..."

[ciathyzareposts]

Crusaders of the Dark Savant: Pomp and Circumstance

I would hope that the number of people I have “both loved and slain” is small.

              In several long sessions, I conquered and pillaged the Temple of Munkharama. I had to review my screenshots from hours ago to remember why I was there in the first place. (Because of all the dialogue and descriptions, my screenshots folder has swiftly ballooned to over 2,000 shots.) It goes back to the garrulous Brother T’Shober, guardian of the Munkharama Bridge, who begged me to find my way to the Temple, beneath the city above it, and retrieve the Holy Work before a bunch of evil monks from the Dark Forest got to it first. He told me to bring it to Master Xheng, Lord of the 5 Flowers.

I thought the Holy Work might be the Astral Dominae, but I should have realized it was silly to expect any actual connection between the game and its backstory this soon, if at all. Instead, it was just a book.

            A book as helpful as the in-game text!

          Reaching it was a long process that began by–as I had surmised several entries ago–shouting “COINS” as a response to the riddle of the well. In return, it delivered me four coins that I had to use in four receptacles to open four doors, two of which had switches that opened secret doors accessible from the other two. One of those secret areas led to a bunch of new rooms on the east side of the monastery, one to a bunch of rooms on the west.            

The east side housed a logic puzzle by which I had to drop four beans into four chalices and then pull a spindle in a central room. The spindle activated a kind of slot machine with four panels colored black or white. It took me a few tries to figure out what was going on, but basically after pulling the spindle, the panels showed me how many beans were in the correct chalices by the number of black panels vs. white panels–but not which beans were correct. Every time I got it wrong, I got dumped through a trap door into a basement and took damage. There were 4!=24 potential combinations, but each try gave me enough information to cross several possibilities off the list and narrow it down. Eventually, I got it right. The solution opened a secret door to the rest of the section.

               This was a good thing.

              With my recent failure in Shadowlands on my mind, I should point out that this is the kind of puzzle I like. It takes some effort and experimentation to figure out what’s happening, and once you intuit that, you can solve it by logic. It wasn’t just about mechanics, and there weren’t rats or a food meter impelling me to solve it faster.

The new passage led the party to Brother Moser’s Apothecary. Aside from selling potions, he didn’t have a lot that was interesting to offer just yet.               

My full map of Munkharama.

            Over on the west side, I found myself in front of a large building labeled “Palace of the Gran Melange, The Land of Dreams.” (“Gran Melange” is a perfect David Bradley phrase, like “Dark Savant,” that at first sounds okay but then falls apart when you consider its true meaning, in this case something like “great miscellany.”) Inside, a monk wanted to know what I was doing there. I tried HOLY WORK, GRAN MELANGE, ASTRAL DOMINAE, and even COSMIC FORGE (hey, my characters are still a bit confused) before finding success with (duh) DREAMS. But I couldn’t answer his second question about “what happens to those who cannot walk the land of dreams” until I returned to Brother Moser and asked him, and learned that such people “walk the land of the living dead.” This is another kind of puzzle that I like: the kind where you have to pay attention and take notes, then use those notes at a later point. Admittedly, the copious verbiage in this game makes it tough.

What followed were a series of rooms (connected by a maze of ladders) where I encountered a bunch of monks high on some kind of pipeweed, spouting nonsense about life being a dream and other silliness that was probably meant to sound profound. (Sample: “Life is a mystery, a puzzle, a riddle, a rebus, an enigma. As you live, you discover some of its pieces. Some you know, as if you had always known. Others you do not recognize, and discard. But all is part of the puzzle.”) From these encounters, I got a smoking pipe and some “pastilles” to pack into it.

             I’ll smoke what he’s smoking.

           The monk at the entrance had warned me not to go through a black door, but it was the only way to go, and after doing so, I found myself in a blank void. And here I got one of the games absurdly, almost offensively long expositions. I’ve complained about wordiness a few times, but I want to make it clear that I certainly don’t mind the brief atmospheric descriptions. For instance, here’s one that came later in the area:

             You step into the arena of a tremendous cathedral, its bizarre frescoes long faded, its papal pews submerged under a dense cesspool of stagnant water and filled with the wrenching odor of offal and decay. Thick molds cover much of the ceiling and chamber, and splotches of scummy mires are visible floating on the surface of the water. It is not a very pleasant atmosphere.

               Now that’s great. It gives a lot of context to otherwise somewhat featureless wall textures, and it even makes sense given the overall backstory of the location. I wouldn’t mind if the text was delivered a bit faster, in a smaller font, without requiring me to acknowledge every sentence, but I otherwise have no problem with the prose.            

Occasionally, the descriptions are funny. I don’t often appreciate Bradley’s humor, but this passage from later (beneath the temple), got a chuckle, even though it hijacked my characters’ attitudes, something I usually object to:

           You pull the lever but nothing happens . . . Playing with the lever for a while and getting nowhere, you eventually resort to more forceful tactics. Pretty soon the floor is littered with piece of hacked lever parts, everybody is yelling at everybody else, and finally you concede that some things were not meant to be.

           This, on the other hand, is what I got in the dream void:

             You step into oblivion. You are falling . . . falling . . . falling. And then you are falling no longer. All is quiet and black. Though you can feel a solid surface beneath your feet, you see nothing, and all around you presses the deep void. A vision of burning flames appears in the distance. You draw closer to the fiery blaze, and you see there is something burning in the flames. It is you. The fire swells and suddenly you are surrounded by faces from your past, faces of those you have both loved and slain. Their skin bubbles and their eyeballs swell and then explode as they scream. And you watch as they turn into a host of blackened charred corpses. Their screams become a mad cackling, and as they crumble into dust you see arise within the flames huge buildings and structures. And you sense that the structures mean something important, but watch as they too crack and fall into the burning inferno. The flame congeals into a flaming ball, and from its smoke and ash forms a sphere of spinning firmament which begins to orbit around the burning mother. And you look upon the sphere as its surface transforms, blossoming an infinite variety of features, and soon there are other spheres and then behind them still others and then a thousand suns dot the black sky. A million planets swarm past you, racing through the void, and time itself seems to accelerate as you witness the birth and demise of nations and whole worlds. You gaze upon the evolution of life as it streams through the galaxies, birthing and growing, warring and dying, and soon the shapes become a blur until they finally collide in a tremendous explosion and time itself becomes exhausted and collapses. And then all is still and black again.

