When it comes to home décor, almost everything old can be made new again.
Sometimes vintage items that may no longer have a home can make great useful items in your home. Whether it's an old door, a painting ladder, or reclaimed wood from a barn, there are plenty of ways to incorporate these items to make an interesting and unique piece to match your style.
That old door. A reclaimed rustic door can be used for almost anything if you're willing to be creative. Create avintage-looking mirror that leans against the wall, create aunique book shelf or use old spindles or even repurposed plumbing pieces to create a vintage table like these on Pinterest.
Vintage bottles into pendant lamps. Old glass bottles have many uses indoors, including vintage-looking pendant lamps like these examples on Pinterest.
The ladder shelf. An old painting ladder can be used almost anywhere, like this example as a wall shelf or hanging on the wall as a book shelf.
Places to hang. Try using an old rake head to hang jewelry or ties, like this example on HGTV.com. Or use old door knobs here on Pinterest or even drawer pulls to hang household items.
Wheelbarrow planters. An old vintage wheelbarrow can be repurposed as a planter, either outdoors or indoors in a sun room, like here on Pinterest.
Shutter ideas. Use old shutters in a variety of ways indoors, from decorative wall art to an entryway mail slot or even a vintage place to hang decorative items.
A piano shelf. That old piano casing can be installed on the wall to make a unique shelf, like this example on boredpanda.com.
Sliding interior doors. If you have the space, trying using reclaimed barn doors or doors with decorative stained glass like this example on Houzz.com as sliding interior doors.
Vintage industrial carts. Old carts from industrial warehouses can make great coffee tables, serving carts or even a display shelf for household items.
New uses for old books. Take your old books and add some wall supports to make shelves, like this example, stack them up to create a lamp base, or put them under glass to make a unique coffee table.
If you like fantastic ocean views as part of your weekly farmer's market shopping experience, the Redondo Beach Farmer's Market might be just the place for you.
The Redondo Beach Farmer's Market is quaint and on the small side as far as markets go, but still has a little something for everyone. Along with those ocean views from Veterans Park in Redondo Beach, you will find plenty of produce, plants, flowers, baked goods and food items (including unique items like honey sticks, kettle corn and specialty popcorns, homemade honey, beef jerky, cookies and bunt cakes, to name just a few) and is known for reasonable prices.
"The fruit vendors provide samples, as do a lot of the others, so it's sort of like the 'Costco Buffet' and you can walk around for a full breakfast of free samples while shopping," offered one Yelp review.
There are also many hot food vendors on site, where you will find different varieties of Mexican, Afghan, and Asian dishes, along with hot grills that sell items like crepes or bacon-wrapped hot dogs.
The Redondo Beach Famer's Market is held every Thursday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and is located at the front of Veterans Park along George Freeth Way. Free parking validation is provided for one hour in the Pier Parking Structure.
Buying your first home can be an intimidating decision. Not only will it likely be the biggest purchase of your life, but it is oftentimes both a lengthy and complex process.
It goes without saying that there are many factors to consider as a first-time home buyer. There's a lot to learn, and a lot to know, about a process that commonly takes months to complete from start to finish. Even when things go smoothly, a first-time home buyer will require patience, organization and knowledge to navigate through the process.
The difference between wants and needs. When you have a clear understanding of what you want versus what you really need in a home, you will be in a position to make decisive, effective decisions that might help you land what you really want.
Getting pre-approved for a mortgage. Not only will you avoid homes you can't afford, but pre-approval from a lender will give you the leverage to make a serious offer when you find the right home.
The real cost of home ownership. Sure, there is a mortgage payment, but what are the costs of living where you are buying? When you factor in all the expenses – utilities, property taxes, repairs – can you afford to own a home?
Where location ranks on your list. Know going into the process how important location is to you. It's about your lifestyle. A bargain isn't really a bargain in a neighborhood you don't really want to live in long-term. Are you willing to accept a smaller or older home in a great area where value will rise?
Working with a professional. Buyers now have access to do a considerable amount of research online, but a qualified buyer's agent should be an expert on the neighborhood, recent sales, trends, and negotiating the terms of an offer.
The surrounding area. Sure, one block might be picturesque, but the entirety of the surrounding area will determine the value of a home. Explore the surrounding areas for schools, hospitals, fire stations, airports and train tracks that might alter your opinion. Also drive around at different times of the day to see if the vibe of the neighborhood changes a few blocks away.
Pay attention to taxes. Review the property taxes several months back and talk to your realtor about taxes. Know that a re-appraised home can lead to higher tax rates.
Talking to neighbors. The people who know most about what it's like to live in a neighborhood, how well the sellers took care of a home, and underlying issues that might not be obvious, are the neighbors.
Do as much homework as you can on the property. Along with a comparative marketing analysis to spot area trends, get detailed records of home improvements. Ensure the title is "free and clear" so there are no problems with assuming ownership, and purchase homeowner's insurance. Get everything in writing.
Getting a home inspection. No home is perfect, and a reputable home inspector will find out as much as possible about what is wrong with a house. Determine the real issues and what should be accounted for in your offer, as well as what might need future attention.
For a quieter and more obscure Southern California beach experience, put the Torrance Beach on your list of places to visit.
Torrance Beach is an esoteric, soft-sanded beach that is almost literally in the shadows of other beaches, as it is surrounded by the hills of Palos Verdes. Stretching for a mile and-a-half, it is most known for its mellow, low-key vibe and as a family- and kid-friendly beach experience compared to many of Southern California's more well-known beaches.
Like most of the local beach experiences, you will find a great spot for normal beach activities like swimming, surfing, body boarding, volleyball and of course great views. Plus, lifeguards are on duty during daylight hours and there are swings, a snack shop and restrooms – all of which make it a great location for kids. As the Southern-most point on the Marvin Braude Bike Trail – also known as The Strand – you get accessibility to the walkway and biking path, making it a great starting point for your exercise routine.
What you won't find at Torrance Beach is a lot of the commercialism of local beaches. While there are restaurants and shops nearby, it has a locals-only vibe and is a popular option to listen to the waves, watch the sunset, and catch a bit of solitude. There is also plenty of parking at Torrance Beach – for a small fee (ranging from $2-7 depending on the season) – located at the top of the hill, which requires a walk down several sets of stairs to gain access to the beach.
Visit the official website for more details on Torrance Beach, or check out the current water, surf and tide conditions as well as a live webcam at Watchthewater.org.
Whether you are limited on space in your bathroom or elbow room is in abundance, there are plenty of clever tricks to make the most out of what you do have.
If space isn't an issue, create a comfy seating area with an ottoman or padded stool and side table, or build a custom vanity between storage units for a defined space.
Install custom pullout shelves in vertical cabinets or sliding drawers within cabinets under the counter to keep your accessories orderly and accessible while not taking up much space.
Towels take up a lot of space. Get them out of your cabinets and make better use of your space with a hydrotherm heated towel rack that doesn't require any power.
If you have been thinking about creating a fun space for kids in your home but don't know quite where to start, or are struggling for ideas, know that you're not alone.
Maybe soon you will be creating or recreating a space in your home just for kids. There's no shortage of ideas or inspiration for such a project, whether your aim is a space for education, for play, or just a place for kids to call their own.
The point of view – Remember, kids are smaller, and how they see a room from a lower level will be different than yours. Put some thought into placing items – chalkboards, shelves, wall art – at a lower eye-level so kids have access to all that they need, along with kids-sized tables and chairs. This blog about a homework area looks at how to keep things simple, sorted and not distracting.
An inviting space – Consider what you would like the children to be doing, and create a motivating invitation. For an art area, like these on Pinterest, go beyond just placing art supplies out; create a comfortable and inspiring area that's prepared with everything they need to be creative within arm's reach. Similarly, if your goal is a space for reading, prepare pillows, blankets or a comfy beanbag or chair to invite them to sit and stay awhile.
The right colors and design – Think about what your design invites kids to do rather than how it looks. Use bright colors where you can – on the walls, for accessories (like chairs or pillows or baskets) or even floor tiles in rugs – to help inspire creativity. Pinterest has many ideas on how to explore using different colors and shapes.
Try a theme – The best spaces for kids will invite them in and get them to stay, and an overall theme might be an idea if you have the space and the resources. Whether you're considering a play area, homework area or an entire bedroom, themes like these on Houzz help create fun and inspiring spaces. Kids will feel comfortable in these types of spaces and will love a space they can call their own. With some careful consideration and planning you can blend colors, design and functionality to create spaces like these spaces on Pinterest.


Today, a 5 years old boy asked me a few questions about China. I thought it'd be great to write things about China from my son Louis' view. Louis has been to China 3 times at when he was 11 months, 3 yrs, 4 yrs, 6yrs, 7yrs and 8yrs old.
Louis went to a local nursery for 2 weeks in Nanshan, Shenzhen where he made some friends.
March, 2015, we went to Beijing.
April, 2015, went to visit his grandma(外婆 waipo)in Guizhou where Louis made a bunch of great friends. They hanged out everyday when we were there (3 weeks).
April, 2015, we visited Lijiang (丽江,玉龙雪山)stayed in a lovely friendly local hosteling (客栈 Kezhan)for a week.


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Caution: Isopropyl Alcohol is flammable and a dangerous fire risk. Ships only within the lower 48 US states using Standard Ground. HazMat fee applies. Adult signature required upon delivery. Shipping to a commercial address suggested.


text:
Q: Write a query (preferably in sqlalchemy) to count number of occurrence of unique values in a column grouped by another column in a postgres table my project uses AWS Chalice framework and sqlalchemy.
Here is a sample table from the project.

