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Rider Injured In Three Vehicle Collision

A collision in Paget yesterday involving a car and two motorcycles resulted in one of the motorcycle riders being injured. A police spokesperson said, “Shortly after 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, police, Bermuda Fire and Rescue along with Emergency Medical Services, attended a serious road traffic collision involving a motor car and two motorcycles […]




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Two Vehicle Collision On Harbour Road

[Updated] A two vehicle collision involving a car and a motorcycle occurred this afternoon [Sept 29] on Harbour Road in Warwick. A police spokesperson said, “Around 2:20pm Sunday, 29th September 2024, police officers responded to a reported two vehicle collision on Harbour Road in Warwick. “Details remain limited at this time. “However, it is understood […]




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Woman Injured In Single Vehicle Collision

[Updated] Police responded to a single vehicle collision on North Shore Road in Hamilton parish this morning. A police spokesperson said, “Around 8:55am Monday, 30th September 2024, police officers responded to a reported single vehicle collision on North Shore Road in Hamilton parish. “Details remain limited at this time. “However, it is understood that a woman […]




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Between 4 And 6 Collisions Being Reported Daily

There are “between 4 and 6 RTCs being reported daily,” and the police are urging people to “slow down, always drive sober, do not drive when stressed or tired, put your phone down and please wear your seatbelt and fasten your helmet.” Acting Superintendent Robert Cardwell said, “By design, it was hoped that increased traffic […]




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Woman Injured In Collision Near Darrell’s Wharf

A 45-year-old female motorcyclist was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after colliding with a car near Darrell’s Wharf in Warwick. A police spokesperson said, “At last check, a female rider hurt in a reported two vehicle collision near Darrell’s Wharf in Warwick around 2:20pm Sunday, 29th September 2024, apparently received treatment at King Edward VII Memorial […]




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Motorcyclist Injured In Collision In Warwick

A 30-year-old male motorcycle rider was injured in a collision in Warwick this afternoon [Oct 7]. A police spokesperson said, “Around 1:25 pm on Monday, October 7, 2024, police and other first responders attended a serious single vehicle collision involving a motorcycle at the junction of Middle Road and Ten Pin Crescent, Warwick. “Upon arrival, […]




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No Access To Bermuda College This Morning

[Updated] There is no access to Bermuda College this morning [Oct 9] the police have confirmed. A police spokesperson said, “Please be advised there is currently no access to Bermuda College due to an industrial accident on the compound. There have been no reported injuries at this time. Police and Bermuda Fire and Rescue Service are […]




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Police Witness Appeal: Two Vehicle Collisions

On October 8, 2024, police found two abandoned vehicles in separate road traffic collisions in Smiths and Sandy’s, with no injuries reported. A police spokesperson said, “Around 1:25 a.m. on Monday, October 8, 2024 Police received a report of a single vehicle road traffic collision [RTC] on Middle Road, near the junction with Verdmont Road, […]




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Two Vehicle Collision In Southampton Parish

There has been a two vehicle road traffic collision involving a motorcar and a motorcycle in the area of Barnes Corner in Southampton Parish. A police spokesperson said, “There has been a two vehicle road traffic collision involving a motorcar and a motorcycle in the area of Barnes Corner, Southampton Parish. “Details are limited at […]




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Collision Involving Bus & Pedestrian In Hamilton

[Updated] “There has been a serious road traffic collision involving a PTB bus and a pedestrian at the junction of Bermudiana Road and Front Street in the City of Hamilton,” the police said this morning [Oct 30]. A police spokesperson said, “Details are limited at this time, however, the scene is currently being processed and traffic […]




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57-Year-Old Man Injured In Motorcycle Collision

A road traffic collision between two motorcycles yesterday [Nov 3] left one man with injuries, while the second driver left the scene before police arrived. A police spokesperson said, “Shortly after 5:15pm on Sunday, November 3, 2024, police attended a road traffic collision involving two motorcycles near the junction of Parson’s Road and Crossland Lane, […]




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Motorcycle Collision In Hamilton Parish

[Updated] “There has been a serious road traffic collision involving two motorcycles on Blue Hole Hill, Hamilton Parish,” the police said this evening [Nov 7]. “The roadway is currently closed, with traffic being diverted through the Grotto Bay compound. Motorists heading into or out of the east end are encouraged to delay their departure, if possible […]




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Vote For Jamie Madison Jacket Collection

The Jamie Madison Collection is marking its sixth year, with the public invited to “shape the future of the collection” by voting for a preferred jacket style. Founder Jaime Ramsay said, “As we reflect on the past six incredible years, the Jamie Madison Collection team is overwhelmed with gratitude for the unwavering support from our […]