               If even that doesn’t seem so bad, keep in mind that this narrative is being delivered basically one sentence at a time, frequently appearing that it’s over, because it ends one-third of the way down the screen, only to start up again on the next screen. And if it still sounds cool, ask yourself: What is the point? Why these images? Do they actually mean anything? Is there any payoff? Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. I think the author is just being self-indulgent. I think he’s read things like this in other stories, better stories, where there is a purpose and payoff, and he’s trying to mimic that.           

Here, it’s just a waste of time. It doesn’t even lead you to the correct next action, which is to combine the pipe and pastilles and light it. A good narrative, in addition to being much shorter, might have ended by saying something like, “You see images in the void, but your sober mind is not in any position to decipher them.” Oh, incidentally, if you do the wrong thing, you have to read all of this again.

Lighting the pipe didn’t make anything more sensible. A being called the Spirit of Life appeared, spouted some more pretentious nonsense (“this is the seed that is the root and heart of all living things” offered a particularly glorious mix of metaphors) and then asked me to choose the form of divine assistance: a sword, a staff, a gown, a ring, or a stone. I somewhat unimaginatively chose the sword, and I was given a magic weapon called the Sword of 4 Winds. Equipped by my lord, it does about twice the damage as his previous sword, so it wasn’t a terrible choice, but I’m curious what the other choices would have gotten me.

           Yeah, choosing the sword is pretty “basic,” but who says “gown” at a time like this?

            Incidentally, I think there’s a bug attached to the sword. First, it’s cursed, which means I can’t unequip it until I cast “Remove Curse.” That’s fine; I don’t want to unequip it. But it’s also one of those weird Wizardry weapons that asks me if I want to “invoke” it, which usually gives you something like an attribute boost in exchange for the item disappearing. In this case, invoking it raises my maximum hit points, permanently, but the sword doesn’t disappear because (I think) of the curse. This means I could theoretically use it to elevate my lord’s hit points to game-breaking heights. But after I saw what was happening (after invoking it twice), I stopped.

Out of the dream world, I found myself in a new area: the courtyard of the Xen Xheng School of 5 Flowers. Inside, Maser Xheng challenged me with a code phrase (“Slay not he that cannot hear”), to which I fortunately knew the counter-phrase from Brother T’Shober: BE THANKFUL YE THAT HATH AN EAR. Master Xheng wanted the Holy Work, which I didn’t have yet, so there wasn’t much else to do here.

             Be thankful ye that took screenshots.

           To get into the temple beneath the city, I had to solve another coin-related puzzle by putting four coins (ruby, emerald, diamond, and amber, found in pools in the central part of the keep) in associated urns: cuprum, viridian, silver, and gold. If it’s not clear (and it wasn’t to me at first), each gem/urn pair is the one closest together in color. This requires you to know that “viridian” is blue-green and that “cuprum” is the Latin word for “copper.”        

The underground had two large levels with many interrelated stairways, ladders, and pits. Getting through it was a long process of finding the right keys and objects to open the right doors in other areas. There weren’t a lot of puzzles otherwise, just fairly tough encounters with a variety of monsters. Several types of monks (spelled “munks” by the game for some reason), all with mid-level magic powers, kept attacking. There were also ghosts capable of causing a “terror” effect, nymphs who could cast high-level mass-damage spells, and some kind of floating jellyfish. I hate the “fear” effect, because in addition to taking the party member out of commission (about 50% of the time), there’s a chance that the party member decides on his or her own to flee, abruptly ending combat no matter how well you’re doing.

         The spirits are particularly well drawn.

       There were three notable “boss” battles. The first involved a bunch of deranged monks and a “leper giant,” who was capable of doing enough damage in a single round to kill a character. Fortunately, he usually missed, but after three tries I couldn’t win the battle without losing one character, so I sucked it up and resurrected her with a scroll I had found earlier.

             And Esteban goes spinning through the sky.

          The second boss battle was with the leader of the evil monks, the Lord of the Dark Forest, who had some very high level spells and resisted most of mine. I got lucky with a critical hit on my third combat with him.

             The Lord of the Dark Forest “holds” a bunch of us during our first fight against him.

              The last tough fight was with eight “skeleton lords” in three groups of two. They were curiously resistant to even my highest level “dispel undead” and had to be killed by more conventional means, which was tough because in addition to fear, they can cast “Fireball.” This one combat produced over 17,000 experience points, the highest total in the game so far.

             Skeleton lords appear t be skeletons of cows.

              Mitigating the difficulty was a fountain that restored health, stamina, and magic points. It’s been a while since I found one of those. Even with copious resting, the party is so rarely at maximum strength in all three attributes that these fountains really are a cause for celebration. Even better, it was in the middle of a water area, so I used the occasion to swim around (refreshing stamina at the fountain every few moves) until everyone’s “Swimming” skill was at 100. This is enough to swim about six squares before someone dies. 

          This is always a welcome sight.

          When I was done, I had two artifacts: the Holy Work and something called Wikum’s Globe of Power. I don’t know what the latter object is for, but the former I returned to Master Xheng. He took it gratefully and offered us the choice to join the monastery and learn the “path of the five flowers.” I said sure–I probably just made some irrecoverable faction choice or something–and he gave me a further quest to go find five flowers in some mountains. He also gave me some equipment, which included some cool bits of armor for my ninja.

                My undiscriminating party just joins the first faction that asks.

            By this time, I should mention, my inventory was bursting with stuff, including a lot of scrolls, potions, bombs, and powders that basically just serve as lesser alternatives to spells. I ended up selling a lot of them to Master Xheng just to clear space.

              On the one hand, that’s a useful item. On the other, that’s a reasonable amount of money.

             But I still have a bunch of things that I’m not sure about. These include:

             Items marked with large yellow question marks (instead of small white ones) always seem to be quest items. I’ve used most of them (like the cable trolley) and know what they’re for, but I’m still toting around “bone combs and brushes,” a bonsai tree, and a white rubber bear. They’re all mysteries.

I’ve had two iron keys and a pewter key for a long time, since like maybe the first dungeon.

Back in the Gorn castle, I fond three jars of “munk innards” and 15 units of “salted munkmeat.” Since munks are humans, the Gorn must be cannibals. Why am I carrying these around?

A potion called a “Cask of Ill Repute.” I forgot where I got it. 

Something called a “Rebus Egge.” No idea.

Several items in small blue pouches with stars on them: brimstone nuggets, skullbones, aromatic salts, and deadman’s hair. They sound like spell reagents, but this game doesn’t have a reagent system. Nothing happens when I try to “use” or “merge” these.

