Ever since Haddon Sundblom drafted an image of Santa drinking coke in 1931, and later famous Coca-Cola TV commercial of "holidays coming" every year, in many countries, in many different languages, we've all waited for THE train to appear through evergreen woods, snow white mountains, and festive lights streets, have not we? and we don't even mind cola's "not so pure" taste.
And why should we mind when Coke for over 80 years gave us licence to officially start enjoying THAT time of year – Christmas.
Cola ingredients set aside, what can Coca-Cola teach us about advertising yoga brand?
Here's 6 key trends to help you identify how you can enhance your yoga brand and bring smile to your customers face this Christmas.
In today's economic climate, whilst most families are cutting back on extra treats, be down to earth and stay on customers side. Offer something of a real value, and use overall Christmas cheers in your advantage, here's how, Whilst big companies… with big budgets are spending little fortune putting glam and famous in front of Christmas ad, instead of staying in the shadow, stand on giants shoulders – big brands already are promoting Christmas for you, putting consumers in the buying mode, all you have to do is, step in the conversation and put your offer on your customers table, and since you know best your customers, think of an offer they would absolutely love to have from you.
Showcase your offer with a little festive edge. It pays to make extra effort to support overall festive mood with glitzy touches. If you have a yoga studio, light it up, even go over the top with extra shine and pride, it puts smile on people's faces. If you always reach customers via world wide web, put an extra festive feel to it.
Above all, consumers want to know you are there for them. Young or old, single or families, customers need to feel they've been cared for and it's all about "YOU"… "my yoga teacher is here for "ME" can be comforting.
Updated version yes, change of theme no. Think Coca-Cola, Santa's ads are becoming current, as people continue using smartphones and latest gadgets, without altering the root of the advertising theme. Consumers need to relate to something they do, or use on a daily bases, besides having a current, adding a fresh new spin is exciting and appealing, so putting an extra thought in the next yoga advertising is important for engaging your audience.
Big brands are getting it right, putting emotions in ads… moms cooking, families laughing, parents giving presents… so put emotions in your yoga product, or yoga classes, don't just promote a gift voucher, let people "give a little more love" this season.
Community matters, and even so for smaller brands, give back to community, and engage your customers, for example, if you are selling a gift box for $10, send $1 to your chosen charity, or put it back into community project, or hold a charity event or a yoga class. Number is not that important, what matters is the feeling of giving and doing something good for the community. It bonds people together.


text:
Q: JUnit - Looping test cases and comparing the results I am learning JUnit and I have to test a method multiple times.
I have to test the method based on two parameters (Environment and Case#).
I am working on two environments where I have to check if the same Case# yields the same results between different environments. This is the test case:
public class AppStartTest
{

/**
 * Test method for {@link archive.AppStart#beginOper(java.lang.String)}.
 */

List<String> actualSections = new ArrayList<String>();
List<String> environments = new ArrayList<String>();
List<String> cases = new ArrayList<String>();

@Before
public void prepareTest()
{
    environments.add("env1");
    environments.add("env2");
    cases.add("case1");
    //cases.add("case2");
    cases.add("case3");
    cases.add("case32");
    cases.add("case4");
    cases.add("emp3");

}

@Test
public void testBeginOper()
{
    for (String caseStr : cases)
    {
        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
        Map<String, Integer> mapList[] = new HashMap[2];
        int i = 0;
        for (String env : environments)
        {
            System.out.println("Starting " + env + "-" + caseStr);
            AppStart a = new AppStart();
            mapList[i] = a.beginOper(env + "-" + caseStr, true);
            printMap(mapList[i++]);
        }
                    //Using assert in this method
        compareResults(mapList[0], mapList[1], caseStr);
    }
}
}

The result yields as a single test case, but I would be requiring the results as:
testBeginOper[0]
testBeginOper[1]
testBeginOper[2]
.....

I tried using parameterized test cases, but the test method would be executed independently. I have to compare the results between two environments and I would need the method with @Test to return some value (Method should be void) and then assert. Please advise.

A: The easiest solution I can think of would be to not have testBeginOper() be annotated with @Test at all but just be a standard, non-test, value returning, parameter accepting function. Then you have one @Test annotated function which runs your various versions of testBeginOper(), collects the results and then compares them. It could look something like this:
private Map<String, Integer> testBeginOper(String environment, String case) {
    // do your actual tests using the given parameters "environment" and "case"
}

@Test
public void runTests() {
    List<Map<String, Integer>> results = new ArrayList<>();
    for(String environment : environments) {
        for(String case : cases) {
            results.add(testBeginOper(environment, case));
        }
    }
    // now compare your results
}

There are alternatives of course, one being to write your own TestRunner, but this is probably by far the easiest solution.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I have been using a whistling kettle for a long time now. There are many reasons for it, most of my colleges and friends ask me why I prefer using it when I have better options available on the market.
To be frank, there is more than one reason why I use it. I belong to the working class and I need to get to my office at the right time. As a matter of fact, even if I manage to get up early in the morning, I would end up shortening my breakfast to save time. Most of the time, I set water to boil on the stove or in a kettle to prepare a cup of tea and I forget the whole thing. In the end, I find my kettle or saucepan burned and almost worthless to be used again. This is one of the major reasons why I bought the kettle, on the other hand, preparing tea in a kettle with a whistle is more feasible, we could just leave the kettle heating and continue with our work and when the tea is ready the whistle alerts us. That's it you are done no more tension and burned kettle.
Now, you know my story and the reason why I bought it, you could have the same issue and scenario in your life. But, getting the best kettle is not that easy. I bought my first kettle after a thorough search. There was almost a 100+ kettle models on the market and I frankly did not have any idea on how to select the best. But eventually, I did get the best.
Here is the list of best whistling tea kettle available today.
A whistle tea kettle is one of the best efficient type kettles available on the market today, not just because it comes with a whistle, but the precision it offers. The past few years have seen a steady increase in the demand for whistling tea kettles and this, in turn, has to lead to the rise in the number of models available on the market today. Here is a list of factors that could help you select the best whistling tea kettle from the market today.
Type of kettle based on the power source – A tea kettle, no matter what the features it provides could be an electric kettle or could be a stovetop kettle. Different people like different types of kettle and it is not just concentrated on a single type of tea kettle. Some people claim that electric kettles are far more efficient than stovetop kettle and on the other hand, some people claim that stovetop kettles are efficient. Based on our expertise it is better that we leave the efficiency of the kettle and focus on the type that suits your situation. An electric kettle requires the least set up for its functioning; all you need to have is a plug point where you could plug in the device. Nevertheless, when it comes to stovetop kettle, you need to have a stove and a fuel source. Now, with this being said, if you are a person who loves having a traditional or a retro style kettle, then an electric kettle can never satisfy you. On the other hand, if you are a person who is busy and want the tea made within the least time, then an electric kettle is all what you need.
The size of the kettle – The size of the kettle refers to the capacity of the kettle and not the overall dimension of the product. While purchasing a kettle it is very important to consider the capacity of the kettle, because if you purchase a large size kettle and if you fill the kettle with a small amount of water then it will take more time to boil and the tea will lose flavor. On the other hand, if you are planning to purchase a small size kettle then make sure that you need a small capacity kettle only.
Insulated handles – A kettle could come with insulated or a non-insulated handle incorporated into it. Most of the people would know that a kettle heats up and transfers the heat throughout its metallic body making it impossible for the user to move the kettle from one place to another without burning your hand. This is why we recommend that you consider purchasing a kettle that comes incorporated with insulated handle, but, while purchasing make sure that the handles are made of high quality insulated material and not some local product with poor quality handles that would melt at high temperature.
Size of the mouth opening – A kettle could be electric or stovetop and the capacity could vary based on the model and based on the user's preference. However, the most important thing that you should know is that a kettle boils milk and other fluids and cleaning the kettle regularly after use is very important. What if the diameter of mouth is small and you cannot access the remote corners of the kettle. The cleaning will not be easy right, this is why it is best recommended that you should consider purchasing a kettle with a maximum wide mouth so that you could access the corners of the kettle and efficiently clean the kettle.
Quality of the material – A kettle could be made of any type of material, it could be made of a material that conducts heat easily or that conducts the head very slowly. It is well known fact that different metals conduct heat at different rate. So, if you are considering to purchase a high quality metal kettle then we recommend that you go for a stainless steel kettle as they are rust proof and stain proof.
Step 6: If you still find any deposits on the walls of the kettle, repeat the process again.
After completing the above-mentioned process, with a dry cloth remove all the moisture from the kettle and then store the kettle somewhere safe.
Apart from the factors mentioned above, there are other factors like brand, extra features, and price of the kettle. However, these factors are not so important to select the best kettles from the market. So, better avoid such factors.
Getting a whistling tea is not easy, then, how did I manage to get the best? Customer reviews, it where all the truth about the product would be, and the whistling kettles listed above were all selected based on the customer reviews and the brand reputation.