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HenryJets And Luxury Concierge Collaboration

HenryJets.com and Bermuda Luxury Concierge announced a collaboration that they said “promises to elevate the standard of luxury travel.” A spokesperson said, “This partnership seamlessly integrates the premier private jet services of HenryJets.com with the bespoke, high-end hospitality and lifestyle management of Bermuda Luxury Concierge, crafting a truly sophisticated travel experience. “Clients will now enjoy […]




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BTA Announces Collaboration With Oprah Daily

The Bermuda Tourism Authority announced a collaboration with Oprah Daily to feature Bermuda’s natural beauty and culture on the travel series Adventures with Gayle and Adam, which premiered on August 9, 2024. A spokesperson said, “The Bermuda Tourism Authority [BTA] has announced the culmination of its collaboration with Oprah Daily, resulting in a featured segment […]




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With Joe Biden we get fascism: the collusion of government and corporatism

This ruling class of administrative state, big tech, corporations: all of these people think that they can get rid of Trump and we'll go back to normal. They're wedded to a broken system that has sold out the American people. And now they're going to try to sell out the American people and the middle class especially. They're not going to fix immigration; they're not going to fix trade deals; they're not going to break up big tech; they're not going to do any of these things. Continue reading




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Board Game Review: Red Rising (Collector’s Edition)

I had a board game first this summer: I read an entire series of novels in preparation for playing a board game. When Jamey Stegmaier announced he was designing a new game with Alex Schmidt based on the award winning Red Rising  series by Pierce Brown, his excitement was so palpable that I wanted to understand the draw of the saga held for him. I checked my local library and the first book was already reserved, with a long waiting list in line before me. So I took the plunge and purchased the whole series from Amazon, hoping it would captivate me as it seemed to have done for Jamey.

Start with a narrative universe politically ordered by a tightly controlled color coded caste system;  pull in the concept of a boarding school with quirky teachers (like Hogwarts from Harry Potter) but introduce some structural changes to the school so that only the most socioeconomic elite in the caste system are permitted to attend; have the students compete in fight to the death brutal competitions (evocative of The Hunger Games but more violent and rape-y); explore the dynamic of class struggles and the penchant for revolution the lower castes foment; and you’ve got a good understanding of the Red Rising series that details the life and times of our protagonist, Darrow O’Lykos. To be honest, it’s an intense and difficult read due to the graphic nature of the violence (definitely not a story I want to see acted out on the big screen). But it’s well written literature and it makes you think.

Once I finished the book series, I was emotionally charged and ready to play Red Rising. I unboxed my review copy, invited over a few friends, and sat down for my first game. Jacqui Davis, Miles Bensky, and Justin Wong designed the artwork for the game and I’d describe it overall as futuristic, with a cartoonish bent when it comes to the character cards.

Before we get into the mechanics of the game, the components for Red Rising  Collector’s Edition warrant a discussion. I loved the weight of the metal influence cubes and fleet tokens handed out to each player. Likewise, the start player token, sovereign token, central board, and house cards are well constructed. And I appreciated the gold foil on the character cards. However, our first group of players gathered around our game table (and subsequent groups I played with) identified nuisance problems with some of the components. Each player’s set of metal influence cubes is  a different color and the yellow and gold sets are difficult to distinguish from across the table. The card holders included exclusively in the Collector’s edition are a disaster.

Every single person I played with managed to accidentally knock over their holder several times during a game, spilling out their hand for all to see repeatedly. Finally, the character cards reveal some questionable graphic design and font choices. For example, it was very difficult for all of us in the middle age cohort to read “obsidian” printed on the black cards.  None of these issues are significant enough to downvote the game, but I hope to see them corrected in future print runs.    

Onto the mechanics… Red Rising  is a mid-weight board game with a primary focus on cards and hand management. At the start of the game, each player is dealt 5 character cards and a house card (which grants a special ability). One of the primary goals is to build a hand of highly valued character cards (tabulated at the end of the game using the interaction formulas printed on the bottom of each card). To build this hand, players will use most of their turns to discard a character card from their hand to the board (called deploying) and then pick up a character card from a different column of the board. 