I am required to get data from table in two formats. I require two separate queries which should give the data in different format as both will have separate apis. Please do not combine the query to give data in both formats together as dataset is huge & there will be performance issues and as already mentioned I need them separately.
First Format:
I want to get count of person for different jobs grouped by city and if the job field is empty/none, then it should be treated as No Job.
{
   "Bangalore":{
      "Engineer": 2,
      "No Job": 2,
      "Paramedic": 1,
   },
   "Delhi":{
      "Architect": 2,
      "Doctor": 1,
   },
   "Mumbai":{
      "Doctor": 2,
      "Engineer": 1,
      "No Job": 1,
   }
}

Second Format:
I want to get count of unique job titles and person grouped by city.
{
   "Bangalore":{
      "job_titles": 3,
      "persons": 5,
   },
   "Delhi":{
      "job_titles": 2,
      "persons": 3,
   },
   "Mumbai":{
      "job_titles": 3,
      "persons": 4,
   }
}

Explanation:

*

*Bangalore has 2 Enginners, 1 Paramedic and 2 person with no job, so there are 3 unique job_titles & 5 Persons.

*Delhi has 2 Architect and 1 Doctor, so there are 2 unique job_titles & 3 person.

*Mumbai has 2 Doctors, 1 Enginner and 1 person with no job, so there are 3 unique job_titles & 4 Persons.

Currently, I am achieving this by running a simple Select * from table type query, and iterating over it to form nested dictionaries (in Python). And the issue is that this processing takes a long time.
I am not sure if data in this type of formats even achievable. So, any query whose data can be converted easily and quickly(wrt time) is appreciated.
I have been stuck on this issue for over a month now, so any type of help is appreciated. But please try to provide answer in sqlalchemy query.
Thanks

A: This is like basics of SQL - count and group by. Looks like a job interview question.
select city, job, count(*) as count from person_jobs group by city, job;

And in Python:
cities_jobs = collections.defaultdict(dict)
for city, job, count in query_result:
  cities_jobs[city][job] = count