text:
FilmTech innovator Ayo brings interactive artistry to Atlanta stage
by East Texas Bama
Dr. Ayoka Chenzira – Photo credit: TT Coles Photography
One of the first Black women to write, produce, and direct a feature film – and to create animation – Dr. Ayoka "Ayo" Chenzira will direct the upcoming performance of The Urban Chameleons with Funnel Cake Flowers, starring creator HaJ. Ayo was first inspired toward her path of digital media artistry by listening to the stories of women in the beauty parlor owned by her mother, from whom she received her first camera at the age of 17.
"I was privy at a very early age to women's oral narratives," Ayo told rolling out in an exclusive interview. "Everything from joy and celebration to loss and heartbreak, these things I heard daily … People felt safe to talk [at the beauty parlor], but as a kid, it was fascinating to hear how scary and complicated the world of women was and is."
The insightful teen Ayo saw opportunity in the absent depictions of women like her mother's clients on television, and she readily yielded to the pull of film school, taking her from her hometown of Philadelphia to hone her craft at prestigious institutions like New York University, Columbia University, and Georgia Institute of Technology, launching an innovative career as a pioneer in filmmaking.
"When I got to film school, I didn't realize that what I knew and experienced in my mother's beauty parlor was not common knowledge in the larger world," Ayo said as she recalled her early experiences and her thinking at the time that she had found a calling in creating documentaries about terminally ill Black people. "I discovered that my imagination was larger than where the documentary film format as a genre was at that time. I found it too limiting, and so I discovered something that I wanted to talk about, that I felt passionately about, and that was only going to work for animation. It was a satirical film that I did called Hair Piece: a film for nappy headed people and the inspiration for that was living in Brooklyn at a time when Black people were wearing shower caps on their heads — and they were everywhere … this was the age of the Jheri curl."
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York purchased Hair Piece, the first-ever animated film by a Black woman, and it can be found in several other prestigious museums and galleries around the world. The Spelman College professor is also a recipient of the Sony Innovator Award for converging film, video and computer animation; and the Apple Computer Distinguished Educator Award for her work with storytelling and digital technology.
"I am in conversation with stories, but I'm also in conversation with technology … trying to figure out how you make something do something else other than how it's marketed," said Ayo.
That trailblazing spirit still burns brightly in Ayo today, as she directs her passionate focus toward taking moving images out of the traditional theater setting and into more futuristic interactive movies and games. She excitedly described how technology has recently progressed enough to significantly enhance her work with daughter HaJ to bring the interactive story of Funnel Cake Flowers to life.
"Finally, I'm finding that my imagination and HaJ's imagination can manifest itself in real-time quicker, and that has been great to experiment with," said Ayo.
The duo will debut a private premiere performance of The Urban Chameleons with Funnel Cake Flowers this Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, at 7 p.m., but audiences can also live-stream the performance on Tickles.TV, and join the discussion on Twitter using #ticklestvFCFLIVESHOW.
Tags: Dr. Ayoka Chenzira, exclusive, Funnel Cake Flowers, Haj, Urban Chameleons
East Texas Bama
Geosyncronous writer and tech editor passionate about highlighting Afro-techno-futurists changing the world. Proud daddy to two feminista-scholar-ballers. Maverick. Cowboy. Anchor Down. Who u wit? "...the hereafter is a hustle..." #StayWoke
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
It's fitting, given her name and all
By Julia Lee@hardykiwis Oct 15, 2019, 9:30pm EDT
Share All sharing options for: Dawnbringer Karma skin will have all proceeds go to charity
Announced as part of the newly announced Riot Games Social Impact Fund, a new Karma skin will have all of its proceeds go to charity.
The skin looks like it's part of the same universe as Dawnbringer Riven and Nightbringer Yasuo, two skins that were part of the 2017 Versus event. Her blue tones match Riven's skin, but it's unknown if there will be a matching Nightbringer skin to match against her.
This is Karma's eighth skin, with her last being Dark Star Karma in June 2019.
In the past, other skins have had proceeds go to charity. Dark Star Cho'Gath had 100% of its proceeds go to GlobalGiving during its initial sale. Championship Ashe, among other skins, have also had proceeds go towards charity in the past.
The skin will likely move to the Public Beta Environment soon, though no exact date was given.
This post will be updated as more information becomes available.


Ezelia Mission: To care about the shower experience of every customer! We insist on original design and careful manufacturing, which endows our products with new vitality and bringsthe most comfortable shower experience to every customer. What does the package box include? Gasket * 2 Teflon Tape * 1Adjustable Angle Bracket * 1 60 Inches Stainless Steel Shower Hose * 1 Handheld Shower Head (Contained Check Valve)* 1 What does the advantages of Ezelia shower head? Adjustable angle bracket, get the best shower angle; 60 Inches flexible stainless steel hose for sturdy and durable; Anti-clogging nozzles prevent the build-up of minerals, for easy clean; 5-Settings shower designed: shower mode, massage mode, spa spray mode, mixed power mode, pause mode; Using the high quality ABS plastic material and chrome plated technology without toxicity or lead, prevent fading. Our Promise If you have any questions, you can contact us through amazon, we will solve it for you in 18 pm-24 pm everyday. We will provide our products with two years warranty and best after-sales service.


New date for my last studio show is June 28th. It is a Sunday, it will be from 12 - 6, and ...to be honest, the month has been moving so quickly, there is no way in hell my house will be clean enough for a public gathering.
Are you on my mailing list? If not - get on it by emailing me and I'll get out the invites soon!


text:
Tired of TeamViewer? Try this completely free alternative
Tesla has more than 120,000 full-time employees, and it is expected to increase further this year – small tech news
Baidu posted pictures to crack down on counterfeiting: "Wen Xin Yi Yan" has not yet registered a social account – IT House
Watch out, TweetDeck users—Elon Musk is about to ruin your Twitter experience
It might be impossible now to recover data from VMware ransomware attacks
When it comes to connecting to a computer remotely, the first app most users turn to is TeamViewer, one of the pioneers in offering this functionality. However, as the years have passed, the number of alternatives has been growing, most with the same features as the original. However, we can also use RustDesk, an application that allows you to connect remotely to other computers.
RustDesk is an application that offers us practically the same functionalities that we can also find in TeamViewer, AnyDesk or Windows Remote Desktop, but with the main attraction of being an open source and completely free application.
What is RustDesk?
RustDesk is presented as one of the best alternatives available for Windows and Linux to the well-known TeamViewer. It is an open source application with a large community of users available via Reddit, Discord, and GitHub that encrypts connections end-to-end.
Allows users create your own server to make connections or use one of the public servers that the application makes available to us. If we want to create our own server, in case we don't trust the security offered by Rust Desk, we must download an additional application.
In addition to being available for Windows and Linux, it also works on macOS and iOS/iPadOS and Android mobile devices.
What features does it offer?
RustDesk is an interesting alternative to TeamViewer since it offers us practically the same functions that the veteran remote access application makes available to us.
Remotely access a desktop
With RustDesk we can access remotely to the user interface as if we were physically in front of it, but bearing in mind that, depending on the connection speed, the actions may take more or less time to be reflected on our screen, but not on the remote computer.
While TeamViewer only offers one type of access, at least in the free version, with RustDesk we can create different types of users, each of them with different types of access to the equipment they connect to. In this way, the interaction of the most inexperienced users or those with limited access is limited.
Sharing files between two teams is one of the functions that the RustDesk application also makes available to us. This feature, which is also available in TeamViewer, allows us to transfer files large without resorting to platforms like WeTransfer and the like, storage platforms, FTP servers
Multi platform
One of the most interesting points of this application, not to mention the interesting functions it offers us, is found in its multiplatform support. RustDesk is available for Windows in 32 and 64 bit versions, for Linux, macOS, iOS/iPadOS and Android.
In addition, a portable version is also available, a version that is only compatible with Windows on computers with 64-bit versions.
Like any messaging platform that encrypts messages end-to-end, RustDesk also encrypt connections between computers that establish the connection. In this way, all the data that circulates between both computers cannot be deciphered by the friends of the alien.
For an open source application to succeed, the community needs to support it. In the case of RustDesk, we can find a very large community of users, a community that we can find through Discord, Reedit and GitHub.
Due to the limitations of Windows on some computers through User Account Control (UAC), the Portable version invites us to install the application for Windows instead of using this version. Unless you experience performance issues, we can use this version without any problems.
The installation process has no mystery. We just have to specify the path in which we want to install the application, check the corresponding boxes if we want to create a direct access and an access to the application from the desktop and click on the button Accept and Install.
One has finished the application, it will open automatically and show us an interface divided into three sections:
Your Desktop
Identified from our computer through RustDesk's public servers, along with its corresponding password, a password that we can automatically change to a new one or establish the one we want to use by clicking on the pencil icon.
Remote Control Desktop
Connect to a computer remotely. This section is located on the right side of the application window. To connect to a computer remotely using RustDesk's public servers, we must enter the ID of the destination computer and click on Connect. Next, the application will request the access password of the computer to which we are going to connect.
if we want transfer files instead of using the remote connection to the desktop of another computer, instead of clicking on the Connect button, we click on the Transfer File button. Next, it will ask us for the password of the computer with which we want to transfer files and it will open a panel similar to that of FTP applications from where we can transfer files between the two computers.
log console
Through this section, we can access all the connections we have established with other computers. In addition, it also allows us to create an address book of other computers and establish a series of favorite connections. If the number of equipment that we store is very high, we can use the search box by ID.
Download it for free
The use and download of both the RustDesk client in its client version to use a public server, and the version that allows us to create our own server is completely free. From the RuskDesk website, you can download the client application to:
Windows 10 and Windows 11 in 64-bit version
Windows 7,8.X and Windows 10 in 32-bit version
Portable version for Windows
iOS/iPad OS
At this GitHub link, you can find the latest available versions of RustDesk for all operating systems on which it is available.
At the time of publishing this article, the application to create your own RustDesk servers for Windows and Linux is currently only available in 64-bit versions, versions that you can download at this link.
Windows remote desktop is the ideal solution for users who want to connect only to Windows-managed computers, as long as the remote computer is running the Pro version of Windows.
teamviewerthe most veteran cross-platform remote connection application in the computer world and which is available free of charge on its website for non-commercial use.
AnyDesk is another of the interesting alternatives available to RustDesk, which, like TeamViewer, offers us a free version for non-commercial use from its website.
Tired of the typical wallpapers? Use a different one every day
Ubuntu has a new version: 4 reasons to install this Linux


Dr. Pittman believes a physician's role is to help facilitate the natural healing process of the patient. Everyone has the innate capacity for healing, and Dr. Pittman aims to elucidate the core causes of a condition in order to educate the patient and develop treatments that align with the patient's values. She finds naturopathic medicine an exciting branch of medicine because of the many available healing modalities it encompasses. She enjoys creating personalized treatments with her patients that include botanical medicine, nutrition, pharmaceuticals, physical medicine, and counseling.