To spice things up, each card has a deploy ability that is triggered when the card is deployed (for example, a card might let you banish another card, move a card from one column to another on the board, immediately choose another card on the board to redeploy, etc). And each time you pick up a character card, you get a bonus immediately that edges you closer to victory along the path of one of the other strategic goals established in the game – either the receipt of helium tokens (worth 3 VPs each), forward movement along the fleet track (increasing VPs for each step forward), the possession of the sovereign token (10VPs if held at end of game), or influence cube placement on the influence area of the board (worth 4/2/1 VPs each, depending on your player’s rank in the influence cube area population). Instead of discarding+picking up on your turn,  there’s also an option, called scouting, to simply draw from the deck, place the drawn card on a column on the board, and then gain the bonus for that column. This option might be used when you are completely satisfied with your hand and can’t bear to part with any of it, or when you’re trying to pad the columns with cards of certain colors (some cards give you end game points per card of X color on the board) and crossing your fingers you can draw them.  It should be used sparingly since you miss out on the deploy ability when scouting.

I didn’t encounter a lot of analysis paralysis when playing this game, and it plays in under an hour (maybe 90 minutes for your very first time at higher player counts).  There’s plenty of replayability in the box given the large assortment of cards, but I do wonder if they’re going to eventually release an expansion for Red Rising  to keep things fresh for experienced players with different character card abilities or new point tallying interaction rules.

Jamey and Alex have hit on an accessible and winning combination by supporting a large spectrum of player counts (1-6), providing mid-weight complexity, keeping the gameplay tight enough to finish in under an hour, and selling it for under $60 at launch. And perhaps most importantly for players who worship theme and backstory, playing the game feels incredibly personal after you’ve read the books. I felt connected to the characters as they were revealed from the deck because of my experience reading the series. I was delighted to have the Sevro card in my hand, giddy to be given the House of Mars player role, and I flushed with anger when the Jackal card appeared on the board. I spent a lot of the game explaining the highlights of each character to my friends as new cards were laid down. Pretty sure I had to fight back tears when Eo’s card came up. In one of our games, my friend Malinda played Apollo and probably didn’t understand why I worked so tirelessly to thwart her efforts. Red Rising  is a solid OUI! OUI! OUI! from me for those who have read the series (and a OUI! OUI! for those who haven’t). Get the Red Rising  book series and read it and then get the game and play it. In that order. And consider pairing  the series with the game as a generous present for someone you love who loves board games and great dystopian novels.

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Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Players: 1-6
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 45 minutes per game
Game type: hand management

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.




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College Students Win National Geographic Map Awards

As college campuses across the country close for summer recess, we know of a few students heading home that are perhaps a little happier because their maps earned awards. National Geographic sponsors several map awards
(see http://natgeomaps.com/mapawards) to reward student innovation—so far six students have won this year:

Ben Coakley, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Scheduled Service on Small Airlines in Canada, Summer 2008.
Daniel Huffman, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Rising Skyline: The Tallest Buildings in Europe, 1875-2007.


Mathieu Noble, Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS), Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC), King of Coal.




Wes Jones, Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS), Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC), Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens.
Cindy Prostak, Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS), Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC), St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Gregg Verutes, San Diego State University, Health, Poverty and Place in Accra, Ghana.

Check out http://natgeomaps.com/mapawards for more information and updates.




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San Juan College :: 'Leave No Trace' Training

Last weekend my class and I headed to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park for a Leave No Trace Trainer Course. The training was a part of a Wilderness Ethics class being offered by San Juan College. We were all super pumped to be headed to a beautiful place like the Black Canyon for a “class”.

If you have ever been on a Leave No Trace Trainer Course, then you will know that the first topic talked about is Plan Ahead and Prepare. Our instructor mentioned that it might be the most important principle as it will set you up for success for your next outdoor adventure. Included in the discussion were the hiking/backpacking 10 Essentials, in which a map is one of those ten. As a self-proclaimed “map geek”, I was pretty excited to see our instructor pull out the Trails Illustrated Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Curecanti NRA Map.

The map was a vital resource for planning our hikes for the weekend. By studying the contour lines and trail distances on the map we were able to determine which trails were the most suited to our group’s physical abilities and the class’ educational purposes. The map provided basic details like restroom locations, but was also detailed enough to show us what areas of the park required a backcountry permit. The map made several appearances during our hikes and quite a few more back at camp while students planned a return trip later this fall.

David Whitford – Student, San Juan College





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Germany to hold snap election in February after government's coalition collapse - ABC News

  1. Germany to hold snap election in February after government's coalition collapse  ABC News
  2. The briefcase, the Porsche and the collapse of the German government – podcast  The Guardian
  3. Germany set for snap election following collapse of Olaf Scholz’s coalition  The Conversation
  4. President calls German early election plan 'realistic'  DW (English)




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College Football Playoff Rankings: Oregon, Ohio State on top; Alabama enters top 10

The second set of College Football Playoff Predictions were released Tuesday night, with Oregon, Ohio State and Texas listed in the top three spots. See the complete rankings!




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College Football Playoff rankings takeaways: Colorado's path, Indiana undervalued

FOX Sports' RJ Young offers up three takeaways from the second set of College Football Playoff rankings, including Colorado's path to the CFP ... and the national title game.




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what 'polite' means: Culpeper, O'Driscoll & Hardaker (2019)

I've studied the word please off and on for a few years now.* Currently, I'm trying to finish up a study that I started an embarrassing number of years ago. Now that I've returned to it, I have the pleasure of reading all the works that have been published on related topics in the meantime. They couldn't inform my study design, but they must now inform the paper I hope to publish. One of these is a chapter by Jonathan Culpeper, Jim O'Driscoll and Claire Hardaker: "Notions of Politeness in Britain and North America," published in the book in From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness, edited by Eva Ogiermann and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (Cambridge UP, 2019). 

Their question, what does polite mean in the UK and US, was a research project on my to-do list. When I was a younger scholar, I'd have been (a) royally annoyed with those authors for getting to it first, (b) sad, sad, sad that I didn't get to do a fun piece of research, and (c) consumed with self-loathing for not being quick enough to do the project myself. It is both the blessing and curse of middle age that I now look at anything anyone else has done with gratitude. Good! Now I don't have to do it! 

Let's start with why it's interesting to ask about "notions of politeness" in the two countries. Here's a clue from an earlier post about use of please when ordering at restaurants. I asked:
So, how can it be that Americans think of themselves as polite when they fail to extend this common courtesy word?
I argued that Americans (subconsciously) find the lack of please in these contexts "more polite." In the comments section for that post, some people—mostly British people—could just not accept that a food order without a please could be described as polite. To them, to be polite includes saying please. If you're not using the word please, it's just not polite. 

Now, part of the reason for that disagreement is that I was using the word polite in linguistic-theory-laden ways. The distinction between how the word politeness is used in linguistic discussions and how it's used in everyday life has become such a problem for us linguists that we now talk about polite1 and polite2 to distinguish commonplace understandings of polite (1) from our theoretical uses (2). The failures of communication in my previous blogpost probably stemmed from having three understandings of politeness at play: the linguist's polite2, American polite1, and British polite1. 


Postcard from the How to be British series


 

Culpeper et al. set out to contrast British and American polite1. They point out that academic research on the topic of British/American politeness is "full of stereotypes that have largely gone unexamined." These stereotypes hold that British culture favo(u)rs maintaining social distance by using indirectness and avoidance in interaction, while Americans are more interested in creating interactional intimacy by being informal and open. The authors asked: how do AmE and BrE speakers use the word polite? If differences exist, then do they conform to the stereotypes, or do they tell us something new? To investigate this, the authors used two sets of data.


Part 1: clustering 'polite' words in the OEC

First, they searched the Oxford English Corpus, where they found thousands of instances of polite. In AmE, it occurs 6.8 times and in BrE 8.8 times per million words. They then used corpus-linguistic tools to determine which words polite was most likely to co-occur with in the two countries' data. They then used statistical tools to group these collocates into clusters that reflect how they behave linguistically. (I'll skip over the detail of the statistical methods they use, but it suffices to say: they know what they're doing.) For example in the British data, words like courteous, considerate, and respectful form a courteous cluster, while words like cheery, optimistic, and upbeat are in the cheerful cluster. 

The British and American datasets were similar in that polite co-occurred at similar rates with words that formed cheerful and friendly clusters. This seems to go with the common stereotype of American politeness as outgoing and inclusive, but contradicts the British stereotype of reserved behavio(u)r. 

The most notable difference was that British polite collocated with words in a sensible cluster, including: sensible, straightforward, reasonable, and fair. This cluster didn't figure in the American data. The British data also had a calm cluster (calm, quiet, generous, modest, etc.), which had little overlap with American collocates. British polite, then, seems to be associated with "calm rationality, rather than, say, spontaneous emotion." 

Other clusters seemed more complex. Courteous and charming came up as British clusters, while American had respectful, gracious, and thoughtful clusters. However, many of the words in those clusters were the same. For example, almost all the words in the British courteous cluster were in the American gracious cluster. That is, in American courteous and attentive were more closely associated with 'gracious' words like open-minded and appreciative, while British courteous and attentive didn't intersect with more 'gracious' words. Respectful is a particularly interesting case: it shows up in the courteous cluster for the British data, but has its own respectful cluster in American (with words like compassionate and humane). 
 
Looking at these clusters of patterns gives us a sense of the connotations of the words—that is to say, the associations those words bring up for us. Words live in webs of cultural assumptions. Pluck one word in one web, and others will reverberate. But it won't be the same words that would have reverberated if you'd plucked the same word in the other web. It's not that compassionate wasn't in the British data, for example—it's that its patterns did not land it in a cluster with respectful.  In American, respectful seems to have "a warmer flavour" with collocates relating to kindness and positive attitudes toward(s) others, while in the British data respectful has "older historic echoes of courtly, refined, well-mannered behaviour." 

Part 2: 'politeness' and sincerity on Twitter

Their second investigation involved analy{s/z}ing use of polite and its synonyms in a particular 36-hour period on Twitter. The data overall seemed to go against the stereotypes that American politeness is "friendly" and British is "formal", but once they looked at the data in more detail, they discovered why: US and UK words differed in (in)sincerity. In the British data, respectful seemed to "be used as a vehicle for irony, sarcasm and humour", while in the American data friendly "appears to have acquired a negative connotation" about 17% of the time, in which "friendly" people were accused of being untrustworthy or otherwise undesirable. This also underscores the idea that American respectful has a "warmer flavour" than British respectful. It's intriguing that each culture seems to be using words stereotypically associated with them (American–friendly; British–respectful) in ironic ways, while taking the less "typical of them" words more seriously.  

Yay for this study! 

I'm grateful to Culpeper, O'Driscoll and Hardaker for this very interesting paper, which demonstrates why it's difficult to have cross-cultural discussions of what's "polite" or "respectful" behavio(u)r. The more we're aware of these trends in how words are interpreted differently in different places, the better we can take care in our discussions of what's polite, acceptable, or rude. 


*If you're interested in the fruits of my please labo(u)rs so far, have a look at:





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Marguerite Sheffer’s playlist for her story collection “The Man in the Banana Trees”

"I’m always on the lookout for songs that include a gear-change moment in them: so useful for figuring out those climactic moments in a short story where a turn happens."




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Heidi Bell’s playlist for her story collection “Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse”

"For this playlist, I’ve strung together some favorite songs that reflect the subject matter and themes of the stories and that serve as fuel for my creative process."




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Spirit Airlines preparing bankruptcy filing after talks with Frontier Airlines collapse: report

Shares of the company were down 39% at $1.8 after the bell. The stock has fallen nearly 80% this year, while the S&P 500 passenger airlines index jumped 52%. The ultra-low cost carrier is in advanced discussions with bondholders to hammer out a bankruptcy plan that would have support from a…




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College Students Built Frozen-Themed Prosthetic Arm for a 9-Year-Old Girl to Help Fulfill Her Dream of Becoming a Disney Princess

The arm was created by Enabling the Future, which has a chapter at Sienna College in Albany, New York. For its first project the Siena e-NABLE group made an Iron Man-themed hand for 5-year-old Jack Carder in Ohio.



In this case, nine-year-old Karissa Mitchell's (who was born without a right hand and most of her wrist) mother reached out to the group on campus, Siena College's director of marketing and communications said.

"She's watched the movie at least 100 times. We sing the songs all the time. We even have a karaoke machine that's 'Frozen'-themed," said Karissa's mother. The prosthetic was built using a 3-D printer and is comprised of 30 parts (it took near 30 hours to make).

To help Karissa achieve her dream of becoming a Disney princess, the team used "a pretty transparent ice blue color filament and added snowflakes to the forearm and her name with an Elsa crown on the cuff," said Alyx Gleason, the project lead and president of Siera e-NABLE. The arm also came with an Olaf LED light source.

Anyone who is in need of an arm or hand is encouraged to reach out to Siena e-NABLE.





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First 4 Figures - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Hylian Shield (Collector's Edition) $59.99 at Best Buy

$50 off
https://cag.vg/X2Et




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$50 Numskull SEGA Shenmue Ryo Hazuki Figure 10" 28cm Collectible Replica Statue Amazon

$50 Numskull SEGA Shenmue Ryo Hazuki Figure 10" 28cm Collectible Replica Statue Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09YD53SJR




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Kink Men: Carter Collins and Colt Spence – “Big Fat Man Meat”

New on Kink Men: Colt Spence has had a terrible morning. It’s taking him longer than he anticipated to complete an endeavor that required him to report to work on a Sunday to try and wrap it up. Fortunately, the workshop is situated close to the bus station in the heart of town, and Colt... View Article

The post Kink Men: Carter Collins and Colt Spence – “Big Fat Man Meat” appeared first on QueerClick.




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What explains the outsized success of autistic applicants to college

Z went to a Duke recruiting weekend where accepted kids can get a feel for the university. He hung out with some kids who decided to go to Harvard and Stanford, and a bunch of kids who decided on Duke. What was similar about all of them? They talked openly about having autism. At lunch […]

The post What explains the outsized success of autistic applicants to college appeared first on Penelope Trunk Careers.




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My Jewish college kid is protesting the war in Gaza. And I’m proud.

In the last 48 hours many of Y’s friends have been arrested for being part of an anti-war encampment at their college. I am shocked by the large number of college encampments across the US, but I knew this was coming because Y (who goes by they) has been discussing it for months. We are […]

The post My Jewish college kid is protesting the war in Gaza. And I’m proud. appeared first on Penelope Trunk Careers.




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Jo Dunkley, Suzanne Staggs and colleagues awarded $53M to upgrade prominent observatory

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $52.66 million grant to fund a major infrastructure upgrade to the Simons Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Upgrades are expected to take about five years; the resulting facility will be known as the Advanced Simons Observatory (ASO).




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Princeton-HBCU research collaborations continue with 10 new projects

This is the second round of Princeton Alliance for Collaborative Research (PACRI) projects partnering HBCU and Princeton researchers.




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A Princeton humanities project shares a vast digital 'Miracles of Mary’ collection of centuries-old African stories and art

Professor Wendy Laura Belcher and a primarily Ethiopian team of researchers and translators have brought new insight and access to Marian miracle stories — all now available on a website.




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Princeton creates Office of Innovation to enhance ecosystem for research, start-ups, tech transfer and industry collaboration

Craig B. Arnold has been named Princeton’s first University Innovation Officer and heads the new office.




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Endowment continues to provide foundation for Princeton’s groundbreaking research, innovative scholarship and national leadership on college affordability

In the Class of 2028, 71.5% of students qualify for financial aid and 21.7% of the class are lower-income students eligible for federal Pell grants.




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5 Things with LPCollins

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with LPCollins, who volunteers as a Dutch translator and beta reader for the Translation Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I am part of the Translation committee, more specifically as a translator and beta reader for the Dutch team. (Hallo, iedereen!) I have also recently found my way into the Tag Wrangling committee, but that is all still very new and shiny, so I’ll be focussing on my role in Translation for this post. That role pretty much means that I help with the translation of the AO3 FAQs and tutorials, news posts, email templates and the occasional tag or user ticket that arrives in Dutch, a rare treat when speakers of your language are very accustomed to using English in online spaces. I am very proud of the role that our committee gets to play in diversifying the OTW and slowly but surely making it more accessible for users world-wide. Compared to the userbase speaking Chinese, Spanish or Russian, Dutch may seem like a very tiny, not-so-important piece of that puzzle, but doesn’t that only make it cooler that we can support such languages too?

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

One of my absolute favorite things about the Translation committee is that you get to schedule the work according to your own needs. I am a chaos demon with fluctuating energy levels, so I’m not sure about having a “typical week” and that’s perfectly fine with Translation.

Basically, at some point one of our lovely volunteer managers will send me an assignment, either a document that needs to be translated from scratch or a translation from one of my teammates that I need to beta read. Assignments always have a deadline too, shorter ones for urgent news posts and longer ones for longer documents. Depending on the length of the document, what I need to do with it, my mood and the alignment of the stars, I might do it right away, or spread it out over a week, or just do it on the day of the deadline. Then I let our staff know that I’m done and they send me a new task and so on. There have been weeks when I didn’t complete a single task and there have been days when I completed two, and it just works for me.

What made you decide to volunteer?

Look, I seem to be living in a world where all the paid jobs aren’t very interesting and all the interesting jobs aren’t very paid. (Will take recommendations for other worlds.) Point is, I am always drawn to ways to help organizations that I care about with a hands-on approach. Before I joined the OTW, I was a volunteer for IMAlive’s crisis support chat (big shout-out to Random Acts for providing my training), which I loved doing but unfortunately became too time-consuming when I needed to start working on my master’s thesis. Since I had been spending a lot of time on AO3 for years at that point, the OTW was an easy next target for when I did have some spare time again.