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text:
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text:
the !n(tro)verted yogi
nomadic, poetic, and sometimes ascetic
About Bernie Gourley
Thai Yoga Bodyworker
Writer/Poet
Category Archives: historical fiction
BOOK REVIEW: Dracula: Son of the Dragon by Mark Sable
Posted on July 27, 2020 by B Gourley
Dracula: Son of the Dragon by Mark Sable
Amazon.in page
There is a vast amount of vampiric fiction available today, and no small amount of it focuses on the character of Dracula. This graphic novel sets itself apart by building the story on real world events (such as they are known, and with dramatic license to make the story exciting and the imagery evocative.) At the risk of turning people off (but not intending to,) I would go as far as to say this book leads with history, and makes the supernatural secondary. I actually liked that about it. When I say the supernatural is secondary, it's not like its eliminated from existence or that it's purely garnish. There are dragons and vampires, but a story exists with or without those elements.
A story of war and political intrigue in what is now Romania is bookended by the depiction of a meeting between Vlad Dracula and three clergymen. In the opening, Vlad is telling the priests that he is about to let them in on the truth of his story, which they have no doubt heard in mythologized form. At the end, he asks the clergymen to tell him whether he will be allowed into heaven. The body of the story is a flashback from the meeting with the priests. It splits focus between Vlad's father, who is working to keep his domain under his control by playing the ends against the middle vis-à-vis his Roman Catholic neighbors (notably Hungary) and the Ottoman Empire, and the story oft Vlad, himself. Vlad is a young man. He and his brother are sent to Scholomance (a kind of Slavic Dark Arts Hogwarts) and later become prisoners of the Ottomans.
I thought the artwork was easy to follow and stylistically appealing enough. Some of the frames in the ancillary material at the back were truly beautiful. I often disregard the back-matter in comics because it usually amounts to little more than discussion of how the drafts changed over time – i.e. offering insight into the sausage-making of the book. However, this book had an extensive Notes section that I found fascinating and useful because it explained how points in the book compared with known history. Some of the points that I assumed were pure fiction had a factual basis. Sable also related points to Bram Stoker's "Dracula." The creators tried to be consistent with Stoker's book, as well as with history, when they could. The former wasn't so hard because readers of Bram Stoker's will recognize that the titular character is kept largely a mystery, particularly with regard to his backstory.
If you are interested at all in the historical and mythological basis of the Dracula vampire, I'd recommend this book. As I said, the notes will give you a good idea of what was known to be true, what is complete fiction, and what is a kernel of truth enveloped in story sensationalism. Obviously, all the supernatural elements are pure fiction, and also there is a lot that remains unknown, but this graphic novel provides an interesting take on the origins of Vlad Dracula.
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Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Comic Books, fiction, historical fiction, horror, Review, Reviews	| Tagged Book Review, books, comic book, Dracula, fiction, graphic novel, historical fiction, Horror, Sam Salgood, vampire, Vlad Dracula, Vlad the Impaler	| 4 Replies
BOOK REVIEW: Heathen, Vol. 1 by Natasha Alterici
Heathen, Vol. 1 by Natasha Alterici
The protagonist is a lesbian Norse warrior, Aydis, who is living in exile in the wilderness. After she was discovered making out with a girlfriend, two unappealing fates were offered: marriage (to a man) or death. Her father, recognizing that neither of those options was acceptable to his daughter or himself, pretends to accept the death sentence, but instead of killing Aydis he helps with her escape. The story is set in a period in between the heyday of Norse Mythology and modernity. The story refers back to mythological events (and since many of those characters are immortal it includes a few of them,) but it's during a time when Christianity is spreading in the region and some of the old ways have been forgotten or dismissed by many.
The four issues contained in this book follow a quest that involves Aydis going to rescue a Valkyrie named Brynhild who was long ago imprisoned on a mountain in a circle of fire for defying Odin. Then – once Brynhild is freed –the quest continues in order to keep the rescue from being reversed and becoming meaninglessness. [Brynhild must be married to a mortal to escape imprisonment, but since that means she must repeatedly see her mortal spouses die only to go back to her prison. Aydis intends to see this reversed.]
I found the writing engaging and action gripping. While I'm no expert on art, I was able to follow the action in the panels and found it stylistically interesting and distinct – though I couldn't tell you anything about what that style is.
My primary criticism revolves around my own preference for a volume having a self-contained satisfying narrative arc. This volume had plenty of great action and relatable character objectives. Admittedly, this is a tough standard for work that is by its nature serialized. However, at the end of the book one feels the set up for the continuation of the story (the cliffhanger) much more intensely than one feels there was any kind of conclusion and resolution. For readers who are predominantly series readers, this may not be a problem, but as one who reads one book at a time, I need to feel that something was resolved over the course of the story.
I think the book was bold and successful in turning conventions on its head. The primary convention under attack is the distressed damsel – a helpless character who needs a man to come along to rescue her. The book also takes the social issue of persecution based on sexual preference in a scene within Brynhild's parallel (but intersecting?) quest.
Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable read. If you like the story idea and tend to read in series, then this is a great volume to pick up. If you're not sure you want to be drawn into another series, you may decide to exercise more caution.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Comic Books, fiction, Graphic Novel, historical fiction, LGBTQ Literature, mythology, Norse Mythology, Review, Reviews	| Tagged Book Review, books, comic books, fiction, graphic novel, Heathen, LGBTQ Literature, Natasha Alterici, Norse Mythology, Rachel Deering	| 1 Reply
BOOK REVIEW: Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer
Posted on August 13, 2019 by B Gourley
Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer
This book's strange title derives from an old Hungarian saying of "under a frog's arse [and down a coal mine.]" That's the position the protagonist, Gyuri Fischer, feels himself to be in during the course of the book, running from end of the Second World War through the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. Not many can see, let alone convey, the great absurdist comedy of life under a totalitarian regime, but Tibor Fischer manages to do so. Of course, no tale of life under a Communist regime is without a share of tragedy as well, and that plays out to make a gripping finale.
The book is a mostly chronological telling of the life story of a blue-collar worker who plays basketball well enough to be on the team of the factory he works for (and then, when he switches jobs, the railway.) Throughout the book, Gyuri wants nothing more than to leave Hungary behind. His lonely bachelor's life and the grim nature of life in a Soviet satellite is too much to bear. One sees his fraying sanity as well as that of some of the other key characters. The sole bright-spot in Gyuri's life is a love affair that plays out during the second half of the book.
I researched the events of the 1956 Uprising for my Master's thesis, and Fischer's book was quite accurate in the portion of the book that covers that time period. In places, I suspect the author favors exaggeration for comedic effect (such as in a hilarious segment that explains the origins of Budapest's "White House" – a hideous piece of Stalinist architecture if ever there was one,) but he weaves real-world happenings into the stories of his book's characters.
I'd highly recommend this book. If you're interested in life under a Communist regime, but can't take the grim and dreary way these stories are usually conveyed, you'll find this book a refreshing change. (It's not that the dreariness is absent, but the absurdity blunts the demoralization.) Alternatively, if you just like humor in your novels, this book will serve one well.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, fiction, historical fiction, Hungary, Literature, Review, Reviews	| Tagged 1956, Book Review, books, Communism, fiction, humor, Hungarian Revolution, Hungary, literature, Tibor Fischer	| Leave a reply
BOOK REVIEW: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Posted on July 2, 2019 by B Gourley
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
One might think that a book narrated by Death and set in Nazi Germany during the Second World War would be bleak from cover to cover. But one would be wrong. "The Book Thief" heaps hope and humor upon the reader, saving tragedy for the final course – besides a few sprinkles throughout. It's not that the story lacks a tension born of many close calls and morally compromised situations, but it's a very human story – with the appropriate mix of blemishes and beauty.
The protagonist is a girl named Liesel who is sent to live with foster parents during the first year of World War II. Traveling to meet her new family, her brother dies, leaving her alone with new parents in a new city on the doorstep of the most lethal war in human history. In the cemetery, after her brother's impromptu funeral, Liesel finds a fallen book and keeps it. It's the first of several books she will "steal," acts that will define her but which are comic sins in the shadow of the mass murder in progress. Fortunately, Liesel's foster parents are salt of the earth folk. They aren't wealthy or erudite, but they offer Liesel a loving home. It's a little harder to see this affection in her foster-mother, who has a stern and gruff exterior — in contrast to her papa who is endearingly sympathetic.
The story is about this family, and others in the neighborhood, trying to get through life under a regime they recognize as tragically absurd, but which is terrifying none-the-less. Besides surviving, characters like Liesel's papa try to do the right thing whenever they can, in whatever way won't get them killed. Life gets harder as the war wears on. Liesel's papa is a house painter, an occupation that is not a year-round occupation in Germany. Liesel's mother does laundry, a luxury that most can't afford as the war rages. On the other hand, this doesn't make them worse off than most of the others on Himmel Street, which is – figuratively speaking – on the wrong side of the tracks.
While this is an engaging story, Death as narrator is the feature that really makes this book exceptional to me. Much of the lightness and humor comes from the fact that the narrator is not grim, but rather has humor and a stilted form of humanity about him. From a narrative perspective, Death offers a unique point of view, but it's the circumvention of expectations that comes from the fact that Death can recognize the tragedy of what is unfolding before him. He's not emotional about it in the way a human would be, but neither does he ignore the brutality and absurdity of it. The other factor that catapults this book beyond the realm of run-of-mill war story, is how the desire for literature and learning — which would usually be lost in a war story's struggle for survival – is given a prominent role.
I enjoyed this book immensely. It's an intensely human story, neither saturated in sorrow nor ignoring the horrors of war and genocide. I highly recommend it for fiction readers.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, fiction, historical fiction, Literature, Review, Reviews	| Tagged Book Review, Book Thief, books, fiction, historical fiction, Holocaust, Liesel, literature, Markus Zusak, Second World War, World War II	| Leave a reply
BOOK REVIEW: Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig
Posted on November 22, 2018 by B Gourley
Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig
This novel tells the story of a mixed-race family and their trials and tribulations in Burma / Myanmar from the colonial period (before the Second World War) through the early 1960's when a civil war was in progress. The father / husband, Benny, is ethnically Indian, religiously Jewish, works for the British, but was born and spent his early childhood in Burma. He marries a Karen woman (i.e. of the Karen tribe.) The central (and titular) character is the couple's first child, Louisa. Louisa is a beauty, and for various reasons – none of which reflect her own preferences – she ends up a beauty queen and national celebrity.
What is fascinating about this book is how the many levels of humanity – from the individual level (e.g.Louisa / Miss Burma) to the international level – play into each other. At an individual level, each member of the family finds his or her life intruded upon by the nation's conflicts. Benny ends up a prisoner of war of the Japanese and then later a prisoner of the Burman ruling regime. He feels beholden to the Karens because of a combination of factors involving repaying of debt, familial obligation, and friendship. Louisa ends up in the pageant – in part — because of the question of whether the leaders and Burman citizens are really serious enough about unity to allow a non-Burman into that high-status role.
At a national level, there is a rapid succession of changing situations. First, the country needs to thwart the Japanese invasion. Next, they must throw off the British colonial yoke, and, finally, Burma must figure out what kind of nation (or nations) it will become. The Burman leader wants to consolidate the country, while many tribal groups, including the Karen, want independence. Benny's family is tied up in this conflict, in part, because of their Karen connection, but also the fact that Benny was able to exploit the post-war economy to his advantage and became rich after the war. This makes him, and his family, both important and simultaneously loved and despised.
At the international level, America and other global powers have interests in keeping Burma from disintegrating into tribal sub-states. In the early post-war period, these interests are largely economic, and involve the preference to have a solitary trading partner for Burmese goods. However, later, as "domino theory" takes center stage in American foreign policy, the interest shifts to thwarting the spread of Communism. ("Domino theory" was the idea that if a non-Communist government fell, others would proceed in a chain reaction throughout the region. It was a little simplistic, but reflected the anxiety of the times and was a large part of the justification for the Vietnam War.)
I found this book gripping and fascinating. The international intrigue and family tensions both work together to make an intensely readable work. Without getting into the ending, I will say that it feels a little bit rushed and anti-climactic. However, the events of the book give it plenty of tension overall, and there is a logic to the place the book ends. It is emotionally powerful to see how this family is repeatedly torn apart and must come together again through great difficulties. We also see how obligation and sense of duty play themselves out, often trumping other considerations.
I would highly recommend this book for readers of fiction, particularly those with interests in historical fiction and works that offer insight into a nation and a culture.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, fiction, historical fiction, Literature, Myanmar, Review, Reviews, War	| Tagged Book Review, books, Burma, Charmaine Craig, fiction, historical fiction, literature, Myanmar	| Leave a reply
BOOK REVIEW: The Autobiography of a Flea by Anonymous (Stanislas de Rhodes)
The Autobiography of a Flea by Stanislas de Rhodes
"The Autobiography of a Flea" is a historical work of erotica first published in the late 19th century anonymously, and later was attributed to Stanislas de Rhodes. Like the works of the Marquis de Sade, the book is simultaneously a socio-political commentary and philosophical novel. While the erotic elements tend to not be as extreme and perverse as Sade's work, it shares in common a philosophy of society and a disdain for the clergy and the aristocracy / upper class (Sade's work was earlier and straddled the French Revolution, and so things had changed on this front.) But, for example, in this book, two lascivious and hypocritical clergymen play key roles in the story that would not be unfamiliar to Sade's readers.
The story starts with discussions (and wagers) regarding a competition that is coming up between women who work for the village's main employer, a vintner. Whichever woman tramples the most grapes, wins a substantial prize. Our narrator is a libidinous, little flea who follows the sexual antics taking place in this French village. From the flea, we learn about the competition through discussion before, during, and after amore by two village couples. Two women who are likely to be front-runners make a salacious wager that involves the other's husband. Each woman confesses the wager to her respective husband, but the husbands each have confidence in his wife to win, and so neither is concerned about the competition. Little do any of them know, the vintner has stacked the deck in favor of the fairest maiden in the village, who he intends to marry – despite the fact that he is old, feeble, and disgusting.
This fair (re: young and gorgeous) maiden has a suitor, and she is about to be intimate with him for the first time, when the village priest interrupts them. The priest then uses his knowledge to manipulate the young woman to his benefit. (Ultimately, he is joined by an English priest on sabbatical who involves himself with a couple village widows as well as in the priest's nefarious plot.) The village priest simultaneously seeks to please the vintner (because the old man is the church's leading patron), and at the same time he pursues his own pleasure. So, the young woman is forced into marriage, and into allowing consummation of said marriage — though the old vintner repeatedly shows himself not up to the task and is usually comically premature.
The author echoes a theme from Sade's philosophy, which a society that is anarchic under its feeble institutions, i.e. in which the strong do whatever they please to the weak. The lead character, the maiden, is constantly humiliated and run roughshod over whenever she tries to move against the flow of this anarchy. Counting on the strong to behave virtuously only gets her punished and humiliated. It's only when she starts moving with the flow so as to game the system by acknowledging and heeding this power disparity that she starts to see success in getting her way.
As with the Marquis de Sade's work, this book could correctly be claimed to be excessively pessimistic and Hobbsean (philosopher and author of "The Leviathan" who believed people were brutish and self-interested.) I found it to be cleverer and less gratuitous than the works by Sade that I've read. Both the use of the narrating flea to give the reader a well-established point of view and the story — which exists (in contrast to many works in this genre, including Sade's work "120 Days of Sodom.") I'd recommend this book for readers of historical fiction and erotica (particularly if one enjoys — or can tolerate — the sado-masochistic dynamic.)
[Note: there are a couple versions of this book, but – as near as I can tell – the story is consistent between them. It's the character names that vary. The book is set in France, and features one English clergyman (kindred spirit to the village priest.) However, the more common version of the book features more English-sounding names, but there is a version with more typically French names. e.g. the lead, Bella, is Laurette in the latter edition. I read the version with the more French sounding names, but read a plot summary of the other edition, and the story was the same in broad brush strokes at least.]
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Erotica, fiction, historical fiction, Literature, Review, Reviews, Sex	| Tagged Book Review, books, Erotica, fiction, historical fiction, literature, Marquis de Sade, Stanislas de Rhodes	| Leave a reply
BOOK REVIEW: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
At its core, this is a love story set in the most unlikely of places, the Auschwitz Concentration Camp – which was in reality an extermination camp where Jews and others were executed as part of the Nazi Final Solution. Lale, the lead character, owing to his skill with languages and his survival instincts, was a prisoner chosen to be the assistant tattooist and in short order the tattooist's replacement. As tattooist, Lale was responsible for writing numbers indelibly on the arms of the adult prisoners coming to the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. This position offered him an unusual freedom of movement that allowed him to carry on a secretive relationship with one of the young women that he'd tattoo'd and become instantly smitten with. It also allowed him to carry out a small-scale relief mission in which he purchased food and medicine from a couple of sympathetic Poles. Still, this covert charitable work didn't erase his guilt of believing he was participating in the atrocity by way of the tattoo-branding of his fellow prisoners. In a place where everyday was a test of survival, it goes without saying that both his love affair and his covert purchases created a heightened risk of being killed. The tension is perpetually high as one never knows whether Lale or those dear to him will survive from one scene to the next.
It's testament to how tight and engaging the narrative arc is that I was under the impression that it was completely fictitious until I got to the back matter – which included an epilogue, an afterword, and a photo section that clarified that the book was based on interviews with the real-life tattooist, Lale Sokolov. The book is presented as a novel, and that's how it reads throughout, but it's in some measure a memoir. It's hard to know how much is fictitious, but it seems reasonable to suspect that the author took some liberties – otherwise it would presumably have been presented as a history / biography.
I found this to be one of the most intense and gripping books I've read this year, and I'd highly recommend it for all readers.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, fiction, historical fiction, history, Literature, Review, Reviews	| Tagged Auschwitz, biography, Book Review, books, fiction, historical fiction, Holocaust, literature, Memoir, World War II	| 1 Reply
BOOK REVIEW: River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
Posted on December 12, 2017 by B Gourley
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
This alternative history book takes as its premise the "what-if" of: what if feral hippopotamuses had been introduced into the bayous of Louisiana. This was apparently an idea that was considered in the real world, presumably by people who didn't realize that hippos are one of the most territorial and cantankerous creatures in nature. Those who've read the writings of the explorers / adventurers who made their way through Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries will be well aware that hippos were among the most feared creatures faced by those expeditions — rivaling black mamba and lions, and not at all like the cattle they were expected to be.
The first part of the novel consists of a hippo wrangler of British origin, named Winslow Houndstooth, building his team of hippo wranglers Magnificent Seven style. Houndstooth has a contract from the federal government to drive feral hippos out of a marshy river basin called "the Harriet." Houndstooth also has a plan to do this dangerous job in a way that—if it works—will make the job quick and easy while exacting revenge on his archenemy, a man named Tavers who operates gambling riverboats on the Harriet. The story is as engrossing as it sounds. Dangers abound for our protagonist and his team of misfits – misfits of varying reliability, and —like George R. R. Martin—Gailey isn't afraid to kill off a character.
The introduction of hippos isn't the only way in which the story is alt-history. It's also set in a world in which people of various sexual orientations and gender identities are much more open with their sexuality than they would have been in the Louisiana of the early 20th century as we know it. (Note: It's not clear whether it was the introduction of hippos to America that created divergence in the parallel timeline that allowed for this progressiveness, whether it was a more open societal outlook on sexuality that facilitated the introduction of hippos, or whether these are independent events.)
At any rate, while gender and sexual orientation issues are quite prominent in the story, there's only one area in which this disparity between historical reality and the alt-world became a distraction for me. I should point out that there would be no distraction in a science-fiction or fantasy story, as there is in historical fiction, because the author can create or destroy societal mores and norms as she wishes in a non-existent world. Anyhow, the one distraction I referred to had to do with one character, Hero, for whom the plural pronoun is used throughout. I must admit that I spent a few pages trying to figure out whether Hero had two heads like Zaphod Beeblebrox before I concluded that it was an attempt to deal with gender identity (I think.) I will say that the character development is skillful and Gailey does a great job of producing characters that evoke love or hate but not indifference.
I enjoyed this story. It's a quick read, has likable and loathable characters, and builds tension throughout. There is a second book that I understand can be read independently of this one called "Taste of Marrow." I have not yet read it, but probably will.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, fiction, historical fiction, Review, Reviews	| Tagged Alt-history, Alternative History, Book Review, books, fiction, historical fiction, River of Teeth, Sarah Gailey	| Leave a reply
BOOK REVIEW: Cold Days by Tibor Cseres
Posted on January 24, 2017 by B Gourley
Cold Days by Tibor Cseres
During the Second World War, there was a massacre conducted by the Hungarian military in the Yugoslavian town now called Novi Sad (known as Újvidék under the Hungarians.) The operation was meant to be a cleanup of Yugoslavian partisans, but the casualties were primarily innocent civilians. The novel is called "Cold Days" (i.e. literally translated from the Hungarian "Hideg Napok") because the killings took place during a cold snap in January of 1942. Cseres bases his novel on this real world event, but he tells the story through the lens of four fictional military men who are sharing a cell for their respective actions in Novi Sad.
The novel weaves five narrative lines into an overall arc. Four of these are the personal stories of each of the four soldiers during the massacre and the time leading up to it, and the fifth takes place later when they are all together in the cell. The four characters have no connection before being placed in the same cell—or so it seems. At most, the officers know of each other. The five lines come together in the end and the reader sees how the four lives are no longer in strict isolation, but are connected by the events of that day—in some cases more severely than others.
Captain Büky is the highest ranking of the prisoners and is a straight-laced military man except that he takes issue with the order than keeps married men from bringing their families to station at Novi Sad. Prior to the massacre and some killings that instigated it, it'd been a routine assignment. Lieutenant Tarpataki is a new assignee, and his principal trouble is that he arrives to find that he hasn't been assigned housing or a billet. Lieutenant Pozdor gets his men taken from his control by the police chain of command and is left hiding out trying to avoid being assigned some remedial task. Corporal Szabo is both the only enlisted man in the group and the only one who is directly involved with the violence, though a Cpl. Dorner takes the lead and Szabo is a follower.
If that cast doesn't seem like the kind of villainous blackguards one expects of a massacre crew, I think that that is part of what the author is trying to convey. Run-of-the-mill men stumble down slippery slopes into treachery during times of war. Sometimes the worst go unpunished, while others take the fall. The author also shows that sides can matter little when it comes to such events. Anyone can suffer loss when events tumble out of control as they did in January of 1942 on frigid day in Novi Sad.
This book is translated from Hungarian. It's sparse and simple writing, and readability is high. It's a short book of only about 120 pages.
I'd recommend this book for those interested in tales of the horrors of war. It may have interest to history as well as fiction readers.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, fiction, historical fiction, Hungary, Literature, Review, Reviews	| Tagged Újvidék, Book Review, books, fiction, historical fiction, Hungary, literary fiction, Novi Sad, Tibor Cseres, Translated Literature	| Leave a reply
BOOK REVIEW: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan
Life and Death are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan
This strange title turns out to be a perfect summation of the book. The narrator / protagonist was a wealthy land owner named Ximen Nao who was executed when the Communists gained power in China. In heaven, Lord Yama (the judge in Chinese folklore's version of the afterlife) sentences Ximen Nao to be sent back to Earth as a donkey, and—in subsequent lives—as an ox, a pig, a dog, and, finally and briefly, as a monkey. He's always sent back to the family of one of his former underlings, Lan Lian, and the story follows that family over the course of several decades through the Cultural Revolution and China's grand reforms.
The early parts (the lives of donkey, ox, and part of pig) are centered on Lan Lian's decision to remain an independent farmer. Mao Zedong promised all farmers the right to remain independent contractors if they wished, but there was great pressure—first from the community and later from his own family—to become part of the commune. This ends up dividing the family, and ultimately Lan Lian ends up on his own. The latter part of the book (i.e. dog and monkey lives) deals with Lan Lian's children (and eventually their children), and—particularly–with Lan Jiefang who shares a birthmark and a stubborn streak with his father. Lan Jiefang's stubbornness is revealed as a desire to divorce his wife and to marry a younger woman. His equally stubborn wife refuses the divorce, and Jiefang and his young lover become ostracized. At the tail end of the book we see how Lan Jiefang's son is afflicted by the same dogged determination to pursue a costly path—as a respected member of the police force he falls for a former classmate who has become a pariah.
The book mixes humor with tragedy. The animal incarnations of Ximen Nao each have its own personality, but retain some of the landlord's character and memories. The animal stories are both part of and comedic counterpoint to the tales of woe experienced by Lan Lian's family. Mo Yan has cameo appearances throughout the book, though in the dog's life section he plays a more substantial role. References to Mo Yan's character invariably come with self-deprecating humor. The author creates characters that the reader is interested in. What I call stubbornness is really a tenacious willingness to suffer for the principle of pursing one's own happiness. In the case of Lan Jiefang and his wife, the reader is likely to be torn by the gray situation. The wife seems the more sympathetic character, but, still, one can't help but appreciating the tenacity of Lan Jiefang and his willingness to suffer so greatly on the principle that "the heart wants what the heart wants."
In addition to a good story with vibrant characters, this book offers a birds-eye view of China in the latter half of the 20th century. What is happening in the lives of the characters isn't divorced from what is going on in the world, but is shaped by it. One notices this most vividly across the three generations over which the book's story unfolds—with the middle generation (Lan Jiefang's) serving as hinge point. When Lan Jiefang's half-brother goes from being a Communist Party apparatchik to the wealthy CEO of a large firm, it's a reflection of the societal undercurrents.
I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it for readers of fiction—and particularly translated literary fiction.
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, China, fiction, historical fiction, Literature, Review, Reviews	| Tagged Book Review, books, Chinese Literature, fiction, literature, Mo Yan	| 1 Reply
Poems of the Introverted Yogi
Poems of the Introverted Yogi by Bernie Gourley
a1000 yoga
Amrutha Bindu Yoga Shala
Atlanta Gi Yu Dojo
Dayton Gi Yu Dojo
Decatur Healing Arts
EKA – Meditation & Yoga App
Inner Mountain School of Healing Arts
Jinenkan Honbu Dojo
Jissen Budō
Kalari Academy of Performing Arts
Micro-writing
Mind & Eye
Muay Thai Institute
Strategic Ramblings
Tiger Muay Thai
Wat Pho Thai Traditional Massage School
Wudang Tao – Master Chen
POEM: Song on the Wind
DAILY PHOTO: Nagalinga, Virabhadra Mandir
BOOK REVIEW: The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler
Floral Haiku
POEM: Carved Columns [Bergerette]
Animals Book Reviews Books fiction Hungary India Literature nature nonfiction outdoors photographs Photos pictures poem Poetry Review Reviews Tourism travel wildlife