OpenText™ "WFO Video Series: Driving Contact Center Awareness" - Open Text Web Solutions Usergroup e.V.
OpenText™ "WFO Video Series: Driving Contact Center Awareness"
In much the same way, I often see the normal cast of characters: CEO, CFO, CMO, COO, CIO, CTO…involved in strategy, but painfully unaware of the role that their contact center plays in driving corporate customer experience goals. So to help you drive contact center awareness, OpenText WFO Software is launching a new video series with your journey in mind.


Food fantastic and great value once you apply the 20% discount.
Food was quite bland and some of the dishes did not resemble traditional curries. All dishes were lukewarm. Air-conditioning was full blast and it was extremely cold.
Founded in 2011, Rasoi Indian restaurant is a popular spot among the Lenzie community. The attractive booth seating facing the bar gives way to a light, spacious dining room which enjoys leafy views from the floor to ceiling windows. The chilled background music reflects the sophisticated and stylish interior at Rasoi. It is not hard to see why the restaurant is a local favourite for family celebrations, meals with friends and quiet dinners for two.
The Rasoi chefs offer a clever mix of well-loved Glasgow curries alongside authentic regional specialities. Diners are welcome to choose a familiar chicken bhoona or experiment with staff favourites like the lamb Rajasthani and the murgh lababdar. What unites all the dishes is the enthusiastic use of locally sourced, fresh ingredients cooked with Indian spices and herbs.
An interesting feature of the menus is the selection of Western Asian dishes. These include chicken tikka fajitas, West coast mussels in a light curry sauce and a neat take on chicken Balmoral: roasted, spiced chicken on a bed of Bombay potatoes served with haggis bon bons and a light creamy mushroom masala. Platters of Indian street foods and evenings dedicated to tandoori and tapas dishes cement Rasoi's considerable appeal.
Rasoi Indian restaurant is at Millersneuk Shopping Centre, a two minute walk from Lenzie train station. There is ample car parking by the restaurant. The M80 offers rapid access to and from Glasgow plus other locations in the Central Belt.
Choose from Chicken Breast, Chicken Tikka, Mixed Vegetables or Paneer.
An original classic which speak for itself, the basic Indian curry with fresh ginger, tomato and onions.
A thick tomato based sauce with tomato, garlic & coriander. Garnished with fried onions .
A sweet & sour creation – both in equal measure.
The word translated into the meaning "double onion" which refers to the boiled and fried onions used at different times of the cooking process.
A thick sauce cooked with lentils, garlic, ginger & fresh coriander.
A traditional Eastern Indian dish with spinach, mustard seed & fresh greens. Finished with fresh cream.
A mild yellow coloured curry with almonds and cream.
Yellow to orange coloured creamy sauce, lightly spiced and contains crushed tomatoes, ground cashew nuts & fresh peppers.
This delicious extra special dish is lightly spiced and contains fresh garlic, ginger, tomatoes & a blend of Delhi spices.
A smooth creamy, sweet & sour dish which gives a pleasant bite.
A base of Bhuna tarka with fresh ground tomatoes, onions, ginger and garlic.
The key to this dish is the use of whole spices giving the appearance of pickle. The entire dish is lightly fried in mustard oil.
The word Balti comes from the dish in which this curry is traditionally cooked. Flavours of ginger, onions, garlic & capsicums.
Fried mushrooms, capsicums & white onions, ground Delhi masala is added at the end to produce a bright and vibrant flavour.
Thick bhuna sauce with added fresh green chillies produce quite an intense heat!
Spicy tomato base and touch of garam masala then finished with lashings of fresh coriander.
Tangy medium to hot spiced sauce. Contains green peppers, tomatoes and onions.


text:
Probabilistic precipitation anomalies associated with ENSO
Mason, S. J.; Goddard, L.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
sea-surface temperature; north-american precipitation; la-nina events; time climate variability; snow-depth anomalies; 1997-98 el-nino; southern-oscillation; tropical pacific; seasonal rainfall; interannual variability;
Extreme phases of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon have been blamed for precipitation anomalies in many areas of the world. In some areas the probability of above-normal precipitation may be increased during warm or cold events. while in others below-normal precipitation may be more likely. The percentages of times that seasonal precipitation over land areas was above, near, and below normal during the eight strongest El Nino and La Nina episodes are tabulated, and the significance levels of the posterior probabilities are calculated using the hypergeometric distribution. These frequencies may provide a useful starting point for probabilistic climate forecasts during strong ENSO events. Areas with significantly high or low frequencies or above- or below-normal precipitation are highlighted, and attempts are made to estimate the proportion of land areas with significant ENSO-related precipitation signals.
419KFTimes Cited:50Cited References Count:115