I also have a degree in Dutch and English linguistics and literature, so translator was definitely one of the most appealing OTW positions from the get-go. I distinctly remember waiting for a chance to apply, checking every Translation recruitment post that popped up on AO3 to see if they needed someone for Team Dutch yet, as the committee always recruits for specific languages. As soon as Dutch was listed in one of the posts, I didn’t hesitate about applying, and I was lucky enough to be welcomed to the team. Already two years have passed since then and I haven’t regretted it for a single second.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Not gonna lie, I have witnessed some big internal discussions since joining the OTW, both about real-world events and about our own processes. I feel like those have been fought over enough, though, so I’ll share a challenge that’s more specific for Team Dutch.

In case you don’t know, Dutch is an official language in three countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname. Unfortunately, Suriname isn’t currently represented in our team, but we do have both Belgian and Dutch folks, and despite our countries being right next to each other, there are actually some differences between Belgian Dutch and Dutch… Dutch. (Just ask how we end our emails.) They definitely aren’t big enough to separate the languages, but we do try to walk that middle ground in our translations and make sure that everything sounds good for everyone. So sometimes I will be beta reading a document and change something that just sounds way too Dutch to me and sometimes one of my teammates will point out that they would never use my suggested turn of phrase in the Netherlands. As a linguist, I find this very interesting, but it is also quite challenging to avoid colloquialisms when you’re not even always aware of them!

What fannish things do you like to do?

First and foremost, I’m a fanfic writer. Always have been (even before I knew that there was a word for it) and always will be. As a writer, I also have an atrocious habit and it goes something like this: start a very long fic, pour out new chapters religiously for months and months, stumble upon a different fandom, come up with a fic idea for said new fandom that “surely won’t take long and that I just need to get out of my system so that I can return to the existing WIP in peace” aaaaand repeat. Dear reader, if you happen to be following one of my stories, I am so, so sorry, I swear I will finish it one day.

The love of my life is Supernatural and I will always come back to it, but I’m also very good at falling very hard for other fandoms on the side, ranging from The Boys to Danny Phantom to the latest Neil Gaiman-related show to Helluva Boss to anything that Richard Speight, Jr. worked on. One of my favorite things to do is hyperfixate on something new, then grab my friends by the shoulders and shake them until they agree to watch it too so that I can yell at them about it.

Of course I read fanfics too, mostly in short bursts when I’m looking for a very specific type of fic. For my wallet’s sake, I limit the number of Supernatural conventions I can go to to one per year. I perpetually have a Discord tab open to stay in touch with fellow fans, will occasionally scour YouTube for fanvids and spend the rest of my fandom time on the best social media site ever, Tumblr. (Kidding, not kidding.)


Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.




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Composition Colloquium: Alexi Kenney

Alexi Kenney, a distinguished violinist, artist, and curator, will speak about his work.




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SFPUL event: Visit to the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D.

By invitation, the SFPUL and the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (RGME) will visit the varied collections of Dr. Steven Lomazow, at home in West Orange, New Jersey. Assembled over fifty years, they include an extraordinary collection of American magazines, pulp fiction, and other materials. Some of them have been displayed and published, including at The Grolier Club in 2020 (with a catalogue and virtual exhibition) and in other volumes. We have the opportunity to see these original works and others in context and to engage in conversation with them and their erudite collector. As an introduction to his collection, Dr. Lomazow will share highlights, impulses, and discoveries in the course of his collecting for over more than fifty years, then describe how his varied collections are arranged in groups and by sizes, each set out alphabetically. With this guide, we might explore the collections, in their various rooms, and have the opportunity to examine selected materials and ask questions for further disussion and enrichment of knowledge. Transportation and luncheon repast will be provided, and we will meet at the Princeton Train Station. We will assemble at the Lomazow home at 11:00 am EST. (If you plan to travel there on your own, the address can be provided following registration.) For more about the exhibition, check out RGME's website at: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/rgme-visit-to-the-collection-of-steven-lomazow/




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The ForWord Collective Meeting

Join the ForWord Collective at this Thursday's meeting, where we will write, discuss, and share poetry!