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Designing Against Disagreement at the Start of the Decade
#architecture #design #systems #2020
Mike Overby Jan 1, 2020 ・6 min read
A system that everyone needs to rely on for consistency does not itself need to be consistent. That would be nice, but it's not required. The best example of this is our system of timekeeping, which features all manner of gotchas and exceptions and rules that keep programmers up at night if we can't use a library that handles them automagically. People love to nitpick and debate over tiny technicalities—the smaller the stakes, the more dogged the fighting—and there is no tinier technicality in timekeeping than when the decades start.
This will be familiar. Whether you're at a kick-ass New Year's Eve party or existing on twitter in December during a year ending in 9 or 0, somebody is going to chime in that the decade isn't actually starting when you think. They'll say they don't understand why in the world everyone is so excited about 02020. It's a willful display of ignorance, as they're trying to demonstrate their superiority because they truly understand the system. According to them, the decades don't start on years ending in 0 as in 02020–02029; no, no, no: the decades start from years ending in 1 as in 02021–02030. The best version of this chicanery was people insisting Y2K wouldn't actually happen until 02001, a full year after the flaw was solved.
What, exactly, does the extra labor required to do an start-of-decade calculation accomplish? Nothing. Where, exactly, does fighting over the start of the decade (for two years out of each of them) get us? Nowhere. The only fringe benefits this view offers devotees is the ability to annoy everybody else and the occasional possibility of stumbling upon a sucker who will judge them smarter for bringing up their technicality. The decades "start at 1" to some because they want to argue that the decades start at 1. Reflexive arguing about minutia is not beneficial to our project of living together and should be considered harmful.
When confronting others with this gotcha, the first question they want to be asked is why this counter-intuitive understanding is happening. That's a trap to allow them to explain their reasoning, something I'll get to soon enough.
The first thing we should ask is how this new understanding affects the system; that is, how does starting the decades in years ending in 1 make the system more intuitive in the long run? Demonstrably, it doesn't. The effect of starting decades at 1 is that we have an argument over when the decades start every decade. More than that, it adds an additional layer of complexity to everything we read about decades as timekeepers: "When this says 'the 01970s', is it including 01970 or 01980?" Not to mention that the same issue extends to centuries and millennia. It's an extremely inefficient outcome, one that will be invisible to people obsessed with arcane technicalities. They're too accustomed to using arcane technicalities as coins of status to consider if the technicality is actually useful or even the most coherent understanding.
Why do people insist that the decades start at 1? Well, actually, it's because the decades have 10 years and there was no Year Zero and—Wrong. There was no Year Zero, true enough. However, think about the actual claim beyond this one revealed fact for even one second to expose the hidden lie.
The claim is that the decade having 10 discrete years should be prioritized over the utility of referring to decades by their tens-place digit in the vernacular. Adding a Year Zero would not address this because the First Decade BC and First Decade AD would share a year. That is a completely nonsensical response to an epoch, by definition a separation between two points in time. To make the system truly consistent in the way they want, we would need a third option: two Year Zeros, one for BC and another for AD. That may have been feasible to implement 2000 years ago, but it would not be feasible now. It's a change of such drastically little value that we do not, in fact, argue for it during these pissing contests. We fight over something equally infeasible and even less beneficial. Also, two Year Zeroes would just look weird, if we're honest.
We've identified the issue, discarded the proposed solution as incorrect, discarded the clean solution as infeasible, and we're going to resolve for the purposes of this article that this still needs to be "solved." This isn't an article offering miracles. There is no perfect solution to this problem-with-no-solution-needed. However, when forced to make a system decision with no clean option, it can help to figure out who will bear the burden of dealing with the technicality you're about to inject. The proposed solution (starting the decade at 1) asserts that it is OK for 6 billion people to collectively bear that burden from now until the end of time, fighting all along. My proposed solution is to treat the two First Decades as special cases. Yes, the two First Decades had 9 years (00001–00009). Indeed, the two First Centuries had 99 years (00001-00099). It's really just a fact; you can verify it by visually counting up the dates. What's more, it's unlikely First Decade and First Century researchers are even going to blink at this because the number of years in that century is irrelevant to their work. For the rest of us, a special case 2000 years ago is similarly irrelevant and can be thoughtlessly absorbed just like the off-by-one convention of referring to the years 02000-02099 as the "Twenty-First Century." When you frame it like that, it's pretty clear that the real solution is to just ignore it rather than bringing it up every 10 years.
The various trade-offs and balances made on paper before a system has actually done anything useful, its upfront design, is only one aspect of that system. Also important is how we continue to extend the system while it develops while in use. The year in which the decade begins could not have been fought over until someone decided that when decades begin was important. Things did not always change rapidly enough for that to be obvious. That cultural reference emerged during the rapidly-changing 20th Century, so the argument over when the decades begin was itself designed and implemented in earnest within the last century, after hundreds of years of uncaring peace. There is no reason to accept this new extension into our timekeeping when it only exists to start fights. Contrast this with the fact that we skip a leap year on years divisible by 100, a gotcha which serves the practical purpose of keeping our years aligned with the seasons. The technicality that there are only 24 leap years in a century rather than the 25 we might expect almost never comes up and we do not fight about it.
Incidentally, you might have noticed the extra zeroes I put in front of the years in this article. That is a practice of the Long Now Foundation. They decided that it's important for humanity to think about the progress of time in terms of 10,000 years (the "Long Now") rather than the short-term squabbles of individual human lifetimes. They promote that idea by zero-extending the year to 5 digits as a reminder that, one day, we will reach the Year 10000. This is a marvelous example of extending a system for a purpose while maintaining the intuitive meaning, and its ease of use should be a guiding example for the rest of us.
The common case should be easy; if a person can determine the decade just by looking at the date with no math, that is about as easy as it could ever get. If your extension to the system makes the common case hard or unclear, it's a bad extension. Moreover, our design process should be hostile to common disagreements, eliminating and refusing to adopt them at every turn. There's no reason to add a semantic difference of opinion where one did not previously exist. If your extension to the system causes a common disagreement, it's a bad extension. Yet we have accepted such a difference of opinion into our timekeeping and it is designed to make us disagree until the end of time. When in doubt, where the shift in understanding makes very little to no difference, just allow the intuitive understanding to be correct. (Just because I can hear the TERFs calling: trans people are not a difference of opinion. They are a fact. Designs that ignore them have never reflected reality, and the practical purpose of those designs has always been to marginalize people who are different.)
If we think there's somebody on our shoulders forcing our hand, that's just our work with computers biasing our minds. The way the computer prioritizes consistency over sense doesn't need to dictate how we organize the world. Nobody is forcing your decades to have 10 years stretching from here to eternity. Nobody is forcing you to be a contrarian and fight over minutiae, even if you're "right" and especially when you're wrong. Nobody is forcing you to design systems that allow these fights to go on indefinitely. Nobody is forcing you to build arguments into systems that are puttering along just fine.
Joe Zack • Jan 1 '20
"the smaller the stakes, the more dogged the fighting"
It's funny how often this is the case. Tabs vs Spaces, React vs Vue, etc
Mike Overby Author • Jan 1 '20
Someone said that to me once it's just...it's just everywhere.
How to organize your components using the Atomic Design
Giuseppe Sanfrancesco - Nov 12 '19
20 Gorgeous Sites Built with Twitter Bootstrap
Creative Tim - Nov 15 '19
How to Gradually Build a Design System
Eden Ella - Nov 11 '19
Code snippets to recreate those cool effects seen on famous(ish) sites
𝕊𝕒𝕚𝕛𝕠 𝔾𝕖𝕠𝕣𝕘𝕖 - Nov 13 '19
Mike Overby
Mike Overby is a software developer looking for work, host of a law review podcast called Amicus Lectio, and a moderator of Programming Discussions (invite.progdisc.club). Follow me on Twitter!
BS in CS, University of Washington, Tacoma
More from Mike Overby
Who Made My Phone Do THIS?!
#design #technology #hci #rant