text:
Wargame: European Escalation
Act of Aggression Reboot Edition
Act of War: High Treason
Act of War: Direct Action
Steel Division 2 - Game Manual
Steel Division 2 – Beta Manual
Welcome to the Steel Division 2 Beta Manual! Here you will find the basics to start to play and enjoy the Beta. Secure your access to the beta now by pre-ordering the game:
Commander, welcome to the Steel Division 2 closed beta. We have been expecting you!
Steel Division 2 is the widely anticipated follow-up to the popular tactical RTS Steel Division: Normandy 44. Like the previous installment in the series, Steel Division 2 is not only being developed but also self-published by the French independent studio Eugen Systems (R.U.S.E, Wargame series).
Set during the Operation Bagration, the massive Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1944, Steel Division 2 sees the introduction of a host of new content and features, including the brand-new dynamic campaign mode, Army General, six Historical Missions, new game modes and mechanics, over 600 new units, and much more.
The beta for Steel Division 2 is divided into five distinct Beta Phases, each phase lasting 48 hours. You will have access to all the Beta Phases, with each one bringing you exciting new content.
You will be given a feedback form for you to fill out at the end of each Beta Phase. Your opinion matters to us. Together we will be able to build a better Steel Division 2.
In the beta, you are given the opportunity to command either the Red Army's mighty 2nd Tank Guards Corps or the Wehrmacht's battle-hardened 5. Panzerdivision, as they fight it out across two distinct maps: Orsha North and Vitebsk East. You can do battle in multiplayer, or play against the AI in Skirmish, either in Conquest mode (Eastern Front and Closer Combat variants) or in the updated Breakthrough mode featuring the new defensive structures.
Steel Division 2 is still in beta. The game content is under development with the balance, unit disposition, graphics, sound, unit statistics, being tweaked by the dedicated Eugen team.
Commander, study this manual carefully and surely you will be victorious on the battlefield. Get ready to fight!
Lead Historic Divisions
Steel Division 2 will ship with 18 divisions. In the beta, two iconic divisions will be at your disposal.
2nd Tank Guards Corps
The paragon of the Soviet armed forces, the 2-y Gvardeyskiy Tankovy Korpus (2nd Tank Guards Corps) was at the forefront during Operation Bagration, breaking through at Orsha with the 11th Guards Army. Forged by the brutal engagements of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk, the 2nd Tank Guards Corps was considered to be one of the premier Soviet fighting units on the Eastern Front.
Having been re-equipped with brand-new T-34/85's at the start of the offensive, a handful of older tank model such as the T-34/76 or T70 still fill its ranks, relegated to recon or command roles. The 2nd Tank Guards Corps brings powerful tank and anti-tank forces, including the mighty ISU-152. However, this division lacks well-established anti-air defenses, with commanders having to rely on lend-lease American AA half-tracks or the Free French Normandie squadron to guard the skies overhead.
5. Panzerdivision
The battle-hardened 5. Panzerdivision (German 5th Armored Division) was one of the strongest Wehrmacht formations on the line at the start of Operation Bagration and quickly called in as much-needed reinforcements to stem the Red Army's onslaught. Bringing years of combat experience, this elite division managed to advance the closest on Moscow during the winter offensive of 1941 before being turned back by the Soviet counter-offensive.
Packing a heavy punch with its numerous Panthers, the 5. Panzerdivision is also reinforced with a small number of fearsome Tiger E's. However, it is missing a crucial component in its powerful order of battle: its heavy recon battalion, left in Germany for training. This leaves only infantry scouts to perform the vital reconnaissance duties.
Fight on Memorable Battlegrounds
Steel Division 2 features 25 tactical maps set on the Eastern Front, all painstakingly researched and recreated from real-life aerial photography and authentic World War 2 ordnance maps. These locations saw some of the fiercest and most important battles of Operation Bagration.
Lake Naratch, one of the maps available in the full game
In the first phase of the beta, you will be able to fight on two maps: Orsha North and Vitebsk East. These small maps can be played from 1v1 up to 4v4 players.
Observe the terrain, Commander, and play it smart. There are many roads that lead to victory.
Orsha North
The town of Orsha was a crucial transportation hub for the Germans, situated close to the frontline, and one of the main objectives for the Soviet offensive. A strategically important location, the Wehrmacht and Red Army will engage each other in the countryside to the north of Orsha proper, and fight it out across terrain replete with dense forests and prominent hilltops and plateaus.
Game tips: A highway snakes through the center of the map, with two small villages situated along it. These serve as natural choke points if defended by well-entrenched infantry. Four large plateaus, wooded to a degree, command the surrounding countryside, offering excellent lines of sight for tanks, artillery or anti-tank guns.
Vitebsk East
This location was the Red Army's first objective in the initial stages of Operation Bagration. Located in northeastern Belarus, Vitebsk East is lake region situated on the banks of the Daugava river, which formed a natural defensive line for the German 3rd Panzer Army to hold. The map features lakes, a highway, and one prominent central plateau with dense forests, while smaller hills are located on the edges of the battlefield.
Game tips: Who controls the hill, controls the map on Vitbesk East. A highway runs through the middle, like Orsha, but most of the fighting will take place on this central plateau. Lakes, forests and smaller hills on the flanks can either be considered natural obstacles, or great ambush points.
Tactical combat
The real-time tactical battles of Steel Division 2 should be familiar to fans of Steel Division: Normandy 44. We have updated or changed many of the underlying game mechanics and features, including the introduction of new units, so be sure to read the following carefully.
The 4-phase tactical combat
Tactical battles in Steel Division 2 are divided into 4 distinct phases.
In Phase 0, the deployment phase, players need to place their units in the dedicated areas.
In Phase A to C, real-time combat begins, with each new phase allowing for additional units to be placed. Each phase also nets you a certain amount of points, depending on your Battlegroup's income. While the first phases might see the deployment of lighter units, later phases will see the full gamut of combined forces come into play: the heaviest of tanks, the most advanced airplanes, the most destructive artillery.
Phase 0 – Deployment
Placing units in the dedicated areas
Roads are faster
Giving the first orders that will be executed when the battle starts
Deployment points
Phase A, B & C – Combat
Phase & ecomony
Requisition points
Active pausing in solo
The Dynamic Frontline and Capture Points
The Dynamic Frontline is one of the most powerful visual tools in Steel Division 2. This line shows the ratio of power and level of influence a player has during a battle and will change according to the unit's actions in the field. Every time a unit pushes forward, the line moves accordingly; if a unit routs or gets destroyed, the line drops back. The Dynamic Frontline serves as an objective indicator of how much influence a player has, and is tied directly to winning a match.
Capture Points are new in Steel Division 2. These strategic objectives are spread out across the map in crucial locations, such as a bridge or a particularly important hill. If the player, with their units, advances the frontline to cover one of these Capture Points, they will be considered in their possession.
Suppression and Surrender
Every unit in Steel Division 2 has a suppression meter, appearing above the unit's label when under attack. Different things happen when a unit starts to become suppressed.
The more stressed a unit is, the less efficient they become on the battlefield.
When the suppression meter is full, the crew of a motorized unit will bail out, while an air unit will automatically leave the area.
If an infantry unit gets fully suppressed, they will be unable to move, unless the player tells it to retreat by pressing the "R" key.
If a fully suppressed unit finds itself behind enemy lines, in the opponent's influence zone, and with an enemy unit nearby, it will surrender and as a result removed from play.
The Steel Division 2 beta features three distinct game modes: Conquest (Eastern Front), Conquest (Closer Combat), and Breakthrough.
Conquest (Eastern Front)
In Conquest mode, Eastern Front variant, players will start on opposing sides of the map, their respective deployment areas close to the border. Transport vehicles will be vital to quickly move troops and take control of the Capture Points scattered across the map.
Conquest (Closer Combat)
Similar to Eastern Front, the Closer Combat variant of Conquest mode sees players deploy much closer to each other. With both sides already controlling one-third of the map, the battlefield between the two deployment areas will only be 2000 meters wide.
Updated from the previous game, Breakthrough mode sees an attacking and defending side. Players who are on the attack will start on one edge of the map, controlling none of the objectives. Defending players control all of the objectives, and can deploy fixed defensive structures such as bunkers and barbed wire. The game's economy is adjusted with attacking players having access to more resources.
Returning fans of Steel Division: Normandy 44 will recognize the inclusion of two new orders to the commander's tactical toolbox.
Efficient Shot
This powerful new order ("X" key + left click at position) that tells the unit to hold fire until it has a penetration chance of 40% AND a hit chance of 40% on target. Only if these variables are met or exceeded will the ordered unit fire at an opponent. An excellent order for ambushes.
Quick Hunt
This new order ("X" key + left click at position) works as a fusion between the 'Move fast' order and the 'Attack' order. Giving the 'Quick Hunt' order to a unit will make it fast travel using the road network but stop and attack any enemy troops if they are spotted along the way. An aggressive, search and destroy move.
An important new unit can be found in Steel Division 2: the Commander. These valuable units provide a powerful boost to close-by troops. You can only bring one Commander unit per phase.
Like the subordinate Leader unit familiar to fans of the previous game, the Commander works with a 'leader aura' of 240 meters. Within this white-dotted circular area of effect, each unit will receive +2 XP to their experience level, and can't be forced to surrender.
Not only that, the new Chain of Command mechanic allows your Commander units to link with Leader units if they are within range (1500 meters). If this connection is established, each linked Leader unit will provide an additional +1 XP. Each linked Leader in turn projects it's own connection for another 1000 meters, allowing Leaders even further afield to give the same benefit to troops close at hand.
Another new unit bringing its own unique mechanic is the radio-equipped Artillerist unit. These special troops will be able to help your artillery pieces to rain more accurate fire on the enemy with the Corrected Shot mechanic.
An Artillerist will have a circular area of effect centered on the unit. Thanks to the radio, any indirect fire artillery piece will shoot with greater accuracy into the Artillerist influence zone. When using Corrected Shot, firing shells into the area will reduce the aiming time, which increases the rate of fire of your artillery piece. If you want to fire a normal, uncorrected, shot, you press "Ctrl" key while aiming.
Defensive Structures in Breakthrough Mode
An exciting new feature in Steel Division 2 is the introduction of buildable defensive structures in Breakthrough mode. If you are the defending player in a Breakthrough match, you are now able to place your defensive structures in the deployment phase.
There are several types of defenses you can place:
Barbed wire: A stretch of barbed wire will slow down any enemy troops – tanks and vehicles included. Barbed wire is "painted" on the map and measured in meters.
Trenches: Deployed in the same manner as barbed wire, trenches will shelter infantry, offering the same amount of cover as being garrisoned in a house.
Gun pits: These open-topped structures will protect a single piece of large equipment, such as anti-tank guns, AA guns or artillery. They are placed empty, and the player will have to define the field of fire.
Bunkers: These hardened structures are essentially stationary weapons (machine guns, anti-tank rifles or guns) with armor. They are fixed positions, very well-protected, but with only a limited field of fire.
Players can paint on the map to draw where they want the barbed wire or trenches to go. The game will show you if there are any obstacles, such as rivers, hills or forests. The other structures are placed one at a time. The player can also rotate the defensive structures.