             During these explorations, I kept encountering certain NPCs over and over. It got a little annoying because they almost all have several screens of inescapable text before you can talk to them or dismiss them. One of them was the Gorn king, who I’d met in his castle. He alternately told me that the war was going well or poorly, sometimes both within a matter of 10 steps. Brother T’Shober appeared once, but I didn’t get anything useful from him. An Umpani named Lt. Gruntrapper stopped us a couple of times. When I went to trade with him (which I almost always try with NPCs), I saw that he was carrying something called a “Crypt Map.” I got an idea from comments that I’m supposed to be collecting these “maps,” so I bought it from him, even though it took 2/3 of my gold. Finally, some tall blue guy from the “priests of Dane” kept ranting about the end of the world, but I could never get him to like us enough to talk or trade.

             This had better pay off.

            Leveling slowed to a crawl, causing a bit of a withdrawal after my last session. Almost everyone is back up to Level 10 in their primary classes, and with hundreds of thousands of experience points necessary to get to Level 11, it’s hard to imagine ever making it to, say, Level 15. I don’t think I’ll be up for yet another round of class-changing, though, so I’ll just see how it goes.

I have no particular idea where to go next. A couple of my characters have the “Watchbells” spell now (which awakens sleeping party members), so I could try that field of poppies, and there are some water squares I could explore given my new ability to swim. Beyond that, there are unexplored paths to the south of Munkharama and to the north of Orkogre Castle.

This session ended at the 40-hour mark, and I feel like at this point I should have some sense of the main plot, but if it wasn’t for the Umpani and T’Rang showing up occasionally, I’d begin to suspect that the backstory has nothing to do with the game itself. I may feel differently by the end, but right now, it feels I’m in the middle of a sprawling, silly narrative with little thematic consistency or sensible story arc. At least I like the combat, leveling, exploration, mapping, and puzzles.

Time so far: 40 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/crusaders-of-the-dark-savant-pomp-and-circumstance/

[talabib]

How To Become A Successful Inventor,

The monomaniacal and madcap genius, with wild hair and a personal lab, working feverishly into the night: this is the inventor of popular imagination. In reality, however, most great inventors are more likely to wear sneakers and jeans than a lab coat. Indeed, some of the greatest success stories of the modern world – Twitter, Facebook and Pantone – were all created by fairly “normal” individuals.

So how did they go about it? And could you do the same? Those are the questions that this post seeks to answer. It contains both a historical account of many great inventions and a list of factors that any aspiring inventor would do well to consider.

Every great invention is borne of a problem in need of a solution.

Do you own a wheeled suitcase? If you do, you know how much easier it makes traveling; instead of lugging your luggage through train station and airport, you can simply and swiftly wheel it along. But did you know that these suitcases are a relatively recent invention?

Before the 1970s, everyone had to carry luggage by hand, no matter how heavy it was. It took Bernard D. Sadow, the vice president of a luggage company, to recognize this problem and come up with a solution.

Inspiration struck while Sadow was walking through an airport and struggling with two heavy suitcases. All too familiar with the problem, Sadow hit upon the solution when he saw an airport employee pushing a wheeled platform, atop which rested a heavy machine. “Why shouldn’t luggage have wheels, too?” Sadow thought. Soon, he’d developed and patented a prototype.

His first design sold well, but it wasn’t perfect: The wheels were placed on the long side of the suitcase and if you tugged too hard it would bump your legs, not to mention that turning corners caused it to topple.

Since Sadow only used his product while on vacation, he saw no need to spend time improving it. But an airline pilot named Robert Plath, in need of more than a mere holiday suitcase, decided to tinker with the trundling travel bag.

Eventually, after much work in his own private workshop, Plath developing the suitcase we know today: He put the wheels on the correct side and added a solid handle so the suitcase wouldn’t tip over or roll into your legs.

Plath’s design went on to become the universally loved product that people use whenever they need to travel.

So, why was Robert Plath able to build a better suitcase than Sadow? Well, since Plath had to travel every day, he had a better understanding of the problem, which, in turn, enabled him to hit upon a better solution.

To find a good solution, you need a deep understanding of the problem.

Have you ever spent months or even years with a nagging problem – and then, one random day, hit upon an ingenious solution and exclaimed, “Why didn’t I think of this before?!”  Well, don’t feel bad. Complete understanding of a problem usually only comes with repetition.

Adam Smith explained this in 1776: He wrote that one benefit of having factory workers is that they can become inventors through confronting the same task, or problem, on a daily basis.

One such factory worker was a boy in charge of pulling a lever every day. The constant repetition prompted the boy to think inventively: He automated the lever by tying a string around it and connecting it to another part of the machine. Now he could stand back and watch as the machine’s lever pulled itself.

Sure, encountering the same problem over and over again can lead to frustration, but it can also lead to great inventions. For this to happen, however, three components must be present:

First, the frustration has to come from a hidden problem, one that’s difficult to detect.

Second, you should be able to tell how solving this frustrating problem will affect a lot of people in the future, not just you.

Third, you have to accept that it might take ages for the invention to become successful.

Let’s look at the example of Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter: In 2000, he came up with an idea for text-based broadcasts that send messages about location and activities to friends. He found it frustrating that this simple and useful idea wasn’t available.

The solution to his problem was difficult to detect because few people at the time had the right kind of phone to send these messages. But sales of smartphones were on the rise, so he was able to predict that his idea could become successful – it just might take a while.

And his patience paid off. Six years after Dorsey identified a problem and developed a solution, the rest of the world caught up and Twitter took off.

Feeling lucky will make you more observant, and can make discoveries easier.

Do you ever have the feeling that you’re blessed with good luck? If that’s the case, you might be great at finding solutions.

Psychology professor Richard Wiseman suggests that people who feel lucky are more observant and better at identifying useful solutions.

In one experiment, Wiseman brought together a group of people, all of whom considered themselves either lucky or unlucky. He gave everyone a newspaper and asked them to count the photographs in it. On the second page of the paper, a message was written: “Stop counting – there are 43 photographs in this newspaper.”

It turned out that the lucky people actually did have a higher likelihood of noticing the message. They found the solution in only a few seconds, while the unlucky ones took around two minutes. The term for these fantastically observant people is Super-Encounterers.

Super-Encounterers make great inventors because they don’t narrowly focus on a problem. Instead, they explore, especially when they are unsure of the answer. This widens their outlook, providing more chances to discover and create.

This behavior also presents itself in an experiment conducted by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He set up a room, opened it up to art students and told them to pick out and draw objects within it.

Two groups evolved: One group chose objects and started drawing immediately with one concept in mind. One such student simply picked up a book and a hat and drew them.

The other group took their time observing different objects in different ways. These students looked at things through a glass prism and opened books to see the individual pages. As a result, their drawings were based on improvisation, exploration and discovery.

