After not only losing, but getting bullied in a 27-14 manhandling by the hated Raiders, Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton tried to scrawl a smiley face on this mess.

To create AI businesses, experts predicted $1 trillion would be spent on data centers, utilities and applications. Jim Covello thought those costs made it impossible for the industry to inexpensively solve real-world problems.

It’s really, really hard to assess the wisdom of a settlement from the outside. Almost every settlement represents a tradeoff of legitimate interests in a condition of uncertainty. It’s perhaps extra hard to assess settlements in the context of litigation on behalf of the public. Was a settlement for $X a major victory, a stinging … Continue reading Kamala Harris and Settlements? →

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Eventually, every stellar civilization will have to migrate to a different star. The habitable zone around all stars changes as they age. If long-lived technological civilizations are even plausible in our Universe, migration will be necessary, eventually. Could Extraterrestrial Intelligences (ETIs) use stars themselves as stellar engines in their migrations? In broad terms, a stellar …

Continue reading "A Spider Stellar Engine Could Move Binary Stars Halfway Across a Galaxy"

The post A Spider Stellar Engine Could Move Binary Stars Halfway Across a Galaxy appeared first on Universe Today.

Filmmakers love New Zealand. Its landscapes evoke other worlds, which explains why so much of The Lord of the Rings was filmed there. The country has everything from long, subtropical sandy beaches to active volcanoes. The country’s otherworldliness extends into its atmosphere, where a cloud nicknamed the “Taieri Pet” forms when conditions are right. The …

Continue reading "An Otherworldly Cloud Over New Zealand"

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Samsung, похоже, готовится к анонсу серии Galaxy S25 раньше, чем ожидалось. После нынешней премьеры Galaxy S24, которая состоялась немного быстрее, чем обычно, компания может представить новые флагманы еще в начале 2025 года.

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Check out an exclusive preview of Marco Finnegan's supernatural noir CALAVERA P.I. #2, due out from Oni Press next month.

During the early reign of King Charles III (Charles the Simple) in West Francia, the area was besieged by Viking invasions, while the memory of the previous and frequent Saracen incursions was still fresh in the minds of the general populace. The Saracens were Muslim - mostly Berbers from Africa – and had only let up on the Franks because they’d been pushed back by the Vikings. The local nobles were left largely to fend the Vikings off on their own.

In Paladins of the West Kingdom, players assume the role of these unnamed nobles (most likely Dukes), working to keep the region safe and spread their faith (historically: Christianity).  I really enjoy this theme, and in fact, playing the game nurtured my interest in the historical kingdom of West Francia.  That’s why I can tell you that while the rulebook notes that the King lends his Paladins to the nobles to aid them in their quest, I’m giving all the credit for the loan to the designers, Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald.  Paladins are a fictional group of knights in French lore (think of them as similar to the Knights of the Round Table in British lore),  or alternatively, a translation of the Frankish royal title of Palatine Count, which was a noble that focused mostly on judicial and governing matters and was not known as a knight.

I’ve won a few and lost a few games of Paladins. It’s a worker placement game that incorporates card drafting.  At the beginning of every round, players draw the next three Paladin cards in their deck and choose one to play for the round, one to put back on top of their Paladin deck to draw during the next round, and one to put at the bottom of their Paladin deck. Each Paladin boosts faith, influence, or strength (usually more than one of these), and also provides a special benefit. If you’ve got players prone to analysis paralysis, this is where they may get stalled, especially in the first few rounds. After Paladins are selected and put into play, workers for the round are selected by each player and put into their personal resource supply. You have many stations on your player board to place your workers during the round,  and when you do so, your moves are independent and walled off from your opponents (they cannot tamper with your player board or placement of your workers on it). However, there is one area on the general board (the King’s Favour card area) where you can also place your workers and those spots are competitive. Also contributing to player interaction – some of the stations on your player board where you place workers allow you to move resources (monks and outposts) from your player board to the main board, consuming a competitive spot that provides a placement reward. And all the resource cards on display around the main board – the townsfolk you can hire, the walls you can build, the outsiders you can attack or convert, the tavern cards you draw workers from, and the suspicion cards you gain $$$ from, are all lucrative items for which players must compete. So we’ve got a good mix of independent action and player interaction in Paladins.  There are not a lot of opportunities for  “take that” behavior in this game, other than perhaps timing your draw of suspicion cards to trigger an inquisition when you know your opponents will suffer a penalty and be forced to take on more debt.

Giving the game more intellectual weight, worker placement on your board and the actions workers trigger often have additional requirements beyond number and types (i.e., colors) of workers. The actions triggered by worker placement may be constrained by your strength, faith, or influence level. And some spots or actions triggered by placing workers in those spots require money or provisions. All of these prerequisites can be gained as rewards from prior actions triggered by various worker placement, so much of the game is finding the most efficient ways to obtain prerequisites associated with the series of actions you’d like to take as the game progresses. I worried this decision making would be a weak point for analysis paralysis (I’m a pretty good candidate for testing potential AP, as I’m prone to it) and while there can be a bit of that during the game, nothing excessive was logged during our plays.  