Defensive structures are like any other unit in your deck: they have their own category, and each unit card brings a certain number of individual structures or deployable length (in meters). Each division will have access to the same structure, but they can only be used in Breakthrough mode by a defending player.
Victory conditions
New in Steel Division 2 are the objective-based Capture Points. Each map in the closed beta holds 24 of these points. They can be found in all three of the modes.
Advancing the frontline to cover one of the Capture Points will bring them into the possession of the player. The more of these points one side controls, the more it will drain Conquest Points of their opponent.
The game ends when one side reaches zero Conquest Points.
There are a couple of possible outcomes:
Draw: If the team possesses the same number of objectives.
Minor Victory: If one team possesses +50% of the objectives.
Major Victory: If one team possesses +75% of the objectives.
Total Victory: If one team possesses +85% of the objectives.
General tips for beginners
Our games are demanding and can be intimidating the first time you play. By taking the time to learn the basic mechanics, you are making your first steps on the road to Steel Division 2 mastery. It might take some practice, but becoming the ultimate commander will be extremely rewarding!
Here are some tips for beginners:
Begin by playing a Skirmish match versus a Very Easy AI on a small map (Orsha North).
Use the Active Pause ("P" key by default) as much as you can: will allow you to pause the game while still giving orders.
Use the "Autofill" function when building your first Battlegroup.
Building your first Battlegroup
The Battlegroup is the selection of units you will deploy during the game. Each Battlegroup is created using our new Deck Builder. You first select a parent Division which will define the unit cards at your disposal, as well as the number of slots in each category. When building your Battlegroup, you need to think about how you want to deploy your units in each phase.
To build your battlegroup, click on the "Create Battlegroup" in the main menu and select a Division.
By clicking on "Auto-fill", the battlegroup will be filled with units selected by the development team. You can customize this Battlegroup or start editing your own by clicking the "Edit" button.
In Steel Division 2 units are divided into different categories. These are:
Anti-Tank
Defense (only in Breakthrough mode)
Each category has a number of open slots, which cost Activation Points to use. Each Battlegroup has a total amount of Activation Points, indicated on the top-right of the Deck Builder screen. You can see that the cost rises with each additional unit card.
A new feature in Steel Division 2 is the Deployment Type option in the Deck Builder. This determines the amount of Requisition Points players will receive per phase. Now you can select how many points you want to have available for each phase, with four templates to choose from. Each template focuses on a different phase.
The deployment types are:
Balanced (100/140/170)
Juggernaut (90/120/230)
Vanguard (130/120/110)
Maverick (120/160/80)
When you click on a category, the available units appear on the left of the screen. The unit card packs are made like this:
When you select a unit card, two information panels will be shown on the right of the screen. On top, the Unit Configuration screen. On the bottom, detailed unit and weapon statistics.
Another new mechanic in Steel Division 2 is that unit cards are no longer bound to a phase. The Unit Configuration panel allows you to customize your unit, including which phase they will deploy. You can also determine their experience level. Both options will affect the available units per card. For recon and infantry, you can also select the transport vehicle.
To add a unit pack to your Battlegroup, click on the "Add Battlegroup" button in the Unit Configuration panel.
Deploying Units
At the start of a battle, in Phase 1, you can only deploy the units from your Battlegroup in the deployment area. This is a limited section of the map, shown as a colored rectangle on the battlefield. To deploy a unit, click on the deployment menu in the top left corner and chose a unit's category. Click on a unit card and finally place it by clicking left on the map. You can remove a unit right-clicking on it on the battlefield, it will be put back in the deployment menu.
Once your units are placed, you can give them orders that will be executed when the battle properly begins with the start of Phase A. To give an order, left-click on the unit on the battlefield, then select an order and click on the place you want that order to be executed.
Each unit costs Requisition Points to be deployed. During a battle, you will gain a certain amount of income per phase (A, B, C) that depends on the Deployment Type you selected for your Battlegroup.
When you zoom out, you can see the way new units will enter the map once a battle is underway. Large arrows for Land and Air routes are displayed on the border of the battlefield. If the enemy controls one of these entry points, you cannot deploy units anymore.
Moving a Unit
There are several ways to move a unit, depending on its category.
Infantry, foot units:
Hunt ("Q" key or "A" key for AZERTY + left click at position): The unit will move to the position, using as much cover as possible and will automatically engage a spotted enemy.
Move (Right click at position): The unit will move straight to the position.
Move Fast ("F" key + left click at position): The unit will move to the position as fast as possible, using roads.
Unload a transport
Most of the infantry units, as well as some anti-tank and artillery, come with a transport vehicle. When you deploy the unit, you deploy its transport, and the unit needs to be unloaded on the battlefield. This kind of units can be spotted thanks to its label.
There are two ways of unloading a unit:
Unload ("U" key): The transport will unload the unit immediately.
Unload at Position ("Y" key + left click at the desired position): The transport will take the fastest way to the position and unload a unit. If the unit is unloaded near a cover (a building, a hedgerow…), it will automatically move to cover.
Notes: Roads are the fastest way to travel across the battlefield. Vehicles and soldiers are slower in a forest or on a field, but it may be a better cover. Choose your path wisely. Deploy your men in safety or else they may be ambushed by the enemy out in the open.
Engaging a Unit
Normal Attack (Right click on the enemy): The unit will attack the designated enemy.
Attack position ("T" key + left click at position): The unit will attack the designated position, whether there is a spotted enemy there or not.
Artillery only: Smoke position ("B" key + left click at position): The unit will smoke the position, blinding the enemy.
Riposte ("Z" key or "W" key with AZERTY): The unit will only shoot if it is targeted by the enemy.
Quick Hunt ("X" key + left click at position): A unit following this new order will move fast using roads, but stop and attack if it spots an enemy.
When a unit fires, it needs time to reload or adjust its aim. This is displayed as a timer above the unit label. When the chrono is full, the unit is able to fire.
Protecting and Hiding
Units can be protected and even hidden on the battlefield. It's particularly useful if you want to ambush your foe or do some recon work. The new defensive structures in Steel Division 2 (trenches, gun pits, bunkers) also provide protection. When a unit is selected, and when you move your cursor on the map, it will display the level of cover.
For example, if you want to hide an infantry unit in the forest, click on your unit, then hover over the woods with your mouse and when the cursor turns green, click on it. When the unit is hidden, its label flickers. Units can also take cover in buildings. When your squad is inside, the building will appear in your units' color.
Supplying a Unit
When a unit is out of ammo, an ammo icon flickers near its label. To resupply a unit with ammo, you need to bring a supply unit next to it. A blue icon flashes during the supply process.
Orders and Line of Sight
You should consider two things when you want to establish if you can move or fight:
The range of the selected weapon
The line of sight of the unit
Steel Division 2 offers you different tools to estimate if your action is worth it:
"Shift" key: Displays every order you gave, like how far a unit is to its destination, but also targets and other information.
Different colors mean different actions
Azure / Sky blue: Normal Move
Blue: Move fast
Red: Attack mode
Line of Sight tool ("C" key): This is an incredibly powerful tool that shows the possible line of sight from a particular place or unit at any moment.
Check your surroundings: One circle in the Line of Sight tool equals 250 meters. The white area is what the unit can't clearly see. In Steel Division 2, elevation is also taken into account. Use this to plan your unit's actions carefully.
Reconnaissance units are the ears and eyes of your Battlegroup and are indispensable in scouting the battlefield and locating the enemy. As they don't move the Dynamic Frontline in Steel Division 2, they are more discreet. As such, they can explore enemy territory more easily. Nevertheless, recon units are relatively weak and must be used carefully. They are not invisible and that they can be detected even while hidden. Try to position your reconnaissance units in elevated positions like hills and towers. Sometimes, you can disable the weapons of your reconnaissance units to keep them concealed.
This interface allows you to activate or deactivate the unit's weapons. Click on a weapon in the menu to do so.
Aircraft and Off-Map Artillery
When you deploy an aircraft or an off-map artillery unit, it appears on the bottom left
of the screen in the off-map unit panel. To deploy an off-map unit, click on its name in this interface and right-click where you want it to go. The off-map units panel lists all of your off- map units and indicates their status. The gauge slowly decreasing represents the fuel limitations. Once it's empty, the plane evacuates for a certain time to refuel and rearm, before being ready to be deployed again.
Air units have various functions depending on their load-out. They can be used to scout and unveil enemy positions, to intercept and engage other aircraft, or to attack ground units. Anti-Air units serve to protect your main units on the battlefield, they can suppress aircraft in their range.
Tanks and Anti-Tank
Tanks are powerful units able to fight against all ground units. They have weaknesses, including a narrow field-of-view. You need to use your recon units to unveil enemy troops, allowing your tanks to attack them before they have the time to react. Don't rush the enemy with your tanks without scouting ahead!
You can use the "C" key to check your unit's line of sight. Hitting the "J" key will reverse your tank, allowing it to turn its more armored front to the enemy. Anti-tank units are perfect for protecting your flanks and for ambushing any tank reckless enough to move too fast, too far.
Game interface
In the top left corner of your screen, the deployment menu allows you to deploy your units. Pick a unit's category and then a Unit Card to place a unit on the map. It will also show you your Requisition Points and your current income.
In the bottom left corner, the off-map interface allows you to deploy aircraft and manage off-map artillery strikes.
In the top right corner, you can see the influence area on the map and the domination gauge. You also can keep an eye on the unit counters. On the top, you can see the time remaining, not only until the end of the match but also until the end of the phase. Finally, this interface allows you to change the game speed, from bullet time to very fast.
In the bottom right corner, you can find the interface for unit controls. It allows you to give orders to your troops, as well as deactivating their weapons. It also delivers information concerning your remaining ammo and your unit's stress level.
Keyboard controls – Qwerty
W – Up
S – Down
A – Left
D – Right
Keyboard controls – Azerty
Z – Up
Q – Left
Middle button + mouse movement – Rotate
Scroll wheel – Zoom in / Zoom out
Controlling a Unit
Left-click – Select a unit (holding the button will allow you to select several units at the same time)
Double left-click – Select the same kind of units in the area
Right-click – Move a unit to the destination
Q or A + left-click – Hunt
X or X + X – Quick Hunt
F + left-click – Move Fast (for land vehicles)
U – Unload (for transport vehicles)
Y + left click – Unload at position
T – Fire at position
X or X + X – Efficient Shot
B + left click – Smoke position (for artillery)
E – Stop moving and firing
W or Z – Trigger the Riposte stance
R – Retreat a panicked unit
J – Reverse your tank
C – Line of sight
N – Activate or deactivate the auto cover
Get some help!
If you're still stuck, don't hesitate to contact our support team or ask your question to the community
Report a bug on the Beta
Beta Forums
Beta FAQ
Looking for something specific? Just type the words!
Meet the Community Casters and Aces
Meet the Community Creators
JUST TWITTED
Much requested by you, the community, we will be releasing a full set of modding tools for Steel Division 2 today!… https://t.co/kjXmEherWB
Steel Division 2 is now available on GoG! https://t.co/X5UCLCNYIz
Copyright Eugen Systems 2018