Seven years later, Csikszentmihalyi checked in with the students and found that most of the first group couldn’t support themselves and had stopped painting. But many people from the second group went on to become professional artists or teachers.

Today, discoveries are not based on luck but on data.

Did you know that Viagra was actually invented by accident? In fact, many medical discoveries are stumbled upon on paths that scientists thought would lead to something else. And these days discovering something by accident has never been easier. This is because we live in the digital era.

“Big Data” has become such a common theme that a new class of scientist has emerged: the bioinformatics people.

Instead of waiting for a lucky break, bioinformatics people create their own luck by using computers and checking the results of thousands of past experiments in order to reveal hidden connections.

A McKinsey report from 2013 shows that this form of research actually has value. It’s called data-mining, and they estimate it to be worth around $100 billion per year.

One of the major advantages of making discoveries through data-mining is the time it saves; by letting computers search through the huge piles of data, you save the time and money it would cost for teams of scientists to do it. This way you can analyze thousands of medical trials in a single afternoon!

As you might assume, the amount of medical-industry data is enormous. In fact, it’s already measured in petabytes. And one petabyte equals one million billion bytes!

Today’s data-mining algorithms can check this otherwise unused information in record time, leading to surprising discoveries, like new uses for old medications.

For example, consider imipramine. It was developed as an antidepressant, but research discovered that it could also be used against small-cell lung cancer.

Before data-mining, making this kind of discovery would have taken decades. Today it can happen incredibly quickly, and in the case of imipramine, researchers went from analyzing the data to clinical trials in around two years.

Creating something out of nothing is possible and can even save lives.

Did you know that there’s a color code for the brownies in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream? It’s true, and it was generated using a system that was created out of nothing.

This invention dates back to the 1960s, when Lawrence Herbert was co-owner of a printing company called Pantone.

During this time, Herbert was in charge of ordering inks, and he noticed a problem: every supplier used different color pigments. So, depending on who you ordered from, every color would be different.

Herbert had a brilliant idea: A color-coding system called Pantone that would work like a universal language, something everyone in the printing industry could use. Each color has a corresponding number. For example, Daffodil Yellow = Pantone 123.

He created a sample page and went to work convincing the industry of its potential. Though introducing Pantone wasn’t easy, Herbert never gave up, and it eventually caught on. By the 1970s Pantone was making more than $1 million a year in licensing fees.

Herbert managed to create a valuable invention out of nothing; all he had was an idea and a piece of paper.

And we still find this kind of inventive magic today. Just consider an important discovery about the human gut.

Modern research shows that the microbes in our gut are crucial to our health. But if the levels of these microbes become unbalanced, the consequences can be deadly, resulting in ailments like the stomach infection Clostridium difficile, or “C-diff.”

Here’s where the out-of-nothing invention comes in. Scientists discovered a unique way of curing people with C-diff: with healthy human feces.

Doctors use microbes from the feces of a healthy donor and “transplant” them into the sick person’s gut through infusion. With this method, what would otherwise be a fatal infection can be cured within hours.

This shows us that brilliant new ideas can come from anywhere, and it’s another example of an amazing invention being created from nothing.

Furthermore, you don’t need big funding or a team of scientists to create an amazing invention, all you need is imagination.

Trying to forecast the future will help you to come up with great inventions.

Wayne Gretzky was perhaps the greatest ice-hockey player ever. And there was a secret to his success: he always went where the puck was heading, not where it had been. This is exactly what you need to do when inventing. It’s called forecasting, and it’s no easy task.

To help with this, you can play the Wayne Gretzky Game: Picture the world a few decades from now and try to imagine what technology will exist. Base your thoughts on how you believe human desire and technology will continue to evolve.

To see this game in action we can look at Xerox: In the 1970s, Xerox forecasted the future and figured out what tech-savvy people would want – a personal workstation for the consumer market, with a mouse, a word processor and a graphical user interface.

Forecasting accurately isn’t always so easy. In the mid-1960s, strategist Herman Kahn tried to determine just how good we are at it. He asked the leading minds of the time to give 100 technological predictions for the year 2000.

It turned out that the predictions for communications and computing were about 80 percent accurate. These included accurate forecasting for the Internet, VCRs and cell phones.

The worst predictions had to do with transportation, medicine and architecture. These included misguided predictions about hibernating spaceships and appetite-control pills. But these predictions show that an accurate one can catalyze change.

Take Moore’s Law, for example. It states that computing power doubles every 18 months. Gordon E. Moore himself later said that after he proposed his theory in the 1960s, he noticed that it launched certain behaviors.

People in the technology industry began to realize that if they weren’t moving fast enough they would fall behind Moore’s Law. In this way, the prediction became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a driving force for new inventions. Coming up with a great new invention isn’t easy, but everybody has the power to do it.

Using your mind as a test lab will help you come up with great inventions.

The mind is a powerful tool and you can use it to conjure up your ideas and inventions. Many of our greatest inventors use their imagination to envision their ideas before they sketch them out.

Someone famous for taking this approach: Nikola Tesla. As a child, he would spend sleepless nights imagining new cities and structures. At the age of 17, he began turning these thoughts into inventions.

Tesla could see his inventions so clearly in his mind’s eye that he didn’t need any models or sketches to allow him to start creating. For him, the visions were so clear that he dreamed of inventing a camera that could capture them from his mind.

Recently, inventor Elon Musk continued this dream by building a system that allows people to design an object by moving their hands through the air.

So how do you make these thoughts a reality? Start by asking questions and getting your mind going.

As a writing teacher, Pagan has watched many students explore their creative minds. One student told him that he had the plot for an entire movie in his head; it was just a matter of putting it on paper.

When the Pagan met with him a week later, the student still wasn’t able to write it all down. He understood the story, he just didn’t know how to get started.

To help, Pagan asked the student all the questions about the story he would ask himself: How does the movie start? Whose point of view is being used? Even, what odors do you imagine there to be?

With every invention you can imagine, there are hundreds of details that can be turned into questions like these. Ask yourself as many questions as you can to help design and realize your idea.

Imagination is the precursor of invention. And as everyone has an imagination, anyone can come up with a great invention.

Everybody can come up with great ideas. You don’t need to be an expert.

Chances are you probably haven’t heard of John Harrison. He was an English carpenter and clockmaker who solved a problem for the British Parliament in 1714 and won £20,000 – the equivalent of about £2 million in today’s money.

Harrison’s story shows us that it’s often people outside of a specific industry that find the best solutions for its problems.