The artists (Shem Phillips on graphic design and Mihajlo Dimitrievski on illustrations) have printed helpful indicators next to each placement location on boards and cards to identify any prerequisites as well as rewards. It’s an example of how the designers have worked with the artists to layer meaningful game information into the layers of artwork. In fact, all of the symbols implemented across the game components are really quite helpful. Bonus: once you familiarize yourself with them in one of the West Kingdom games, you’ll have learned them for the entire series as the artists reuse the same symbols in all three titles.

Beyond the iconography, the illustrations and other artwork are lovely. As with the iconography, the same style of artwork is implemented across the entire series and it carries the theme well. There was a good mix of cisgender representation, but not a lot of racial diversity, especially as would be suggested by the historical setting of the game (for example, Berbers in the area had skin tones ranging from light to to dark brown).

The components for Paladins of the West Kingdom are well made.

There are wooden meeples, an assortment of foldable boards constructed from cardboard, and various plastic coated card decks. We found the rulebook to be clear and direct, and there weren’t any items we had to look up online. It would have been nice if the designers included a player aid in the components, but I was able to compensate for the oversight by downloading a detailed player aid another user uploaded to the forums on BoardGameGeek.com.

Paladins of the West Kingdom is my favorite game of the West Kingdom series. All of the worker types and available actions make sense within the context of the theme, the mechanisms (worker placement, card drafting) integrate tightly with the scoring system to provide opportunities for building a victory point engine, and the game is complex and interesting yet still accessible for new players. The game is also a great value at its price point (approx $50) given you’ll get dozens of multiplayer games in before even a hint of same-o same-o creeps in. Many games with comparable replayability and complexity are double the price of Paladins. There’s also a solo play mode, which provides an additional way to explore the game.

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Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Players: 1-4 (We played with 2)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 2 hours per game
Game type: card drafting, worker placement
Retail Price: $50

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

“Alan Wake II: The Lake House houdt je op het puntje van je stoel”  Pragalicious

1. Spanje bereidt zich voor op nieuw noodweer: code rood in Malaga en Tarragona, weerdienst waarschuwt voor ‘extreem gevaar’  De Morgen
2. Spanje zet zich schrap voor nieuwe ‘DANA’: code rood in Malaga en Tarragona, al 3.000 mensen geëvacueerd  Het Laatste Nieuws
3. Opnieuw code rood voor regen in delen van Spanje: “extreem gevaar” in Malaga en Tarragona  Het Nieuwsblad
4. Evacuaties in Valencia door instortingsgevaar 50 appartementen  De Morgen
5. Spaanse weerdienst waarschuwt opnieuw voor noodweer: “Zeer sterke en aanhoudende regen”  De Standaard

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The rotation curves of disc galaxies are flat and dark matter is speculated as explanation. Alternatively, the gravity of material disk could explain the flat curves. Using the gravitational force that a disk exerts on a body in the disk, we have computed the the rotation curves of disc galaxies and the curve of their...

Chelse­a looks to add promising young talent to their team with new transfer targets emerging this summer. The­ club hopes..

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(Shortlink to this post: https://debbieohi.link/goodnight-ganesha)

I met Nadia Salomon through the SCBWI and am also familiar with her online. I love her enthusiasm, positive outlook, and the support she has shown fellow members of the kidlit community over the years! I was excited to get a sneak peek of GOODNIGHT GANESHA, her debut as a picture book author. The bedtime story celebrates nigthtime rituals as two young children visit their grandparents in India. SUCH gorgeous illustrations by Poonam Mistry. Thanks to both Nadia and Poonam for answering some questions about the book as well as their advice for young writers and illustrators!

Nadia Salomon lives in northern California with her family. Nadia writes picture book, middle-grade, and graphic novel manuscripts with themes of South Asian and Caribbean culture, STEM, non-fiction, and humor. Nadia is the winner of the 2020 SCBWI Service Award and the 2019 SCBWI WOOP Honor Award for work of outstanding progress on her non-fiction, picture book manuscript, MYRLIE: A VOICE OF HOPE. You can find out more about Nadia on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. You can sign up for her newsletter here.

Poonam Mistry is a freelance illustrator living in the UK and graduated in 2010 with a degree in Graphic Design and Illustration at the University of Hertfordshire. Poonam creates her beautifully intricate images by hand using fine liners and then digitally alters them. You can find out more about Poonam on her website, Twitter, and Instagram.

Synopsis of GOODNIGHT GANESHA (Philomel, Aug. 31, 2021):

"As nighttime falls over the city, two children visiting their grandparents in India find there’s so much fun to be had! Whether it’s listening to epic stories or observing rituals in the puja room, there are many moments that make this time together special. In this beautiful, rhyming ode to bedtime, the only thing more universal than getting ready for bed and saying goodnight is the love between children and their grandparents."

Inspiration photo from Poonam Mistry.

Q. What was your path to publication?

Nadia: I'm a #PitMad success story. I landed my amazing agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, through twitter pitching! That's about three years after joining SCBWI. But my debut, GOODNIGHT GANESHA, is not the story she faved, but instead what I call a 'hot potato' idea inspired by my child. I wrote the draft in October of 2017. I sent it to several editors and agents I had connected with through conferences, but received lots of champagne rejections before shelving it. It was one of 21 manuscripts I shared with my agent in March of 2018. She loved the concept, but asked me to write the story in lyrical prose. After rounds of revisions, in January of 2019, she finally accepted the manuscript. She sent it out on sub. Six months later, in July of 2019, we sold the manuscript to Liza Kaplan, a senior editor at Philomel Books. I am now traditionally published. From concept to release will be 3 years, 10 months, 14 days to be exact.

Q. What interaction did you have with the illustrator, if any, during the process?

Nadia: Poonam and I interacted behind the scenes, but we NEVER discussed GOODNIGHT GANESHA or the art for the book. I trusted her whole-heartedly. All work related communications went through our editor. We became friends behind the scenes - coping through the pandemic, bonding over shared culture, family, and everything else in between, but we NEVER had convos as she worked on the book. The one time was at the end, when Poonam completed the art and asked me, "DID YOU SEE THE FINAL ART YET?" And I was like, "Uhm...NO." She was so excited. She said she put a lot of extra details and hoped I liked it. I was so antsy, but stayed calm. A few days later I received the final art. It was just incredible! We had a good cry messaging back and forth over the final art and what this project meant to each of us. We're about to contribute a piece of Telugu Culture and Kalamkari art into kidlit; we're ecstatic and proud of what we created together.

Q. What was your illustration process for GOODNIGHT GANESHA?

Poonam: For Goodnight Ganesha, I began by actually taking photographs around my parent's house. They have a lot of decorative ornaments and wall hangings all around their home so this was the perfect starting point for the book. Nadia's text is so poetic and beautiful so I sketched the imagery I felt best represented each spread and would really showcase her words- usually I have several versions for each part of the text and pick the ones I like the most. Once this was approved, I sketched out larger versions on thick cartridge paper and used black ink to draw in the designs in neat. This is where I added all the patterns and details. Mostly I took inspiration from traditional Indian art such Kalamkari textiles and Madhubani art. I layered the patterned very much like you would see on sarees and fabrics. After completing the drawing, I used Photoshop to add colour and additional patterns to finish it off. Some of the spreads have a patterned border- this was because I wanted them to look like wall hangings and Kalamkari textile pieces- big pieces of art!

Q. What advice do you have for young writers?

Nadia: Read, read, read. Write your stories. Make writing a habit. Write, write, write. Use the power of storytelling to change the world through joy. Explore your emotions, your memories, and create new classics. There's someone out there, an adult, another child, a pair of hands waiting to read your story that may impact or influence their life. No matter your age, your size, your voice - your words have value.

Q. What advice do you have for young illustrators?

Poonam: My biggest piece of advice is to do art that is true to yourself. My style is a real reflection of the things I love and what makes me who I am. It is my visual voice. Also always keep drawing and be experimental in the media you use. Although my work is mostly digital, I love painting in my style!

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For more insights from book creators, see my Inkygirl Interview Archives.

You probably haven’t given a lot of thought to the damaging effects of tire wear, at least when it comes to our food supply. But a study out of the University of Vienna (UV) will likely change your perspective on that. [...]

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Scientists have long known that magnetic fields probably extract energy from spinning black holes — they just didn’t know how.

Join Princeton University Glee Club for a three-day celebration of the Glee Club’s past, present and future with a festival of singing, camaraderie and concerts! On November the 16th at 5pm, a massed choir of Glee Clubbers past and present convenes for a Gala Concert which evokes the history of the choir, and which ushers in its future. This performance features the world premiere of “More to Live For” by Shruthi Rajasekar ’18, composed to be sung together by Glee Clubbers of all generations. *** PUGC 150th CELEBRATION - a 3 day festival! Opening Concert: The King Singers with the Princeton University Glee Club Friday November 15th, 7:30pm Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, NJ Gala Concert: PUGC - Then, Now, and Onwards! with the Princeton University Glee Club and PUGC alumni Saturday November 16th, 5pm Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, NJ Glee Club Come-and-Sing: Fauré Requiem with the Princeton University Glee Club and PUGC alumni Sunday November 17th, 2:30pm Princeton University Chapel, Princeton, NJ

Time to cross the border to Johor Bahru for a shopping and dining experience. To start this ultimate shopping experience, head to one of the closest malls to Singapore, Paradigm Mall JB, located in Johor Bahru. Paradigm Mall Johor Bahru is also known as the largest shopping mall in Johor Bahru. There are more than ... Read more

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Welcome to an enlightening exploration into the world of macronutrients. These fundamental components of our diet — proteins, carbohydrates, and fats — play integral roles in our body’s physiological functions. While they’re clearly important to our health and well-being, they often remain shrouded in mystery for most of us. By learning more about macronutrients, you’ll understand how ... Read more

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