KAFE KNESSET -- DRIVING THE WEEK -- by Amir Tibon & Tal Shalev: Most top headlines in Israel this week referenced events in Cleveland and Philadelphia leading up to U.S. elections. But a report published yesterday in Al Quds, a leading Palestinian newspaper, managed to create some chatter. According to the paper, Israel has agreed to allow Qatar to send $30 million into Gaza to pay the salaries of Hamas' public sector employees. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who came into office promising to kill Hamas' leadership and take down the Islamist organization's government in Gaza, refused to comment on the report, which seems to suggest that despite his tough talk regarding Hamas, Lieberman prefers quiet at the southern border for now.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, meanwhile, raised some eyebrows today by declaring that he plans to free himself of some of the ministerial portfolios he has retained in the year and a half since founding his coalition, and that this will happen "soon." Netanyahu is currently the Foreign Minister, Minister of Communications, Minister of Economics and Minister of Regional Cooperation. Netanyahu didn't say which of these portfolios would soon be on the market, but it's almost certain that he will keep the Communications Ministry to himself. Netanyahu seems likely to keep pushing what he calls "a move to open up the Israeli media to more competition," and his political rivals see as an attempt to weaken the press and create a more supportive media environment for the Prime Minister.
"As Democrats Gather, a Russian Subplot Raises Intrigue" by David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth: "Until Friday, that charge, with its eerie suggestion of a Kremlin conspiracy to aid Donald J. Trump, has been only whispered. But the release on Friday of some 20,000 stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee's computer servers, many of them embarrassing to Democratic leaders, has intensified discussion of the role of Russian intelligence agencies in disrupting the 2016 campaign."
JCRC of Greater Washington's Executive Director Ron Halber on the Kaine pick: "We have always had a very, very approachable relationship with Kaine. He has been to Israel many times and he is well versed in the security challenges Israel is facing. There are people who are pointing to his vote on the Iran deal and the fact that he didn't show up for Bibi's speech as meaning that he is not pro-Israel. Well, if you go by that standard, you might as well disqualify half of the Congress as unsympathetic to Israel. That's a barometer that is simply not fair, and, frankly, it's wrong."