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The Case Against Vaccine Mandates
Kent Heckenlively
Kent Heckenlively, New York Times bestselling author of Plague of Corruption, calls upon both common sense and legal precedence to fight against vaccine mandates around the country.
"My body, my choice!" used to be the rallying cry of the left in the abortion fight. But now this same principle of bodily autonomy is the central argument of conservatives, such as that of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in fierce opposition to so-called "vaccine passports," which would limit whether an individual could attend movies or other public events, work, or even go to school, if they chose to decline a COVID-19 vaccine.
While cities like New York close their doors to unvaccinated people, the fight against vaccine mandates is cobbling together an unexpected alliance across the political spectrum, such as the Black mayor of Boston, Kim Janey, who recently claimed, "there's a long history" in this country of people "needing to show their papers" and declaring any such passport as akin to slavery.
The starting point agreed upon by all parties as to whether the government can bring such pressure to bear upon individuals is the 1905 US Supreme Court of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. In that case, a Lutheran pastor declined a smallpox vaccination and was fined $5, the equivalent of a little more than $150 in today's currency, or less than many traffic tickets. The Jacobson case sparked a shameful legacy in American jurisprudence, being used as the sole reasoning by the US Supreme Court to allow the forced sterilization of a female psychiatric patient in 1927. This ruling paved the way for the involuntary sterilization of more than sixty thousand mental patients and gave legal justification to the eugenics movement, one of the darkest chapters in American medicine.
In The Case Against Vaccine Mandates, New York Times bestselling author Kent Heckenlively, whose books have courageously taken on Big Pharma, Google, and Facebook, now points his razor sharp legal and literary skills against vaccine passports and mandates, which he believes to be the defining issue as to whether we continue to exist as a free and independent people.
Kent Heckenlively, JD, is an attorney, science teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. During college Heckenlively worked for US Senator Pete Wilson, and in law school he was a writer and an editor of the school's law review and spent his summers working for the US Attorney's Office in San Francisco. Kent and his wife Linda live in Northern California with their two children, Jacqueline and Ben.
The Truth About Masks
Exploring Theories Against Wearing Them
by Judy Mikovits, Kent Heckenlively
Ending Plague
A Scholar's Obligation in an Age of Corruption
by Francis W. Ruscetti, Judy Mikovits, Kent Heckenlively
The Marijuana Journal
A Notebook and Diary to Record (and Remember) Your Favorite Cannabis Strains, Edibles, Recipes, Brilliant Ideas, and Hazy Experiences
by Herbie A. Stoner
Inoculated
How Science Lost Its Soul in Autism
by Kent Heckenlively
The Case for Interferon
How a 1980s Cancer Drug Might Be the Wonder Therapy for the Twenty-First Century
by Joseph Cummins, Kent Heckenlively, Judy Mikovits
Plague of Corruption
Restoring Faith in the Promise of Science
by Judy Mikovits, Kent Heckenlively, Robert Jr. F. Kennedy
The Case Against Masks
Ten Reasons Why Mask Use Should be Limited
Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health
by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Case for Vaccine Mandates
by Alan Dershowitz
Behind the Mask of Facebook
A Whistleblower's Shocking Story of Big Tech Bias and Censorship
by Ryan Hartwig, Kent Heckenlively
© 2022 Allworth Press. All Rights Reserved