Back in the 1700s, sailors weren’t able to calculate their longitudinal position, and this left them in danger of crashing into rocks or other vessels, and sinking down to the watery depths. For example, in 1707, 2,000 British sailors died when an English fleet crashed in the ocean.

So, in 1714 the British parliament offered a reward to anyone who could find an accurate method for calculating the longitude while aboard a ship. People assumed the solution would come from an astronomer or someone from the Royal Observatory, but it was John Harrison, a simple carpenter and clockmaker, who took home the prize.

He created the marine chronometer, a clock that was accurate to the second and allowed sailors to tell the time back home and compare it to the time where they currently were, giving them a fixed position.

Another example is Adam Rivers: He’s a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Georgia in the marine sciences department who, in 2012, solved a problem for the food industry.

A company was having trouble getting the right food coloration for their health shake. While the problem was proving hard to solve for a food scientist, Rivers quickly connected the dots and solved the problem over a single weekend.

Using his knowledge of marine biology, along with some tools he bought at Walmart, he managed to chemically alter the mix of metals in the water to create a more pleasingly colored beverage.

So it really doesn’t matter what industry you currently work in. To become a successful inventor, all you need to possess is initiative and perseverance.

Everyone has the potential to come up with a great idea. The next amazing invention can come from anyone, anywhere, especially if that person works outside the main field of action. What helps is a deep understanding of the problem and the ability to foresee where society is headed and what people will need.

[ronnykblair]

The Past 10 Years: The Top 10 Things I Would Have Done Differently

Have you noticed that your friends constantly complain about their jobs, but never take action to fix them?

If you haven’t seen this behavior yet, just give it a few years.

By your 30s, at least 50% of conversations will revolve around job complaints.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, engineers in San Francisco take action to quit their jobs and start new companies…

…and then, when these new companies fail, the engineers write “post-mortem” posts on Medium about why their startups failed.

But most businesses don’t “fail” – they keep operating year in and year out and change gradually over time.

And while complaining can be cathartic for the complainer, it’s not useful to anyone else.

So, this article is neither a complaint nor a post-mortem – it’s a pre-mortem.

It is a direct extension of last month’s article on the top 10 red-pill truths I’ve learned over the past 10 years.

It will explain what I’m changing to avoid a post-mortem.

It will also explain why I should have taken a 30-40% pay cut over the past decade.

And if you think I was blunt last time around, that was just a warm-up:

1) Drop All Business Activities Other Than Content and Product Creation

Everyone tends to think they are above-average-to-great at everything.

I thought the same way a long time ago, which is why I decided to hire guest writers, offer coaching services, set up partnerships with other companies, introduce complicated marketing strategies, and even create a web series.

But the truth is that most people, myself included, can perform at a high level only in a handful of areas.

Even large companies struggle to do more than 1-2 things well.

I am above average in only two areas:

Writing articles and creating videos that generate a lot of search engine traffic.

Creating products with Excel files and videos that people want to buy.

I should have spent 95% of my time on these tasks and cut everything else: Guest writers, coaching, partnerships, complex email marketing, paid advertising, and my attempts at creative writing.

These activities delivered some benefits, but not enough to justify the time and money invested.

For example, occasionally a promotional partner would propose an interesting product or marketing idea.

But a benefit like that wasn’t worth ongoing drama, disagreements over terms, partners turning into “frenemies,” and sales cannibalization.

2) Make Trips to Other Countries Short or Long, But Nothing In Between

In 2009, I left California, where I had studied and worked for almost a decade, and moved to South Korea. And then I lived in a lot of other places afterward.

I have mixed feelings about that.

On the one hand, I lost a lot of my university network by leaving the area.

On the other hand, SF has become a depressingly awful place (LA is better), and since I am not attempting to create a billion-dollar company, I do not fit in with the culture there.

So, I think the idea to leave was probably correct.

But my execution of the “overseas travel and living” part came up short because I often went to a place, stayed for a few weeks to a few months, and then went somewhere else.

That’s too much time to do tourist-only things, but it’s too little time to make friends or live like a real human.

It would have been smarter to commit to living somewhere for 1-2 years, and if I didn’t like it, move on, with the eventual goal of settling down in one specific city.

If I wanted to scout a new place, I should have gone for 4-5 days and minimized my workload during that time.

3) Don’t Set Deadlines – Set Targets Based on Consumption Time Instead

Many productivity experts say that “nothing happens without a deadline.”

If you procrastinate and have legitimate problems finishing work, that advice is helpful.

But if you’re like me – a Type A, obsessive-compulsive workaholic – it could easily backfire.

For example, I frequently aimed to finish products by arbitrary deadlines, such as May 31 or November 30 or the day before a group trip to China.

Then, I would spend every waking hour until the deadline finishing the project.

It made for an unbalanced life, where I went from non-stop work to doing nothing to non-stop work to doing nothing.

I should have skipped the deadlines and set targets based on consumption time instead.

In 2010, I gave myself from July 20 to August 31 to learn about banks and insurance companies and create an entire course on the topic.

Not only was this a stupid idea – it’s impossible to learn a complex technical topic in that amount of time – but it also led to 80, 90, and 100-hour workweeks as the deadline approached.

I should have set a limit of 15 hours of student completion time for the course and made the deadline “Whenever it is done.”

Targeting consumption time rather than deadlines would have forced me to cut the fluff and avoid doing crazy things just to finish on-time.

4) Drop “Lifetime Access and Unlimited Support” and Offer 3 or 5-Year Course Access with Limited Support

“Lifetime access and unlimited support” is way out of line with the terms for online courses in any market.

Many students don’t even believe this claim; a common question is “When does my course access expire?”

I first extended these terms in 2009 because I thought we needed an offer that was “too good to be true.”

I was completely wrong.

It was more than enough to offer a discounted price, simple bonus, and free updates to anyone who signed up early.

Offering such generous terms might have even hurt sales because someone could have said, “Hmm… what’s the catch? Maybe this product is awful if they’re giving away so much.”

And providing “unlimited support” was a terrible idea because it attracted people who needed help tying their shoelaces.

Finally, these terms put more pressure on me to update content and respond to questions constantly, even though 99% of users didn’t care.

I should have offered generous but limited course access, such as 3-5 years, along with support only for specific content-related questions (and no Excel file fixes).

5) Participate in At Least One Group/Team Activity

On paper, I have “hobbies and interests”: Travel, running/weight-lifting, reading, learning languages, creative writing, and whiskey.

But there’s one glaring problem: They’re all individual or pair activities.

If I had a normal job where I went into the office each day and had co-workers, that wouldn’t matter.