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Composition Colloquium: Zosha Di Castri

Zosha Di Castri, a Canadian “composer of riotously inventive works” (The New Yorker), currently lives in New York. Her music has been performed across Canada, the United States, South America, Asia, and Europe and extends beyond purely concert music, including projects with electronics, sound arts, and collaborations with video and dance that encourage audiences to feel “compelled to return for repeated doses” (The Arts Desk). She is currently the Francis Goelet Associate Professor of Music at Columbia University and a 2023 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson fellow. Zosha’s current projects include a large chamber work commissioned by the LA Phil and conducted by John Adams, receiving its premiere in spring 2024; a Koussevitzky commission from the Library of Congress for percussionist Steve Schick and ensemble, and upcoming collaborations with the Bozzini Quartet and Ensemble Paramirabo/Totem. Zosha recently curated an event showcasing her work as part of the New York Philharmonic’s 2023 Nightcap series. Her 2022 work, In the Half-Light, a song cycle for soprano Barbara Hannigan, with libretto by Tash Aw, was premiered by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and will be performed again this season by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Other recent projects include We live the opposite daring for six voices written for Ekmeles, time>>T. - - I. - - M.(time) - - E, a commission for largechamber ensemble premiered by the Grossman Ensemble in Chicago; Hypha, a quartet for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano/keyboard commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and Pentimento, a short piece for orchestra commissioned by the WDR Sinfonieorchester for its 75th anniversary. In July 2019, Zosha’s Long Is the Journey, Short Is the Memory for orchestra and chorus opened the first night of the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Karina Canellakis with the BBC Symphony and BBC Singers. Other large-scale projects include a 25-minute piece for soprano, recorded narrator and orchestra entitled Dear Life, based on a short-story by Alice Munro, and an evening-length new music theater piece, Phonobellow, co-written with David Adamcyk for the International Contemporary Ensemble with performances in New York and Montreal. Phonobellow features five musicians, a large kinetic sound sculpture, electronics, and video in a reflection on the influence of photography and phonography on human perception. Zosha’s orchestral compositions have been commissioned by John Adams, the Toronto Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, New World Symphony, Esprit Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and the BBC, and have been featured by the the New York Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Amazonas Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, among others. She has made appearances with the Chicago Symphony, the LA Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players in their chamber music series, and has worked with many leading new music groups, including Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Ekmeles, Yarn/Wire, the NEM, Ensemble Cairn, and JACK and Parker Quartets. Other recent projects include a commission titled Hunger for the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal with improvised drummer, designed to accompany Peter Foldes’ 1973 eponymous silent film; a string quartet for the Banff International String Quartet Competition; a piece for Yarn/Wire for two pianists, two percussionists, and electronics premiered at Zosha’s Miller Theatre Composer Portrait concert; a solo piano work for Julia Den Boer commissioned by the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust Fund, and a string octet premiered by JACK Quartet and Parker Quartet at the Banff Centre. She was the recipient of the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music for her work Cortège in 2012, and participated in Ircam’s Manifeste Festival in Paris, writing an interactive electronic work for Thomas Hauert’s dance company, ZOO. Zosha’s debut album Tachitipo was released on New Focus Recordings in November 2019 to critical acclaim, and the title track was nominated for The JUNO Awards’ 2021 Classical Composition of the Year. Tachitipo was named in Best of 2019 lists by The New Yorker, I Care if You Listen, AnEarful, Sequenza21, and New York Music Daily, and praised as “a formidable statement. It is so comprehensively realized, institutionally ratified, and sensitive to the creative exigencies of the 21st century that one wants to send a copy of it to the publishers of textbooks for music history survey courses in the hope that it will be included in a last chapter or two.” (I Care if You Listen) Zosha is a recipient of the 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship and was an inaugural fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris in 2018-19. She completed her Bachelors of Music in Piano Performance and Composition at McGill University, and her DMA in Composition at Columbia University. Born in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada, Zosha currently lives with her family in New York City.




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Leatt Announces 2025 MTB Collection



The collection includes new Trail and Enduro apparel lines for women, plus Gravity jerseys and pants for men developed alongside Bernard Kerr.
( Photos: 21, Comments: 46 )




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How the 1874 Freedman's Bank collapse connects to economic disparities we see today

In Savings and Trust, historian Justene Hill Edwards tells the story of the Freedman's Bank. Created for formerly enslaved people following the Civil War, its collapse cost depositors millions.




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New theatre production ‘Collective Phenomena’ reveals story of defiant Soviet-Jewish scientists


The director of Collective Phenomena, Semion Aleksandrovskiy, shared a little of this complex history via his own family story.




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College official wishes Trump voters would ‘f***ing’ kill themselves

“A University of Oregon administrator has been placed on leave after expressing ‘hope’ that Donald Trump supporters would ‘go jump off a f***ing bridge’ in a now-deleted video posted to his Instagram account,” reports The College Fix. After this created lots of bad press for the University, it put the administrator on temporary leave. “Copies […]

The post College official wishes Trump voters would ‘f***ing’ kill themselves appeared first on Liberty Unyielding.