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Stick To Your Guns vocalist joins Lionheart for "Rock Bottom" collab
Hardcore veterans Lionheart made their comeback from a quick hiatus back in 2017 and they've dropped a new song featuring Stick To Your Guns vocalist Jesse Barnett.
The band gave fans something new to sink their teeth into today through a new song called "Rock Bottom" that is appearing on their upcoming record, Valley Of Death.
Read More: Fit For An Autopsy drop political video for "Shepherd" shot in one take
The new track also arrives alongside an accompanying music video. In the clip, you can see the band performing in a beautifully lit room as a woman works through some personal issues were assuming relate to her own rock bottom.
The song itself is a pretty straight forward hardcore banger and shows off both vocalists flexing how hard they can go with their vocals.
You can watch the new music video for "Rock Bottom" in the player below.
The band had a very brief split in 2016 that was the result of members starting families and focusing on full-time careers.
However, almost as soon as they had disbanded, they completely and utterly regretted their decision.
"We fucked up," vocalist Rob Watson says. "Everybody missed it immediately. That's life. That's how it goes; people make bad decisions all the time. We should never have broken up. We should have just taken a break."
After announcing their breakup, the entire band started to feel something was missing from their lives. They kept attending concerts but being in the audience instead of on stage left them feeling lost.
Watson and guitarist Evan Krejci then decided to keep writing together. They were enjoying the process so much that they discussed potentially starting up a new band, but it soon became clear the style of the material was too familiar.
"Once we started recording it and demoing it, it sounded like Lionheart," Watson remarks. "It's just what we write. We couldn't put it out as a side-project because there was nothing different about it."
Valley Of Death arrives November 15 via Arising Empire and can be pre-ordered here.
What do you think of the new Lionheart song featuring Jesse Barnett from Stick To Your Guns? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
See More: 10 pop-punk shows we wish we could have gone to
Written by Joe Smith-Engelhardt


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Q: Send multiple files to a webservice I'm currently trying to send multiple files to a webservice (and to proceed, depending on the response afterwards, but that's not where I am at yet).
The following code sends one file:
 def show
   ...
   conn = Faraday.new(:url => 'webservice.abc' ) do |faraday|
     faraday.request :multipart
     faraday.adapter :net_http
   end
   payload = { :files => Faraday::UploadIO.new("#{Rails.root}/fileone.xml", 'application/xml') }
   conn.post 'http://webservice.abc', payload
   @output = response.body
end

And now I'm stuck, trying to find a way to send 2 (or more) files at once, which is necessary as the purpose of the webservice is to compare these. It seems that when I put them into an array, they can't be handled with.
So what I'm looking for is the way to "bundle" the files in order to POST them afterwards (as said before- it works with one file)
TYIA for your time

A: Thanks Deepak,
gave me a hint into the right direction. Should be :files[i], though- so the payload line from the question reads:
payload = { :files[0] => Faraday::UploadIO.new("#{Rails.root}/fileone.xml", 'application/xml'),
            :files[1] => Faraday::UploadIO.new("#{Rails.root}/filetwo.xml", 'application/xml')}


Speak Schmeak: Link for Kindle subscription is now fixed!
Link for Kindle subscription is now fixed!
Thanks to a client who was browsing my website and blog, I discovered that the link in the right sidebar to subscribe to Speak Schmeak for your Kindle was broken. Horreur!
Now it's fixed and if you've been wanting to subscribe, please do!