But since I work online, I have to go out of my way to meet new people and get in-person interaction during the day.

Almost everyone I’ve stayed in touch with and occasionally see in real life falls into one of two categories:

Lived with the person before – Either in the same apartment/house/dorm or the same city.

Did an extended group activity with the person – Such as a study-abroad program or student/volunteer group with heavy involvement.

I have ~4,000 connections on LinkedIn because I am Internet-famous, but my real-life network is quite small.

And it’s largely because I didn’t do many group activities after graduation, and I stopped living in single places for long periods.

I did meet people at networking events, happy hours, and other one-offs, but it was less useful because we had less in common and I was less likely to see them again.

Even if I had still moved around a lot, a single group or team activity would have been a huge help in developing a better network.

6) Target a 10-15% Refund Rate

A long time ago, I was explaining my business to a marketing consultant.

I mentioned that our refund rate was only 2% at the time, and he immediately stopped me:

“If your refund rate is 2%, you’re losing money. A rate that low means that your prices are too low. Many businesses make more money when their refund rates go up.”

The second-most-useful comment about refunds came from Jerry when we both lived in Korea:

“Dude, if people complain, ask too many questions, or have other problems, just refund them.”

If I had targeted a much higher refund rate from the start, that would have solved many problems:

Less time wasted arguing with angry people online.

Less time spent selling underpriced products.

Less temptation to create courses that take 515,189,432 hours to complete.

Some business owners get emotionally invested in refunds and want to curl up and die when customers are unhappy.

But the refund rate is just another lever in the gears of a business.

Pull it correctly, and the gears will operate even more efficiently.

Apply too little force, and those gears will stop turning.

7) Quit Bad Relationships Quickly, But Take a More Measured Approach with Friends

If I ever had to go in for a real job interview, I already know what I would say for the “weakness” question:

“I make the right decisions, but I often wait too long to make those decisions.”

I went through a series of mediocre-to-terrible relationships over the years mostly because of this weakness.

But I should have followed a very simple protocol: If it wasn’t great within the first month, drop it.

The process should have been more like a search for an employee, with screening criteria, rounds of interviews, and quick decision-making.

I made the opposite mistake with friendships: I often lost touch with friends for nonsensical or nonexistent reasons.

For example, I drifted out of contact with a group of university friends in the first few years of this business because I assumed that they wouldn’t approve of my chosen career path.

Students from top universities can be surprisingly narrow-minded, so that wasn’t completely wrong, but I went a bit overboard in my assumptions.

I can think of 5-10 solid friendships I could have maintained if I had put in more effort and ignored imagined problems.

8) Reduce Publication of Free Articles, Videos, and Newsletters to 1-2x per Month

You may not realize it, but writing articles for this site takes a lot of time.

For example, the article you’re reading right now took 13 hours and 17 minutes to research, outline, write, and edit.

Each year, I spend 400-500 hours creating free content for this site and our YouTube channel.

And most of that is a waste of time.

Many students and professionals who sign up for the BIWS courses have not even read anything on this site – most sales now come from search engines and direct traffic.

M&I was a great launchpad for the paid courses, but it has become less important than BIWS over time.

I enjoy writing, but at 400-500 hours per year, it’s a huge time commitment that no longer delivers many benefits.

I should have shifted the frequency to 1-2 new articles per month starting in 2012.

Periodic updates do help with search engine traffic and longer-term conversions, but I could have captured those benefits in 100-150 hours of work instead of 400-500 hours.

And instead of delving into obscure topics that only 10-15 people are interested in, I should have updated the core content that attracts most of the traffic.

The top 100 articles here account for almost 60% of total traffic, and the top 200 generate almost 80% of all traffic.

The remaining hundreds of articles don’t do much of anything, so they should be consolidated or deleted.

9) Simplify the Advanced and Industry-Specific Courses Down to 15 Hours of Completion Time

The obvious problem with “advanced” courses is that the demand for advanced material is low.

From 2012 through 2017, the Advanced Modeling, Bank Modeling, and Oil & Gas Modeling courses together accounted for less than 10% of sales.

The Real Estate course has performed better because the audience is broader, but it still contributes a low percentage of sales next to the core products (Excel, general financial modeling, and the Interview Guide).

Beyond the small market size, there’s another problem: Advanced concepts take more time to teach, but advanced users have less time to learn.

Also, advanced users are often looking for one specific topic, and if the course does not happen to cover it, it’s useless to them.

Currently, these courses are useful mostly because they encourage upgrades to package deals, such as the BIWS Platinum membership for everything on the site.

Those package deals make a big difference, so I don’t think I should have skipped the advanced courses altogether.

But I should have focused on breadth over depth.

For example, instead of a 40-hour course based on a single company or deal, I should have made a 15-hour version with 5-6 separate case studies that each take 2-3 hours to complete.

If people staged an online rebellion because there wasn’t enough content, I could have dropped the prices and positioned the courses as “interview prep” instead.

10) Set a Hard Cap of ~5 Hours per Week on Online Interactions

I’ve spent an astounding amount of time interacting with readers, customers, and random people online – easily 5x as much time as I’ve spent talking to people in real life.

In the first few years of the site, these interactions were important because I was establishing the brand and building a reputation.

But their usefulness fell off a cliff as the business matured.

No online interaction has ever affected my offline life, and most online discussions have made a marginal difference in business results: 95%+ of comments, emails, and LinkedIn messages come from non-customers.

I’m also quite skeptical that “research” via Reddit, message boards, and comment threads is useful; discussions there tend to amplify extreme opinions and hide the average case.

I’ve collected data from four main channels over the past decade:

What people say in comments and emails.

What people say on the phone.

What people say in-person.

How people spend their time and money.

If you want to figure out a market or a person, #4 is all that matters.

Look at a person’s bank and credit card statements and a weekly time log of his/her activities, and you’ll learn more than you would in a week of conversation with that person.

Numbers don’t lie, but people do – in-person, on the phone, and especially online.

I should have cut my time spent on online interactions starting in 2010-2011 and focused on usage and purchase data to make decisions.

So, What Would This Have Looked Like?

If I had implemented all the changes above, I would have created a simpler and more straightforward business and personal life.

I would have created far less content and worked fewer hours, and I would have made more real-life friends and fewer Internet friends.

The obvious downside is that I would have earned less money.

I estimate a 30-40% cumulative drop in gross sales from all these changes, which adds up to several million dollars.

That sounds like a lot, but it’s over 10 years, and “gross sales” is much different from after-tax profits.

This list of changes may seem dramatic, but I made most of the big decisions correctly.

It was the right move to quit my job, avoid private equity, and start this business in 2007-2008.