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text:
No longer crazy, just wildly talented, it's Steve Martin
by Roger Ebert
In a review published in 1984, I wrote that Steve Martin was "an actor who inspires in me the same feelings that fingernails on blackboards inspire in other people." This judgment, sincerely made at the time, was just a tad premature. In a review published later that same year, I was astonished to find that I genuinely admired his work in "All of Me." And in the years since then I have also appreciated his work in such movies as "Roxanne," "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Parenthood" - not to mention two films that hardly any critics liked, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "My Blue Heaven."
I am not even sure, in fact, that Steve Martin himself much enjoyed "My Blue Heaven," but by then, the fingernails had long since stopped screeching for me. After his early films like "The Jerk," "Pennies from Heaven," "The Lonely Guy" and "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," I wrote about "his ability to make you cringe with his self-abasing smarminess." Recently I have been looking forward to his films with the kind of anticipation I reserve for something involving Woody Allen or Dustin Hoffman. And now here is his latest film, "L.A. Story," based on his own screenplay and suffused with a comic brilliance. All right, then - either I was wrong, or Martin is no longer self-abasingly smarmy.
Interviewing Steve Martin the other day, I didn't know quite how to introduce the phenomenon of my changing reactions ("Why do you think it is, Steve, that your performances no longer remind me of fingernails on blackboards?"). I did sort of gently nudge my way into the subject, casually noting that I "didn't like" much of his early work (no mention of fingernails) and that since "All of Me," I had liked his work more and more.
Martin resisted the masochistic tendency of many actors who agree - or claim to agree - with all negative assessments of their work. He didn't disclaim his pre-1984 film career, and, when pressed, even claimed he would like to play a character like the Jerk again - in an all-joke comedy like "The Naked Gun." But he did seem to think it was possible that his work had improved about the same time I began to admire it more.
"I think in those early films," he said, "I was still finding my way, still trying to figure out what kind of films to make, and I believed that the kind of films I should make, with the exception of `Pennies from Heaven,' should be extensions of what I was doing onstage. The same kind of character, more or less. And then, right around `All of Me,' I dropped that and saw that movies were very different from just doing some crazy jokes. I think in the early films, there are moments that are pretty funny, but the stories are always sort of weak. I wish they'd worked a little better. But I think there's something in each one of them that's a little daring. I really can't evaluate them that well, because it's me."
What's become obvious, I said, is that you've turn out to be quite a good actor. In a straight role like "Parenthood," for example.
"Well, I learned a lot when I did `Pennies from Heaven,' and I enjoy going underneath something. I enjoy getting serious. It's really the same intensity as comedy, only it's the underside of it. I feel better about my work now. I feel that I'm just waiting to do something, all I need is the right words."
When you're making a film, is there a moment when something clicks, and you think, this is really going to work?
"Yes. On every film. Of course, the moment is not always correct."
There is a certain inverted logic at work there, and Martin's wife, the actress Victoria Tennant, believes his humor begins with the fact that he studied philosophy in college. Martin himself thinks it may go back even further: "I remember being 12 years old, and my dream was going to work and wearing a suit." Martin was wearing a suit the other day, a perfectly cut deep blue suit with a white shirt and a tie that was cheerful but not impudent. And he had gone to work. He is on the road promoting "L.A. Story," which in two hours says more funny things about Los Angeles than most films say in a lifetime. (The film will open Friday in Chicago.)
"Another thing is that his humor is never cruel," Tennant said. "He's never mean or sarcastic. There's always a sweetness in his work." She is not only Martin's wife, but also his co-star in the movie, where she plays a British newspaper reporter who is assigned to do a story on Los Angeles lifestyles and falls in love with a wild and crazy TV weatherman, played by Martin.
She is quite correct about "L.A. Story," which is a delicate balancing act involving fantasy, slapstick, romance, satire, unbridled exaggeration and social commentary. It's amazing how the movie finds its way through such a wide variety of material while always maintaining a certain gentle tone. Martin, who took years to write the original screenplay, is like those screen comedians of the past - Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati come to mind - who did not depend on violence, embarrassment and the put-down for their laughs, and instead just simply put genuinely funny things on the screen.
Example of a funny thing: A Southern California pedestrian crossing sign that lights up and says, "UH, LIKE, DON'T WALK." Another example: Two polite lines waiting at an automated banking terminal, one of people withdrawing money, the other of holdup men.
A third: The Martin character telephones for a dinner reservation, and is submitted to a detailed background and credit check by the restaurant owner.
"Some of the things in the movie come from my own personal observations over the years," Martin said. "The freeway sign, certainly. They have these enormous computerized electric signs on the freeways in Los Angeles that theoretically tell you how the traffic is up ahead. Fine, except they're never turned on. I've only seen them on once in the last 15 years. In the movie, you have one that actually tells you what to do with your life."
The sign in the movie seems to have a personal relationship with the Martin character. It poses him riddles, gives him advice, and offers him predictions. The first time it starts sending messages to him, he looks around suspiciously: "I just know I'm being filmed right now," he mutters darkly. But he is not. The sign is somehow supernaturally inspired to encourage him to become a better person and fall in love with the right woman.
"The movie is like a Rorschach test for how you feel about L.A.," he said. "I think people who live in L.A. will see it as very friendly to L.A., and the people don't live in L.A., and want to think of L.A. as this disgusting place, might interpret it as that."
Martin himself seems to have an ambiguous relationship to the city. He has lived all of his life there and he loves it, but what he likes most about it is his own home:
"You know, L.A. is only where you live, because otherwise it's just a sprawling mass of everything, and I think if you live in L.A., you get a little network of places you go, and people you see, and when you leave town you do miss those places and your friends."
"L.A. Story" is a movie about a man who could almost be described in those words. Martin's weatherman has been dating the same woman (Marilu Henner) for such a long time that he has almost reached the point when he can predict when she will be finished dressing and ready to go to a party. He has had the same job at the same television station so long, he's a fixture, a weatherman for whom the weather is only an excuse for standup comedy.
And then everything changes when he discovers she's been having an affair, and that liberates him to move out - frees him to be ready for the advice of the roadside electric sign, which encourages him to go out on a date with SanDeE (Sarah Jessica Parker), a hippy dippy airhead he meets in a clothing store, and who, like many Los Angelenas, spells her name as if it were an eye chart. Later, when he is ready for a more meaningful affair, the sign steers him toward the Victoria Tennant character.
All of this is done with a charm impossible to describe, a certain whimsical, lighthearted, romantic goofiness that weaves a spell over the film. In one sense, Martin's screenplay is as insubstantial as a feather, but in another way, it is as well-constructed as any script in recent memory. Movies don't get to be this charming and fanciful by accident.
"I started writing it about seven years ago," Martin said, "before I even started writing `Roxanne,' and then I put it in a drawer, because it's the kind of thing that's very scary to think of ever being made into a movie. You're risking a lot. I'd think, no, I can't do this, then I'd get encouraged again, and I'd pick it up and do it."
Is it the sort of thing, I asked, that you can't just sit at the keyboard and be inspired to write - the kind of material that has to accumulate in its own time?
"Yes, I think so, because a lot of the ideas for the movie occurred to me in little bits. I'd make a note and put it away. In this movie, every scene has to have an angle because the story itself is a sort of regular love story. So there's always something going on behind the action. I always had to think of a place, or an idea, or an attitude, or something that lifts the scene up a little.
"Like, for example, the gravedigger scene with Rick Moranis, which has fun with `Hamlet.' All the scene really achieves, on the story level, is to make the man and the woman interested in each other. But having Rick as the gravedigger gets this other thing happening, too, at the same time, rather than just having the characters standing on the sidewalk. Or like the scene outside the automated teller machine. You're killing two birds with one stone. You're showing a little bit of the relationship between myself and the young girl, SanDeE , and yet you're also getting this gag going on at the same time."
Did you start right out with the notion of a communicating billboard? "No, that only came within the last year and a half or two." And yet that was really the organizing principal, wasn't it? "Yeah. It shows you how drastically things can change. The original draft had me leaving L.A. and ending up in Turkey, because I wanted something that was just the opposite of L.A. Turkey didn't make it into the final draft. I never got out of L.A."
"L.A. Story" is such an original and particular movie, I said, that it must have been almost impossible to pitch in a meeting with studio executives. Is this kind of project tough to sell, or to get financed? "A little tougher, yeah. I have a feeling a lot of studios wanted to make it, but they didn't want to pay for it. They wanted it to be very cheap. As it turns out, the movie was very cheap by today's standards, but it couldn't be that cheap, it needed some class to it. I think it's a risky film. At least, it was seen as risky when we were pitching it. I don't know if it seems so risky now, when you can see what we had in mind. It's like 'Roxanne' was a very risky film, at least in my head, before we started rolling, but then when it opened people said well, it's OK, I had a good time, I enjoyed it, it's OK to tell my friends to go."
It has seemed strange to me, I said, that the ideas that lead to the worst movies always seem to get financed the most quickly, and the ones that lead to the best movies always seem to have some kind of tangled web of production difficulties behind them. Martin grimaced. "I think the seemingly worst ideas I've ever had have been the best, and the ideas that I think are naturals just don't work. I don't know why. I guess you just don't put your heart and soul into it somehow."
Give me an example. "Well, 'Roxanne,' which was a very problematical idea - setting Cyrano in modern times - did $42 million, which was considered a hit for a very small movie like that, and `Three Amigos,' which was meant to be this sort of big blockbuster movie, maybe did $42 million, too, which was a disappointment."
Another unexpected thing about "L.A. Story" is that it wasn't directed by a proven Hollywood veteran, but by Mick Jackson, previously unknown in Los Angeles.
"Victoria found him," Martin said, "and showed me a tape of a mini-series he did in England called `A Very British Coup,' which was the best thing I ever saw. I mean, I just couldn't believe it! It was exactly the feel I was looking for, for the movie. I knew it couldn't just be three cameras, medium-shot, closeup type shot. There had to be some style, and he delivered it."
I liked the look of the movie. The translucent night sky, for example, which seems to sparkle with stars and the moon. "Yeah, and see, I never would have thought of that. That's what the director and the cinematographer do. They used time-lapse photography. I mean, here's a guy who's been making movies for 25 years, and no one had ever heard of him." One of the things I noticed, talking with Martin, was that although he makes his living as a comic actor, he didn't seem to say or do anything that was intended to be particularly funny. Many comedians are on all the time - are desperate for the instant feedback and reassurance of laughter. I wondered if Martin's reserved, laid-back conversational style was a reaction to his early image as a wild and crazy guy.
"Maybe, and it may be why I don't go out so much. Sometimes you see people laughing at something you said that maybe isn't that funny, and you realize, this is not an honest relationship here. It may make you tend to stick with your friends, because you do want to be relaxed. I don't do my act in private. I used to do it onstage, and that's when I did it. Of course that all originated from my real life, so what I was now, or then, I just don't know. . . ."
What's interesting though, is when people have great success at a very early age, they often turn into great bores who repeat their shticks for the rest of their lives, who in every single social encounter are still doing something that worked for them for about six months in the '50s. How do you cut loose from that?
"I just have a different mind-set than that," he said. "I don't like to look back, and I'm always worried about the next thing rather than resting on the laurels or the degradations of the last thing. I've also know about that type that you described, and I want to be cautious with it. I don't want to end up like that. Like when I finally retire, I just want to go away so no one has to listen to me."
He thought for a moment. "I never thought much about success early on," he said. "I only thought about being a comedian - or just being in show business, is really more accurate. I developed my act, and only in my late 20s, when I'd really done it a long time, and had gotten better at it, and had an act, did I think - `Gee, the future looks really bleak! If something doesn't happen, I'll be doing this in nightclubs for the rest of my life.' And just about that time, my movie career started to happen. Then I worried about being a flash-in-the-pan, because the star ascended very quickly. So that was my next worry, and now that I don't have to worry about being a flash-in-the-pan, I have to worry about being an old bore."
You don't have any need to be reinforced every 10 seconds with approval? "About once a year is good."
Next Article: Director recalls blacklist in `Guilty by Suspicion' Previous Article: John Cusack Interview for 'The Grifters'
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The following FAQ are archived from an older version of this site. Feel free to use CONTACT (left menu) if you have a question about writing or about Kathy Page's books.
Q. Is Simon Austen based on a real person?
I have met several people who were in some ways like him. But, like most fictional characters, he is an amalgam of different parts of many people I have observed, large doses of imagination, and my own conscious and unconscious projections. Perhaps all this could be analysed to show exactly what went into the making of him, but I'm not interested to do it! The experience with Simon was very much of him arriving whole, and seeming to me, as I wrote, to be 'real'.
Q. Why do you end Alphabet where you do? I wanted to know what happened next!
Some people love the ending and others are frustrated by it. I picked that moment because it is a decisive one. You can see Simon has moved on, but also that there is plenty of potential for trouble ahead of him and the outcome isn't clear. That blend of hope and difficulty – a sense of his continuing struggle – was what I wanted to leave the reader with. I have to admit as well that writing with very limited settings is hard. I don't think I could have borne to stay in prison much longer, but he has to. If I were to continue his story, some of which I do have in my mind, I think I would take it up many years later, after his release, and fill the intervening years in from that vantage point.
Q: When you begin a novel, do you know how it will turn out? Do you have a detailed plan?A: Often, I begin with one or more of the main characters and their situation, which always contains some element of instability, something that will propel him or her forwards. I think I know how it will turn out and I certainly do write outlines, and plan the structure of the book. Outlines are comforting to have, but must not be taken too seriously. When I get down to it the actual book it always at some point differs substantially from the so-called plan.
I remember being asked to write something called a 'birth plan' when I was having my children and realising, even as I did it, that it was quite nice to do but almost a complete waste of time: anything could happen (and did). Likewise, in writing novels, the character and the story always develop in unexpected ways as I write. I might have planned from page 1 for my character to do such and such a thing halfway through the book, but \when I get there he or she won't do it, or not then, or else they do do it – but someone else intervenes and changes the meaning of the action and its function in the story completely. Sometimes it is a struggle to accept that the plan has to be jettisoned or be revised; the book can stall while I resist what in the end just has to be done. Then there is a surge of excitement when I accept the new reality. The book really does have a life of its own and if it did not – if it was a matter of simply writing a succession of already outlined scenes, I am not sure how interested I would be in doing it. That said, while there is not an exact match between the initial conception and the final book, there is always a strong connection between them. The creation of a succession of outlines probably does have some value in that it continually makes me think of the book as a whole, rather than just focussing on the part I am writing.
Q. Is your writing autobiographical ?
I only very occasionally write about or around the events of my own life. On the other hand I do write about particular fictional people and their predicaments because they interest or touch me. I want to explore and express the characters that come to me, them only, not someone or something else. From where and exactly how characters arise is another interesting but very complicated question… Suffice it to say that without this personal interest I doubt that I could be bothered to write and so I imagine that symbolically not just my writing but most fiction does have an autobiographical content.
Q. Do you have to be very self-disciplined to write?
I must admit to hating the word self-discipline because it sounds so joyless and unattractive.. So, on those grounds, the answer is no. I like writing. I see it as a calling, and sometimes as a job too. I feel lucky to be able to work at something I feel drawn to do and often (not absolutely always) enjoy, though of course I am not being paid by the hour and no one checks as to whether or not I am being productive. That means I definitely have to be organised and set things up so that I can and do work. The blank page can still terrify me and particularly after any extended period away from my desk, it can feel hard to get started again; the best thing, definitely, is to work regularly.
Q. Do you do much of research?
A. One of the good things about being a writer is that one can become passionately interested in some subject or another for a few months or years, studying it keenly, but without commitment or having to take exams etc. I read, search the net, travel, take photographs, interview people, as necessary. Naturally, I do the focussed kind of research necessary to a particular story line, but I also like to research around a subject, taking in a lot of extraneous detail which may well not appear in the book itself. Place is a very important element in my fiction, and although I frequently invent places, I do want them to be plausible. I need to get the physical details right, the kind of soil there is, what grows, the way the houses are constructed, exactly what tools are used in a particular trade and their names. Research is more than 'getting the background right'. It can be a great source of inspiration, throwing up ideas and characters. On the other hand, it can be a way to avoid actually writing; you have to know when to stop.
I have met several people who were in some ways like him. But, like most fictional characters, he is an amalgam of different parts of many people I have observed, large doses of imagination, and my own conscious and unconscious projections. Perhaps all this could be analysed to show exactly what went into the making of him, but I'm not interested to do it. The experience with Simon was very much of him arriving whole, and seeming to me, as I wrote, to be 'real'.
Q. Is Envallism, the protestant sect in The Story of My Face, a real religious sect?
The latter half of the nineteenth century was a time of religious revival in Finland but Tuomas Envall was not a real person, and none of the sects that arose then were exactly like his. One of the inspirations for the book was a dimly remembered story someone once told me about a Christian sect in which photographs were banned. I was drawn to it by a mixture of horror (how fanatical!) and interest (a consumer culture such as ours is an image-saturated culture and sometimes I think this complicates life for us to a point that is harmful). A distrust of images has, at different times in history, characterised various religions and sects but when I began to research the book, I did not manage to trace the particular group I had been told about. On the other hand, I found many religious groups with far stranger beliefs, customs and prohibitions, surviving perfectly well in a so-called rational age. [See: The Religious Movements Page at University of Virginia] Actually, I think I would have been wary, in any case, of using a real group of people.