text:
With a proposed Stock Split and past strong quarters, should you buy into Tesla stock now?
Stocks United States Growth Play UnitedStates
learntoinvest April 2, 2022 April 7, 2022
Tesla is, without a doubt, one of the most divisive stocks of our time. Based on a 1-year chart, the stock prices ranges from $500+ to $1200+. However, the company has definitely turned around its loss-making status and has posted a number of good revenue and profit results. Hence, lets take a deep dive into its stock and evaluate both its financial and business
Over the previous three years, Tesla has been a fantastic investment for many investors. Since 2019, its stock has risen 1440%. However with news of rising interest rates and war fears, growth stocks have taken a beating in recent months. Tesla's stock price was also not spared and has dropped 33% from its high.
Even at its present share price of $806.50, the firm has a market capitalisation of $830 billion. This is greater than the total market capitalisation of the world's nine major carmakers. However, Tesla only accounts for less than 1% of global car sales. So, what makes Tesla's valuation so high? How does it compares to the other tech players like Alphabet and Meta? Is it a good time to buy now that it has fallen from its peak?
Overview of Tesla's Business
Tesla Motors was formed in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Elon Musk invested heavily in 2004 and became the company's largest stakeholder and chairman ever since. The company's vision is to accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation and energy through electric vehicles and solar energy. Tesla has sold over 2.3 million electric cars through its Model X, 3 and Y vehicles. These sales has propelled the company to become one of the most well-established EV companies in the world. In addition, Tesla Energy is also a prominent photovoltaic system installer in the United States. As of 2021, the company has installed over 3.99 gigawatt-hours and became the leading suppliers of battery energy storage systems.
Key Product & Services of Tesla
Tesla has two main businesses: Automobiles and Energy generation and storage. Some of its notable Automotive products includes the Model 3, S, X and Y series. In addition, Powerwall, Megapack and Solar Energy roofs are part of the suite of products offered by Tesla's Energy generation and storage business.
Operating Model of Tesla
Each of Tesla's two main business divisions, Automotive and Energy generation and storage, has its own unique revenue model. Vehicle revenues, regulatory credits, leasing revenue, and services are the primary categories for the Automotive Business. Sales and leasing of solar energy generation items and sales of energy incentives contribute to the Energy business.
Qualitative Factors affecting Tesla
Let's now take a deeper look into the qualitative aspects that affect the business.
Tesla's Economic Moat
1. Strong Network effect between Tesla Products
Tesla has created a moat out of platform network effects by developing a complex ecosystem of products. Tesla's Electric vehicles sit at the core of its ecosystem of products. However, the company has since developed advanced software, charging stations and other complementary products like in-home energy storage. Till date, Tesla owns the largest fast charging network in the world, with over 30000+ superchargers. Selling electric cars makes sense only if drivers can readily charge them. However, investing in a charging network only makes financial sense if there is a large enough base of electric vehicles. Hence, Tesla is addressing this "Chicken and Egg" issue by simultaneously building both Electric vehicles and charging stations. Furthermore, through its Energy business, it also provides solar roofs, solar panels, and Powerwall home batteries. These complementary products further reinforce Tesla's sustainability-focused branding and making it more appealing to customers.
2. Technology Advancements
In terms of software, Tesla is also ahead of the competition. Currently, the self-driving software is still unable to provide the full autonomy that CEO Elon Musk has promised for years. However, it is still way ahead of other legacy automakers in terms of its technology. The company has pioneered over-the-air (OTA) software updates, which can increase range, braking, power, and driver-assistance features. Most Legacy automakers are still catching up as their OTAs updates are focused mainly on maps and other "infotainment" features.
Tesla's Growth Opportunities
1. Self Driving Development
Tesla's Full Self-Driving Beta (FSD Beta) is an early version of the company's self-driving software. Currently, it is being tested by a selected group of Tesla owners who were chosen based on their "safety test score." The FSD Beta software allows the automobile to drive itself but the driver are required to stay alert at all times. Despite its name, it is still classified as a level-two driver-assist system based on the six levels of driving automation. This is because the driver is still responsible for taking control of the vehicles if necessary. There is still some time between where the software is at till it becomes Full Self-Driving (Level 5).
By Synopsys
2. Manufacturing Process
Prices of battery materials like nickel reaching new highs due to supply concerns sparked by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As a result, Tesla's in-house battery production has become a cornerstone to its growth. Their plan is to reduce the cost of battery by half as battery is the most expensive component for any electric vehicles. Tesla has plans to spearhead a new manufacturing technique known as dry electrode which was acquired from Maxwell Technologies. Currently there are still concerns with the scalability and safety aspects of this technology. However, if Tesla can successfully overcome the issues, they will dramatically reduce the cost of producing Electric vehicles.
3. Artificial Intelligence and Robotics company
In September 2020, Tesla unveiled its D1 chip, which make its Dojo supercomputer the world's fastest AI training machine. Dojo is slated to launch in Mid 2022 which paves the way for new cloud computing options. Elon Musk predicts that Tesla would eventually offer AI training as a service. This D1 chip could also accelerate Tesla's goal of full autonomy. This is line with the company plans to launch an autonomous ride-hailing service which could happen as early as 2022. The autonomous industry is a lucrative market that Tesla is keen to be a part of. ARK Invest estimates that the market for self-driving cars would be worth $2 trillion per year by 2030.
Tesla's Business Risks
1. Risk Related to Company
The speed to build factories will determine Tesla's capacity to boost production of their vehicles on a consistent basis. The construction of these factories are subjected to risks which include supply chain constraints, employment and regulations. As of today, Tesla has just built a new Gigafactory Berlin outside of the Fremont and Shanghai. There are plans to build newer factories in the future but the company has to weigh the risks that comes with it.
2. Risk Related to Industry (Competition)
Today's global automotive market is fiercely competitive, and it will only get fiercer in the future. For example, the Model 3 and Model Y face competition from both established and new automotive makers. In Europe, China, and USA, a large number of established and new automobile manufacturers have entered the EV market. Tesla has to stay at the top in both their vehicles and technology to maintain market share in the EV market.
3. Risk related to Industry (Battery Production)
Tesla's automobiles and energy products are largely reliant on the continuing supply of lithium-ion battery cells. For now, they rely on Panasonic and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) as their key battery providers. As Tesla currently only has limited suppliers, any disruption in the battery supply could limit their production. Hence, Tesla intends to produce their own battery cells in the long run. However, this will necessitate huge investments, and there is no guarantee it will succeed.
4. Risk related to Govt Regulations
Government incentives, such as tax exemptions, credits, and rebates may be lowered at any time. For example, with lesser EV incentives available in Canada this could disincentive users to switch to EV. Certain government may be also implement regulations to incentivise manufacturers who assemble locally which may be disadvantageous for Tesla. As a result, the company have to be aware of legalisation in the nations they operate in and use them to their advantage.
5. Key-man risk
Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO plays a significant role in the company and spends a considerable amount of time with Tesla. However, he does not devote his whole time and attention to the company. At the same time, Mr Musk is also the CEO of Space Exploration Technologies and other emerging technology ventures. Hence, it could be a risk to Tesla if Mr Musk decides to leave Tesla and pursue his other ventures.
Quantitative Factors affecting Tesla
Let's now take a deeper look into the quantitative aspects that affect the business.
Financial Highlights (Revenue Breakdown)
The majority of Tesla's 2021 revenue still predominantly comes from their Automotive and Services which stands at 94.8%. Their Energy Generation and Storage business accounts for the remaining 5.2%.
Source: CapitalIQ
Because of the maturity of EV markets and strong government support, Tesla's revenue in regions like the United States and China are considerably larger. This explains why ~70% of Tesla's revenue comes primarily from the US and China regions.
Key Valuation Ratios
When evaluating the financial state of a growing firm like Tesla, we must assess key financial ratios such as Revenue Growth, P/S, P/E, Gross Margin%, Operating Margin%, and FCF.
Revenue Growth (5 Year)
Tesla's 2021 revenue stands at $53.8B with 70.7% (YoY growth) and 5-Year CAGR stands at 50.4%
Price/Sales (P/S) ratio (1 Year)
The current P/S Tesla stands at 14.57x while it's 1-year Avg P/S ratio stands at 18.51x
The current P/S Tesla stands at 14.57x while it's 5-year Avg P/S ratio stands at 8.78x
Price/Earnings (P/E) ratio (1 Year) AND (5 YEAR)
Price to Earnings ratio may not be the best measurement for growth stocks like Tesla. This is because it lacks a considerable number of profitable quarters to analyze its P/E ratio.
Other Key Ratios
A company's profitability is measured using two metrics: gross profit margin and operating profit margin. The difference is that gross profit margin only considers direct manufacturing costs. Operating profit margin also considers running expenses such as overhead. While Free Cash Flow (FCF) represents the cash available for the company to repay creditors and pay out dividends and interest to investors.
Looking at Tesla's financials, its gross margin has been lingering around 20+%, its operating margin has been sitting around single digit, and its free cash flow margin has been hovering around 8-10%. An operating margin of more than 15% is regarded as good in most businesses as a rule of thumb. As a result, this demonstrates that there is still room for improvement for Tesla's financials.
Other Key Ratios 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Gross Margin % 22.8% 18.9% 18.8% 16.6% 21.0% 25.3%
Operating Margin % -9.2% -13.9% -1.2% 0.3% 6.2% 12.1%
FCF% 8.2% -12.5% -4.3% 5.3% 10.2% 8.6%
Tesla and its products, such as Model 3, Model S, Model Y have become synonymous with "Electric vehicles" today and definitely one of the benchmark EV brands in the market. Tesla's P/S ratio is 14.57 at a stock price of US$770 (as of 14 March 2022), which is slightly overvalued for an industry leader with space to grow. By 2030, the global electric vehicle market is predicted to increase at a CAGR of 18.2percent, reaching US$823.75 billion. Furthermore, Ark Invest estimated that the global self-driving vehicles industry is predicted to be worth $2 trillion per year by 2030. With these strong growth in EV industries, Tesla is poised to continue growing and be a key player in the Electric Vehicles and Self-driving vehicles industry for the foreseeable future.
Disclaimer: The information provided by LearnToInvest serves as an educational piece and is not intended to be personalized investment advice. Readers should always do their own due diligence and consider their financial goals before investing in any stock.
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text:
NOLA Soul & Art Festival
SATURDAY, May 18 | 11 A.M. - 8 P.M.
Site Staff,
NEW ORLEANS (press release) – The inaugural NOLA Soul & Art Festival is already making a big splash in a crowded New Orleans festival scene. The festival showcases the best in New Orleans Soul, Funk, Blues, Brass and Jazz on three stages while also bringing in world-class musicians from around the country. As the name suggests, the festival also shines a light on the numerous amazing artists in New Orleans' immensely talented art scene, as well as bringing in acclaimed artists from around the country.
The inaugural lineup features top-flight local and national talent including: Jack Freeman (national headliner), Tomar & the FC's (national headliner), Flow Tribe, Water Seed, Nayo Jones, Robin Barnes, CASME, KOB Brass Band & the Black Flame Hunters, Smoke N' Bones and The Caesar Brothers' Funk Box ft Big Chief Juan Pardo. Two stages will be live bands and the third stage will be a silent disco DJ stage with wireless headphones for 500+ featuring the top DJs in New Orleans: DJ Raj Smoove, DJ Captain Charles, DJ Brice Nice, DJ Kelly Green, DJ T-Roy, DJ Legatron Prime, DJ Doug Funnie, and DJ Yamin.
The NOLA Soul & Art Fest will have 60+ art vendors representing the wealth of artistic styles in our creative city and around the country.
A slew of top restaurants and will be serving up an eclectic array of delicious soulful dishes, desserts and drinks from around New Orleans, the most culinarily inclined city in America.
For additional information, updates and offers, visit NOLA Soul & Art Festival on the following platforms:
Facebook: facebook.com/nolasoulandart
Instagram: @nolasoulandart
Categories: Festivals, Lagniappe
This Week At The New Orleans Museum Of Art
Wicked Returns To The Saenger Theatre Oct. 2-20, Tickets On Sale Friday, July 19
Shake Shack Expands to Metairie with first Louisiana Location


text:
Q: List of Metadata Attribute Aliases That I can Search for in Spotlight If I open up Spotlight, I can use metadata attributes such as kind:pdf and date:today to refine my search.
I'm curious if there's a way to list all of these attributes that I can use with this syntax (attribute:value)

A: Good question. There is a page on the Apple Developer site that goes into details of Spotlight metadata attributes. Though it's developer focussed I think you'd be able to draw inferences from the attribute keys listed there, e.g.

*

*kMDItemKindDescription of the kind of item this file represents.

*kMDItemAttributeChangeDateDate and time of the last change made to a metadata attribute

*kMDItemContentCreationDateThe date and time that the content was created.

*kMDItemContentModificationDateDate and time when the content of this item was modified.

The nice thing about this list is, that it's quite exhaustive, but it also means that developers would have needed to build this into their apps, so that Spotlight could accurately index the content.
On this list you also find more "obscure" (or lesser known) attributes, such as

*

*kMDItemCreatorName of the application used to create the document content. For example, "Pages" or "Keynote".

*kMDItemKeywordsKeywords associated with this file. For example, "Birthday", "Important", etc.

*kMDItemNumberOfPagesNumber of pages in the document.

*kMDItemPageHeightHeight of the document page, in points (72 points per inch). For PDF files this indicates the height of the first page only.

If you're interested, there's also an oldish article over at the Superuser blog that gets into some of the details of using Spotlight including commands you can use from Terminal. There's a link in the article (about ⅔ down) pointing to a full list of attributes Spotlight keeps for you. That link is dead, but I've dug out a copy from the Wayback Machine for you. It's similar to the page on the Apple Developer site I provided before.
I've tried some of these examples out and it turns out that the command line would allow you to use the listed attributes, such as kMDItemLastUsedDate. It also seems to allow for a much finer use, such as Boolean use and number ranges like ">=10".
I've subsequently successfully used TextContent:"something", Country:AU (for Australian content), date>20/1/2017 (that's 20 Jan 2017 in my lingo and filters everything after that date) and author:Alex (e.g. returns documents and emails created by me) in Spotlight's GUI. This article on Spotlight tips for El Capitan & Yosemite (slide 10) mainly mentions the kind: filter, though they also name the above date and author.
What you can use very much depends on what developers of applications that save documents to disk have implemented using the metadata importer to provide Spotlight support.