And it was the right move to launch BIWS at the bottom of the recession in 2009 and keep expanding it over time.

I did make some business mistakes, but they are fixable.

I made more serious mistakes on the personal/social side, and those are the ones I regret the most.

A Pre-Mortem or a Post-Mortem?

Since this is a pre-mortem, I can make many of these changes.

In fact, I’ve already started.

I’ve spent the past few months simplifying and streamlining parts of the most popular courses, and I’ve been reducing the time I spend online.

I’ve also been reducing the frequency of free content in some channels, and I’ve been cutting many side activities.

I learned my lesson with relationships years ago, and I finally found the right person last year.

I won’t follow through on everything above, but I don’t have to.

I just need to change enough to avoid getting to the point where I write a post-mortem.

And since I’m not an engineer in San Francisco, that one’s within reach.

The post The Past 10 Years: The Top 10 Things I Would Have Done Differently appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/10-year-review/

[itsiotrecords-blog]

http://ift.tt/2rI2fNt

Things are not looking good for Tiger Woods. He was once the undisputed king of golf, and one of the most famous athletes in the world. And more importantly, he was once one of the highest paid athletes. He’s still famous to this day… But now it’s for all the wrong reasons. His fame is quickly tumbling into something else altogether – infamy. Now people are left wondering just how Tiger Woods is going to come back and regain his former glory. But it’s looking more and more certain that, after all these setbacks, Tiger Woods probably isn’t going to be able to make a comeback after all. His recent DUI arrest may just be the last nail in the coffin for this athlete’s disappointing career. As we will reveal in more detail in the list, he was caught intoxicated behind the wheel of a car. In fact, he was asleep at the wheel. He was in such a deep state of unconsciousness that police had to bang on the window to wake him up. He claims he was on prescription drugs. This is a sad day for golf, and the sporting world in general. But in truth, we all saw this coming long before the arrest on May 29th. There have been many clear signs that this star athlete’s best days are long behind him. It seems certain now that Tiger Woods’ career is officially over.

#1 DUI

Let’s get straight down to the story that everyone’s talking about. On May 29, 2017, police found Tiger asleep at the wheel of his black Mercedes in Jupiter, Florida. The car was stopped on the side of the road, and partially in the bike lane. Officers say that he had to be woken up. One officer recalls:  “At one point the driver woke up and pulled on the right side lever on the steering column,” the officer said in the incident report. “I asked the driver what he pulled, and the driver replied in a muffled tone, ‘What? Push the button?’ and then pushed the button to start the vehicle. I immediately had the driver push the button again to turn the vehicle back off. The driver complied and then fell back asleep a few moments later.” Apparently Tiger had slurred speech and kept changing his story about where he was coming from. They administered a sobriety test and saw that he had dilated pupils and had difficulty balancing himself. His blood alcohol level was zero, and Tiger denied taking any illegal drugs. He did however, admit to taking prescription drugs. He later made a statement, saying: “I want the public to know that alcohol was not involved. What happened was an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications. I didn’t realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly.” He is set to make a court appearance for an arraignment in early July.

#2 Getting Old Let’s pretend for a moment that Tiger Woods was a perfect role model. Let’s pretend that he never had any injuries, or cheating scandals, or DUIs. He still would be hard-pressed at this point to regain his former success. And that’s for one simple reason – he’s old. I know that golfers tend to have longer careers than a soccer player or an Olympic athlete, for example. But it seems clear that Tiger Woods’ prime was years ago. There was something about his youth that made him a ferocious opponent. And now, that spark seems to have left him. He’s 41 today, and this fact alone means that making a comeback will be really difficult for Tiger Woods. He’s just running out of time…

#3 Possible Jail Time According to Florida law, an offender’s very first DUI can result in a wide range of punishments, including (albeit in rare circumstances) jail time. Tiger Woods already spent one night in jail, and was released in the morning. But if he’s tried to the full extent of the law, he could spend up to 6 months in jail. However, this is unlikely, since he didn’t hurt anyone (except his own career). The judge might choose to make an example of him though, especially because this isn’t the first time he’s driven recklessly. In 2009, he crashed his car into a fire hydrant, trees, and some hedges. He received a ticket for reckless driving. So the judge might look at both those cases and determine that Tiger needs some time behind bars to let it sink in that irresponsible driving is not acceptable.

#4 He Doesn’t Win Anymore Tiger doesn’t win anymore. Why doesn’t he win anymore? After his cheating scandal, his form has really suffered. In 2010, he decided to take a break from competitive golf. He returned in April of that year, and tied for fourth place in the 2010 Masters Tournament. But it would get much worse. His next two tournaments were incredibly bad, and he withdrew from them, claiming he was injured. The rest of the season went as badly, and he finished the year as the number 2 best golfer in the world. In 2012, he was knocked out of a tournament after he missed a 5 foot putt. He actually made a small comeback in the beginning of 2013, but then sunk back down by the end of the year, finishing 13 over par in one tournament, which was his worst score ever as a professional golfer. Things got much worse after a back injury, and by 2014 he was failing to make the cut at the 2014 PGA Championship. He continued to fail to make the cut for a few more tournaments into 2015 and 2016, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to get better.

#5 Too Much Competition Tiger has some stiff competition these days. The new generation of golfers is simply leaving Tiger in the dust. Nowadays, his style of golf seems outdated and nowhere near as good as some of these newer golfers. Number one in the world right now is Dustin Johnson, who is only 32 but is close to beating a lot of Tiger’s records. He’s also happily married to the daughter of Wayne Gretzky… Second place in the world rankings is Rory McIlroy, who equals Tiger’s record of winning three majors by the age of 25. He’s only 28 years old. Hot on their heels is the young Japanese golfer Hideki Matsuyama, who just recently rose to 4th place in the world rankings in 2017. Tiger Woods is going to have to work really hard to catch up with the pace these guys are setting, and some people say that would be an impossible task.

#6 The Infamous Cheating Scandal Another thing that really ruined Tiger’s career is his cheating scandal. That was the first crack that started to form in Tiger Wood’s seemingly perfect exterior. Now that crack is just another blemish on Tiger’s career, finding company with countless other dents. In 2009, the National Enquirer revealed that Tiger had been cheating on his wife with a nightclub manager, Rachel Uchitel. Two days later, Tiger took his car out and crashed it. In the next few weeks, it became clear that Tiger Woods had been cheating on his wife with tons of other women. After a voicemail message left by Woods on a mistress’ phone was found, the whole story was blown wide open. More than a dozen women came forward, claiming they had been hooking up with Tiger while he was still married. Tiger was forced to admit to his infidelities. It was still possible for him to succeed on the golf court, but unfortunately his form took a major dip. It’s been something he’s been trying to recover from ever since, and he’s never quite succeeded.

#7 Reputation Ruined I think it’s safe to say now that Tiger Woods’ reputation has been completely, thoroughly, and utterly ruined. Where do I even begin. He seemed like such a perfect guy until his cheating scandal. Then he crashed his car for the whole world to see. Now, he’s been arrested because of a DUI. How do you come back from that? Facing the public must have been hard enough when everyone knew he had been cheating on his wife with multiple women. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like when everyone knows he’s a criminal now. This is made so much worse by the fact that golf is seen as such a prestigious sport. There are so many golf fans who are very old and proper, and would see his behavior as disgraceful.

#8 The Comeback Has Failed Multiple Times How many times have you heard about Tiger Woods making a comeback? How many times have golf commentators asked the question, “Will this be the year that Tiger Woods makes his comeback?” It seems like with every passing tournament, people are crossing their fingers and hoping Tiger will regain his former glory. But with each passing year, it becomes less and less of a reality. More and more people are forgetting about Tiger Woods, and accepting that he’s just going to fade into golf history. The truth is that if he was going to make a comeback, he would have done it by now. Time and time again, he’s failed epically in his attempts to bring himself back to the top of the golfing world. I sincerely hope he proves me wrong, but it looks like that comeback just isn’t going to happen…

#9 Back Surgeries Throughout his career, Tiger Woods has been hounded by some pretty serious back injuries. It first started in 2014, when he had a microdisectomy to repair a herniated disc. But this was only the beginning. Later that year, he revealed that his back had been spasming constantly. In 2015, he underwent a second microdisectomy to remove a disc fragment that was pinching his nerve. Later that year, he went under the knife yet again for a similar problem. 2016 was largely spent recovering from these surgeries. He reportedly still suffered from back spasms throughout the recent years. In April 2017, he once again had surgery on his back, relating to the herniated disc problem. That’s a lot of back surgeries, and it’s beginning to look like a problem that just can’t be solved.

#10 Too Many Injuries Speaking of injuries, Tiger Woods has been plagued with all kinds of injuries, not just those linked to his back and spine. Way back in 2002, Tiger Woods had surgery after an ACL injury to his left knee. In 2008, he once again had surgery on that same knee. Later that year, he had extensive reconstructive surgery on that knee. That put him out of commission for 9 months. In 2010, he complained about a possible neck injury caused by a bulging disc. This was later diagnosed as an inflamed facet joint in his neck. In 2011, he once again suffered from an injury to his left knee and also his Achilles heel. In 2013, he pulled out of a tournament due to an elbow strain. All of these injuries accumulate and never really go away. If Tiger Woods wanted to restart his career, he would have to deal with countless more injuries, and that’s what makes it so doubtful that he will ever return to his former glory.

#11 He Has Started Cheating (At Golf) Okay, so maybe this is stretching the truth a little. He only really got caught cheating once, back in 2013. This was when he was starting to make his first major comeback after his infidelity scandal, before it all fell apart. He was almost disqualified from the 2013 Masters Tournament after allegations arose that he had taken an illegal drop after his 3rd shot on the 15th hole bounced off the pin and into the water. Luckily for him, he was given a two-stroke penalty, and not disqualified. He finished the event tied for fourth. This attitude really sums up the kind of desperation that Tiger Woods is experiencing right now, and it’s a clear sign that his golf skills aren’t what they used to be. And we all know that he cheats on and off the golf course…

#12 He’s Firing All Of His Team Another sign that Tiger Woods is getting really desperate is the fact that he seems to be firing all of his team. Steve Williams was Tiger Woods’ caddy for many, many years. However Tiger Woods shocked both him and the golfing world when he fired him. It seems like Tiger Woods was just lashing out at those who were closest to him, especially since this wasn’t long after his cheating scandal. In 2014, he also fired his swing coach, Sean Foley. Apparently both these people were fired because of Tiger’s “control issues.” This stinks of a man who knows that he’s failing miserably, and is looking around at the people around him to blame. This, and the fact that Tiger has no plans to hire a swing coach is a clear sign that his career is pretty much over.

#13 He Hasn’t Even Played For Most Of 2017 Probably the biggest reason Tiger Woods’ career is over is the fact that he’s not even playing golf anymore. He seems to have just given up. On March 31, 2017, he announced to his fans that he wouldn’t be playing in the 2017 Masters Tournament. His last tournament was in February 2017, where he golfed extremely poorly and had to pull out due to continued back spasms. While other pro golfers are winning trophies and competing in every possible tournament they can, Tiger Woods is… well, he’s getting arrested for DUIs and getting high on prescription drugs. Sorry, but that’s the truth. If you actually want to have a golfing career, you need to actually be playing golf.

#14 He Doesn’t Seem To Want To Play Anymore, Even When He’s Injury-Free The weirdest part about Tiger Woods not playing too much golf anymore is the fact that he isn’t actually injured anymore. He should have recovered from his last back surgery a while ago, and if it is true that he’s injury free, then why isn’t he playing golf? He has no excuse for not playing, except maybe the fact that he doesn’t want to play professional golf anymore. He’s often said he wants to break Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship wins, and that’s probably still true. A huge part of Tiger probably still wants to play and win golf tournaments. But that part of Tiger is getting smaller and smaller, and it’s beginning to recede more and more. The Tiger we see a lot more of these days is the Tiger whose heart just isn’t in golf anymore, and someone who just wants to stop being the center of attention.

#15 He Lost All His Sponsors Another reason Tiger’s career is over now is the fact that he lost most of his sponsors a long time ago. This was a blow that was dealt to Tiger back when the true extent of his extramarital affairs started to surface. After all, who wants to be associated with someone who commits adultery? Not some of the biggest brands in the world, that’s for sure. AT&T, Accenture, Gatorade, General Motors, Gillette, TAG Heuer, and Golf Digest all dropped their sponsorship deals with the golfing legend. But Tiger Woods wasn’t the only one who lost money as a result of his divorce. Estimated shareholder losses resulting from Tiger’s cheating scandal was an estimated 5 to 12 billion dollars. That’s a lot of money caused by one man’s cheating. As most people know, most athletes make a huge deal of money off their sponsorship deals, and now no company in their right mind will touch Tiger Woods, especially now that he has a DUI. To make matters worse, Nike, which was the one company that stuck by Tiger Woods, has now exited the Golf industry, leaving Tiger completely and utterly alone.

Source: TheRichest