text:
Q: Route to cross matrix gathering a maximum sum So I've stumbled upon an interesting problem while I was shifting through a book.
You are given an N*M matrix and you have to get from coordinate (1,1) to (n,m).
You are given three types of "operations" to cross the matrix with.
'A'- You go from i,j to i+1,j

'B'- You go from i,j to i,j+1

'C'- You go from i,j to i+1,j+1

Every time you cross an element, you add it to your "sum". You are asked to:

*

*Find the maximum sum you can gather.

*Reconstruct the route without using/re-using a N*M matrix.

I had no problem solving (1) with dynamic programming, but (2) put me in quite a pickle. The book doesn't have any explanation for point (2). Was wondering if any of you encountered something similar before.

A: A general rule of thumb for DP: if you need to reconstruct the optimal solution in addition to getting the optimal value, use a second array. This second array should be of exactly the same size as the one where you store the answers for the subproblems. In this array, however, instead of storing the answer you store some identification of the subproblem that led to the optimal solution. In your case the identification would be A, B or C to indicate which move you've made.

A: You can reconstruct the path itself using only the array of subproblem solutions (let's call it D), without any additional arrays. Just go from the (n, m) to (1, 1) backwards using the following rule:

*

*If D[i][j] == D[i - 1][j], add (i-1, j) to the beginning of the answer sequence

*If D[i][j] == D[i][j - 1], add (i, j - 1) to the beginning of the answer sequence

*Else add (i - 1, j - 1) to the beginning of the answer sequence.

You can easily prove (having in mind that
D[i][j] = M[i][j] + max(D[i - 1][j], D[i][j - 1], D[i - 1][j - 1]),
 where M is the initial matrix) that this will lead you to (1, 1), and that the resulting sequence is the maximum sum path indeed.


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text:
Tag Archive for: ticket prices
You are here: Home / News / ticket prices
Are fares fair for West Hampstead travellers?
by Nicky Jones / November 20, 2014 /2 Comments/in Frontpage Article, Transport & Travel /
Here it comes, as seasonal in its way as twinkling fairy lights and Christmas shopping: TfL's annual announcement about ticket price rises.
How will the changes affect the average West Hampstead resident in January? If you commute by tube into central London each day, a weekly Zone 1-2 Travelcard will increase by 2.2%, meaning a 7-day pass will now cost £32.10 instead of this year's £31.40. The Zone 1-2 one-day travelcard is abolished, and the minimum one-day card is now for zones 1-4, which comes in at £12, as TfL tries to get even more of us to use Oystercards.
The cost of a 1-2 monthly travelcard will be £123.30, up from the £120.60 it is today. Don't forget that if you use travelcards, it's cheaper to buy it to start before January 2nd!
TfL does attempt to sweeten the pill with a nod to flexible and part-time workers by cutting the pay-as-you-go daily fare caps from £8.40 (peak) and £7.00 (off-peak) to £6.40 for journeys within Zones 1 and 2. However, this will not make any difference if you simply travel to and from work each day and do not make any additional journeys, as a return journey will come in at £5.80, which is less than the daily cap anyway. There's no great benefit for most people of opting to use only contactless by the way – it generally costs the same as Oyster fares apart from in some particular circumstances.
There's an increase of 3.4% on bus fares, with a pay-as-you-go single fare on Oyster rising to £1.50. TfL is also reintroducing a one-day bus (and tram) pass for £5, but you can't buy it on board.
For those who only take the occasional trip into town at weekends and off-peak times, the cost of a single Tube journey on Oyster will go up by 10p to £2.30.
The full table of new fares can be found here. For a broader analysis, The Diamond Geezer blog has an excellent and detailed overview of what these changes mean for Londoners generally.
Higher prices, fewer staff
by Nicky Jones / January 3, 2014 /2 Comments/in Transport & Travel /
It's as inevitable as the New Year hangover. From January 19th, your tube or bus journey will likely cost you more than it did last month. In this article we'll look at TfL's fare increases for 2014, and also untangle the proposed staffing model changes for next year – what do they mean for West Hampstead?
A fair increase?
First, about those price rises. The Mayor has made his annual announcement and arguably it isn't as bad as it could have been. The average price increase is 3.1%, which is certainly not the "freeze" of some headlines, but is markedly lower than recent years. Some ticket prices stay the same, e.g. a single peak-time journey on the Tube is still £2.80 with a PAYG Oyster card, and one-day fare caps on Oyster are unchanged.
However, some popular tickets have risen in price; a monthly zone 1-2 Travelcard will now set you back £120.60, compared with last year's £116.80. A full table of the new adult fares can be found here.
Station staffing changes
Next, the slightly more complex issue of proposed changes to Underground station staffing, slated to come into effect at the beginning of 2015. You may be forgiven for missing this if you fell for TfL's timely distraction technique announcing their night tube plans at about the same time.
For this proposed reorganisation of staffing, TfL have divided their Underground stations into four provisional categories – Gateway, Destination, Metro and Local. "Local" is split into two subcategories: Local A and Local B. There's a handy colour-coded map setting out which stations fall into each of the categories.
In the NW6 area, the two categories we're concerned with are Metro and Local A.
Metro stations serve "predominantly inner London communities with many regular users". Finchley Road, Swiss Cottage and Kilburn Park all fall into this category. They will have one additional visible member of staff at the busiest times (but a reduction in the number of station staff overall). They won't have a ticket office.
Local Stations are generally smaller stations where a relatively small number of ticket office sales are made. West Hampstead and Kilburn both belong in this group, in the A subcategory. There is little difference between the Local A and B stations. Both will still have one member of staff and no ticket office, but the 'B' stations are the ones deemed more straightforward to manage, and will have a Customer Service Agent, rather than the more senior Customer Service Supervisor at 'A' stations. At both, Station Supervisors will be replaced by a roving area manager responsible for several stations.
TfL's press release explains:
Tube station staff will not be based in ticket offices, but in ticket halls, on gate lines and on platforms, ready and available to give the best personal and face-to-face service to customers.
As now, all Tube stations will continue to be staffed and controlled in future, with more staff visible and available than today in ticket halls and on gate lines and with the same number of staff on platforms. Staff equipped with the latest mobile technology, such as tablet computers, will be able to monitor and manage stations on the move.
For the average commuter, and for people comfortable with managing their Oyster account online, these changes probably won't be that noticeable. But travellers unfamiliar with the network, or those with additional needs, may find it challenging to be forced to use the ticket machines, perhaps with a long wait for assistance at peak times.
For more detail on the proposed changes, and their impact on passengers and staff, see Diamond Geezer's excellent blog post here. And for a really in-depth analysis head over to this exhaustive analysis at London Reconnections.


1. If 376 people went to the mall on Saturday and three times as many people went to the mall on Sunday, how many people went to the mall for the whole weekend?
2. Jane had $20.00 to buy her mother something for her birthday. If she bought a rose for $2.10 and a purse for $15.95, how much money would she have left to buy her mother a birthday card?
3. If your grades in math are a 97, 82, 79, and 60, what is your average?
4. If there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute, how many seconds are in an hour?
5. Grandma has 8 apples. If she uses 6 1/4 apples to make an apple pie, how many apples does she have left?


text:
Consolea falcata es una especie fanerógama perteneciente a la familia Cactaceae.

Distribución y hábitat
Es nativa de las Antillas donde se encuentra en Haití  sobre suelos calizos costeros desnudos sin vegetación asociada. Los individuos maduros son pequeños en comparación con otras especies de Consolea.

Descripción
Consolea falcata crece en forma de árbol y alcanza un tamaño de hasta  1,5 metros de altura. Los tallos son de color verde oscuro brillante, a veces, en forma de hoz. Miden 35 centímetros de largo y 9 centímetros de ancho. En la superficie tiene pequeñas protuberancias, pero que no forman patrón reticular. Las espinas son de dos a ocho con forma de agujas, ásperas, de color amarillento a marrón, que también puede estar ausentes y miden de 1 a 4 centímetros de largo. Las flores son de color rojizo y tienen un diámetro de 2 a 5 centímetros.

Taxonomía
Consolea falcata fue descrita por (Ekman & Werderm) F.M.Knuth y publicado en Kaktus-ABC 146. 1935.
Etimología
Consolea: nombre genérico otorgado en honor de  Michelangelo Console, un inspector del Jardín Botánico de Palermo.

falcata: epíteto latino que significa "con forma de hoz".

Referencias

Enlaces externos

falcata
Flora del Caribe
Cactus y suculentas
Plantas descritas en 1935
Plantas descritas por Ekman
Plantas descritas por Werdermann
Plantas descritas por F.M.Knuth

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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