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text:
Q: Returning Observer from a custom function via service : Angular 4 I am new to Observer in Angular4 as I have worked on Promises in AngularJs. I want to understand 2 scenarios:

*

*Returning observable from a function so that the UI can be changed accordingly.

*Returning continuous stream of data from a function which is reflected on the UI.
In a service (proc.svc.ts) file I created a function:
counter(){
   public counterObserver = Observable.create(obs => {
    obs.next(increment())
   });
  return counterObserver;
 }

increment(){
  setInterval(function(){
  count++
 },1000)
}

In the proc.component.ts file:
ngOnInit() {
   this.initCounter();
 }

initCounter(){
  this.procSvc.counter.subscribe(count => this.count = count);
}

I am getting below error:

Property 'subscribe' does not exist on type '() => void'.

A: seem like problem with the code also , if you want to push value at specific interval than you have to push vlaue on ovserver , like as given below push value from setInterval() function , that is also problem with you code
const evenNumbers = Rx.Observable.create(function(observer) {
  let value = 0;
  const interval = setInterval(() => {
    if (value % 2 === 0) {
      observer.next(value);
    }
    value++;
  }, 1000);

  return () => clearInterval(interval);
});
//output: 0...2...4...6...8
const subscribe = evenNumbers.subscribe(val => console.log(val));

one more thing as in example its directly subscribing to oberserver not function there is no () present but in you case its fuction as i pointed out below

try like this , as counter is function and that is problem with you code seems like
initCounter(){
  this.procSvc.counter().subscribe(count => this.count = count);
}

you have to provide return type here
counter(): Observable<datatype>{

right now it seems empty that means void. or i do as below when datatype is not known
 public getData(path: string):Observable<any>{
    return this.http.get(path, options)
        .map((response: Response) => response.json())  ;
  }

then aply subscribe on that
 getData("val").subscribe();

also import
import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Observable';


text:
1MATCH URL: https://assets.rappler.com/017DE94B7E2B468BB1629DE668D68C02/img/7E46B0D09B9D49D18AD488E7656679C3/20150103-Anna_Camp.jpg
'Pitch Perfect' co-stars Anna Camp, Skylar Astin engaged
In 'Pitch Perfect,' Anna played Barden Bella Aubrey Posen, while Skylar played Treblemaker Jesse Swanson
Published 1:29 PM, January 03, 2016
Updated 1:31 PM, January 03, 2016
CONGRATULATIONS. Anna Camp and Skylar Astin are engaged. In the photo, the couple arrives at the world premiere of 'Pitch Perfect 2' at Nokia Theatre LA Live in Los Angeles, California on May 8, 2015. File photo by Nina Prommer/EPA
MANILA, Philippines – In an acca-awesome turn of events, Pitch Perfect co-stars Anna Camp and Skylar Astin are engaged.
Anna played Aubrey Posen of the Barden Bellas in Pitch Perfect, while Skylar played Jesse Swanson, from the Bellas' rival on-campus group, The Treblemakers.
On Sunday, January 3, the couple posted the same photo of themselves on Instagram. They're all smiles, and Anna is showing off her ring.
In his photo's caption, Skylar wrote, "I asked. She said yes!!!"
I asked. She said yes!!!
A photo posted by @skylarastin on Jan 2, 2016 at 4:39pm PST
Anna, meanwhile, wrote, "He asked. I said YES!!!!"
He asked. I said YES!!!!
A photo posted by Anna Camp (@therealannacamp) on Jan 2, 2016 at 4:38pm PST
The couple reportedly started dating in June 2013, after Anna split from her husband of 3 years, actor Michael Mosley, in April 2013.
Anna, 33 and Skylar, 28 also starred in the sequel of Pitch Perfect, which was released in 2015.
What do you think of Anna and Skylar's engagement? Let us know in the comments! – Rappler.com
Filed under:Anna Camp•Aubrey Posen Pitch Perfect•Jesse Swanson Pitch Perfect•Skylar Astin•Pitch Perfect


SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The Marine Corps has initiated disciplinary action against a Marine sergeant for comments he posted on his "Armed Forces Tea Party" Facebook page criticizing President Barack Obama, a spokesman said on Thursday.
Sergeant Gary Stein, 26, a weather forecaster assigned to Camp Pendleton near San Diego, cast the Marines' reaction to his comments as an infringement on his freedom of speech and defended his right to express personal political opinions when he is off-duty and out of uniform.
But Army veteran Rick Rogers, host of the San Diego military talk radio show "Front & Center," said Stein appeared to be instigating a confrontation with the Marines "to get notoriety." Stein previously ran afoul of the military over comments on his Armed Forces Tea Party page in 2010.
Defense Department rules allow military personnel to express political opinions so long as they are not doing so as representatives of the armed services.
Armistead declined to comment further. Stein also has a separate Facebook page for a real estate business in the Southern California town of Temecula, where he lives. He did not immediately return phone calls to Reuters seeking comment. But he told the Union-Tribune that he got in trouble for a comment he posted while debating punishment faced by NATO and military personnel over burning copies of the Koran in Afghanistan last month.
News accounts at the time said Stein was rebuked by the military for criticizing Obama's national healthcare plan through his Facebook site.


text:
Unicron es un personaje ficticio del universo Transformers y la línea de juguetes. Fue creado por Floro Dery e introducido en la película animada de 1986 Transformers: la película, reapareciendo en Transformers: Armada, Transformers: Energon, Transformers: Cybertron, Transformers: Prime y el videojuego Transformers de Atari en 2004. Unicron es un robot prodigiosamente grande cuya escala alcanza proporciones planetarias, siendo capaz de transformarse en un planeta mecánico. El origen de Unicron se ha expandido a través de los años de ser simplemente un gran robot a ser un dios del caos que devora las realidades. Él emplea a menudo la ayuda de Decepticons en su trabajo, y en algunas historias se lo considera parte del origen de las fuerzas de los Decepticons.

Historia
Antes del amanecer del tiempo, el Orden y el Caos existieron dentro de una entidad extra-dimensional conocida como The One. Para explorar el universo incipiente, creó el ser astral conocido como Unicron, y luego lo subdividió, creando su gemelo, Primus. Ambos hermanos eran singularidades multiversales, únicas en todas las realidades, pero mientras que Unicron sólo podía existir en un universo a la vez, moviéndose entre ellos a voluntad, Primus existió simultáneamente en todas las realidades a la vez. Se sugiere, de hecho, que los dos hermanos encarnan los conceptos básicos de la realidad: el bien y el mal, el orden y el caos, y que su existencia continua es necesaria para la estabilidad del multiverso.

A medida que Unicron y Primus se dedicaban a su tarea designada, aventurándose a través del cosmos, se hizo evidente a Primus que Unicron era un ser corrupto, y él se encargó de detener la amenaza planteada a toda la existencia por su hermano. En combate, Primus no era rival para Unicron. En la astucia, sin embargo, demostró ser el superior de su hermano cuando cambió su batalla al plano astral, y luego de vuelta al mundo físico una vez más, sólo para tener ambas esencias presentes en los planetoides metálicos, dejándolos atrapados. Fue con este acto de sacrificio que Primus esperaba contener el mal de Unicron para siempre. Desafortunadamente para él, con el tiempo, Unicron aprendió a psicológicamente en dar forma a su prisión en un planeta metálico gigante, y Primus siguió el juego, convirtiéndose en el mundo mecánico de Cybertron.

La guerra entre Unicron (malo) y Primus (bueno) llegó a su final aparente durante una batalla clímax en la que uno de los trece, que para siempre se conocería como los caídos, traicionó a Primus y se convirtió en un acólito de Unicron. La batalla terminó cuando los Caídos y Unicron fueron aspirados en un agujero negro y desaparecieron de la realidad. Con Unicron desaparecido por ahora, Primus entró en un sueño largo de eones, su sueño auto-impuesto impidiendo que Unicron lo detectara a través del vínculo mental que compartían los hermanos.

Película live-action

Transformers: el último caballero (2017)
En la película, Transformers: el último caballero, los seis cuernos de Unicron comenzaron a aparecer fuera de la Tierra en respuesta al enfoque de Cybertron. Quintessa señala que Unicron es otro nombre para la Tierra, y Optimus Prime reconoce a Unicron como el antiguo enemigo de Cybertron. Quintessa planea drenar la energía de Unicron para restaurar a Cybertron dañado (terminar lo que Sentinel Prime comenzó), matando la vida en la Tierra en el proceso. Simmons más tarde ayuda a Burton a localizar un libro antiguo que contiene detalles sobre Unicron, y señala que el punto central de los cuernos de Unicron (durante la época en que todos los continentes de la Tierra formaron Pangea) es Stonehenge. Megatron y Quintessa comienzan a drenar la energía de Unicron, pero se frustra, y más tarde, Quintessa (disfrazada de humana) se acerca a un científico que estudia uno de los cuernos de Unicron para advertirle que no toque al caos y le ofrezca una forma de matarlo.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

 Beast Wars Neo Unicron Prototype
 Unicron en TFWIKI.Net, the Transformers Wiki

Universos fantásticos
Personajes de dibujos animados
Personajes de Transformers
Villanos ficticios
Personajes de cine
Decepticons
Gemelos ficticios
Asesinos en masa ficticios
Dioses en la ficción
Planetas vivientes

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia