The police are investigating a stabbing incident which resulted in a 25-year-old man being injured. A police spokesperson said, “Shortly after 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 21, 2024, Police attended a report of a male at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital [KEMH], seeking treatment for an apparent stab wound. “On arrival, officers spoke with […]

[Updated] 17-year-old Ethan Arruda has died following a stabbing incident, the police have confirmed. A police spokesperson said, “The Bermuda Police Service [BPS], is seeking the public’s assistance with the investigation into a stabbing incident which occurred at a residence on Devonshire Bay Road, Devonshire, shortly after 12:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 27, 2024. “The […]

Bermudian style expert Shiona Turini has been named Stylist of the Year for 2024 by Harlem’s Fashion Row. The title isn’t the first recognition the stylist to the stars has received this year, with Ms. Turini also receiving the Diamonds Do Good’s ‘Diamond Influence Award’ in June. A post on social media said, “We’re thrilled […]

An 18-year-old was charged in Magistrates Court today [May 25] in connection with the firearm incident at Divots earlier this month. ZBM reported that Josiah King was charged with counts including carrying a firearm in a public place, possession of a firearm and possessing ammunition. He was not required to enter a plea as the […]

A man appeared in the Supreme Court in connection with the murder of Daunte Woods, who was fatally stabbed in October 2020 in Sandys. 29-year-old Jahmari Beach pleaded not guilty to the unlawful killing of 27-year-old Daunte Woods, and he also denied a charge of carrying a knife in a public place. The matter was adjourned until […]

A 19-year-old man was charged in Magistrates Court today [Sept 14] in connection with the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Kanye Ford, which occurred in the car park of Horseshoe Bay on Friday September 9.  Eze Hart of Southampton parish was not required to enter a plea as the charge  must be heard in the Supreme Court, and […]

Jaha Mallory was sentenced to three years in prison and two years probation for wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm. The ruling said, “The facts of this case were outlined in the Summary of Evidence read to the Court. In short, the Accused and the Complainant were personally known to one another before […]

A 31-year-old man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for possessing 32 rounds of ammunition. The ruling said, “The Accused, Mr. Christopher Perinchief, appears before the Court for sentence, upon his guilty plea entered on 21 June 2022, to the single Count on Indictment No. 7 of 2022 charging him with possession of […]

A 38-year-old man appeared in the Supreme Court today [Feb 22], where he pleaded guilty to murder. Anthony Davis admitted to killing 28-year-old Morissa Moniz in November 2021. Puisne Judge Shade Subair-Williams set a sentencing date of March 27th and Davis will remain in custody. The police previously said that Ms Moniz was “found in an unresponsive […]

An 18-year-old male has been charged in connection with the fatal stabbing of 20-year-old Zijae Jones, which occurred at Horseshoe Bay Beach on Bermuda Day Dahny Simmons-Outerbridge, of Warwick, was charged with killing Zijae Jones. He was also charged with being in possession of a knife in a public place. Simmons-Outerbridge was not required to enter a […]

An 18-year-old appeared in Magistrates Court in connection with a shooting on May 2nd. 18-year-old Kentaro Bean, of Devonshire, faces multiple charges relating to discharging a firearm and possessing ammunition and a firearm. His bail was set at $50,000 with a like surety and he was placed under 24-hour house arrest with an electronic monitoring device, […]

25-year-old Maurice Jones has been jailed for 30 years in the UK after being convicted of murdering a father while he was pushing his young son. A statement from the Wiltshire Police said, “Maurice Jones, 25, of Gainsborough Close, Bemerton Heath, was convicted of murder and possession of a bladed article following a two-week trial […]

The Bermuda Tourism Authority [BTA] has released its visitor metrics for the first half of 2024. A spokesperson said, “The Bermuda Tourism Authority [BTA] has released its visitor metrics for the first half of 2024, revealing significant growth in both air and cruise arrivals, alongside increased visitor spending and notable shifts in travel trends. “Bermuda […]

After a shocking Season Two finale cliffhanger that left audiences on the edge of their seats, the news is finally out that Harlem will return for Season Three at the top of next year on January 23, exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

How has Doctor Sleep fared 5 years since its release?

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.

Strategy Tips: [1] Don’t be afraid to take on debt. It’s not too hard to flip debt cards for additional victory points and the income generated from the suspicion cards + the usefulness of the criminal workers are worth the increase in debt. [2] As with all worker placement games, look for opportunities to get more workers. For example, try to recruit any townsfolk that provide workers as a reward for other actions. [3] Attacking outsiders is a reliable way to get provisions and build influence, which are prerequisites for building the wall, which in turn give more strength and allow you to attack more outsiders. When paired with the townsfolk card that provide a bonus worker for every attack action, it’s a powerful combination.

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.

-------------------------------------------------

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.

1. North Melbourne announces three-year Western Australia agreement  North Melbourne Football Club
2. Roos end 14-year relationship amid bold new location for AFL games  Fox Sports
3. North Melbourne takes 'home' AFL matches to Western Australia  ABC News
4. Eagles set for extra WA game  West Coast Eagles

The U.S. Grand Lodge O.T.O. annual report for fiscal year 2022 has been published. This and all previous annual reports can be found here.

Hello and happy Honda-days, Toyota-thon, etc.!

It's the tail end of winter break here, and we did a little traveling to see family, etc.. But I've been keeping the calendar light so that I have plenty of time for projects. There are too many in the works simultaneously, which is a bad sign, but during break I made significant progress on all of them. I also added a new one, with the idea that it would be a "small hack" so that I'd be sure to have something for SIGBOVIK (not everything needs to be epic, right?). It already works, but now I'm in the midst of writing a PDF file generator, which is also a bad sign.

Now that I'm nearly done going in and out of my attic so much, it seemed like good timing to attend to the dangerously acrobatic way that I always get in, which is to stand at the very top of a ladder and then mantle up using the floor joists. It's not actually that dangerous even though the ladder demands that you Never Stand Above This Line (how am I supposed to stand in the attic then, ladder?!), but I regularly lose my phone out of my pocket in the last leg-swinging step, which is at least dangerous to the phone. Without belaboring the tale, I ended up "having" to go to Harbor Freight to invest in some suspiciously cheap tools like a set of black pipe threading dies, pipe wrenches, pipe cutter, and while I was there I got a new vise. Worried that the vise would be too easy to install, I wisely purchased carriage bolts with square necks, so I had to file down the mounting holes of this thing:

JPEG File

This provided a good occasion to listen to some albums in the basement and order some new files. It is now very firmly and satisfyingly bolted to that satisfyingly timeworn workbench. Not pictured is how I needed to grind down the bolts so that the cabinet door below could open and close again (I use this cabinet to store old vises).


Codename: Viseman

The only thing I have used the new vise for so far is to flatten one of the washers that was used to attach the old, crappy vise, so that I could weld that washer to the charging terminal on my Roomba so that it's able to charge again, so that I could vacuum up all the steel filings on my basement floor. Anyway, getting back now to the original task of making the entrance to the attic a similar amount of athletic but less fraught, I installed this pull-up bar:


workout

The only hard part of this was getting the pipe to be just the right length, and threaded, but I am now equipped to do such tasks.

Winter is also a time for hibernation. I played through The Talos Principle II. I really loved the first Talos Principle, which had no business being as good as it was (the team was mainly known for Serious Sam, an over-the-top first-person shooter). Talos is a puzzle game with a pretty interesting story and fairly thoughtful writing. The sequel is good and definitely worth playing if you liked the original. It has a bit of the "Portal 2" effect where they clearly had a bigger budget and wanted to add all this polish, but did miss some of what made the original magic along the way. As you know I love to play games "the wrong way," and so I'm always looking for ways to break the puzzles in this game. I felt like the first one let me get away with more hijinks, like you'd stack items to make your way up somewhere, and a third of the time it'd be a Star (expected for 100%), a third of the time it'd be an Easter egg (acknowledging your prowess), and a third of the time you'd just fall out of the map forever and have to reset (true victory). I did fall out of the level several times on this sequel, but it seemed to me that the puzzles were more tightly constrained. Then again, I watched the current world record speedruns and there's certainly a lot of hijinks possible, so maybe I'm just losing my edge! I also played through Party Hard. It's a "murder all the people in 2D" game very similar to the Hotline Miami games, and not as good, but its absurd mood and unfair chaotic difficulty did grow on me. Right now I am "playing" (the) Gnorp Apologue, an idle game that has its charms, but, well, it's an idle game and I think it is cruel to ever recommend those. It was written in Rust!

Fun Fact: No-So-Handy Andy was also born on the year of the Dragon.

Southern California’s football program has been fined $50,000 and placed on probation for one year by the NCAA because of multiple violations of coaching staff rules over two seasons

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Deommodore Lenoir has agreed to a five-year, $92 million extension to stay with the team instead of testing the free agent market next offseason

Deion Sanders discusses the impressive growth of Shedeur Sanders from last season to this year, highlighting his development as Colorado’s QB and the strides he’s made on the field.

Deion Sanders argues why Travis Hunter is a top contender for the Heisman this year, highlighting his unique talent and impact on Colorado’s success.

The 2022 UK-to-US Word of the Year is: fit

  British slang. Sexually attractive, good-looking.

1985   Observer 28 Apr. 45/1   ‘Better 'en that bird you blagged last night.’ ‘F—— off! She was fit.’

1993   V. Headley Excess iv. 21   ‘So wait; dat fit brown girl who live by de church ah nuh your t'ing?!’ he asked eyebrows raised.

1999   FHM June (Best of Bar Room Jokes & True Stories Suppl.) 21/1   My first night there, I got arseholed, hit the jackpot and retired with my fit flatmate to her room.

2000   Gloucester Citizen (Nexis) 14 Feb. 11   I would choose Gillian Anderson from the X-Files, because she's dead fit.

Yesterday, I declared the UK-to-US SbaCL Word of the Year. You can read about it here. 

The US-to-UK one may be as controversial as it was the first time (a)round (in May). But here goes: 

2022's US-to-UK Word of the Year is: homer

Each year since 2006, this blog has designated Transatlantic Words of the Year (WotY). The twist is that I choose the most 'of the year' borrowings from US-to-UK and from UK-to-US.  The question this year raises is: does 2023 deserve SbaCL Words of the Year?

The eligibility criteria remain:

• Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year. 
• Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
• When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. Past space-ful WotYs have included gap year, Black Friday, and go missing. I've also been known to declare a pronunciation the Word of the Year.

See here for the UK-to-US WotY post.

Time for the 2023 US-to-UK Word of the Year. Before people complain that this word has been in British English too long for it to count as a word of 2023, let me remind you of the criteria for SbaCL WotYs: 

• Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year. 
• Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
• When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. 

OK!

The saying "you learn something new every day" may not always feel true, but on Twitter, that's definitely the case. People are very eager to share surprising and little-known facts that blow their minds - whether they're political or about something as trivial as the flavor of green Haribo gummy bears. These facts might not be revelatory for everyone, but they definitely aren't common knowledge. And it's nice to make that brain feel a little bigger. 

As the nation marks the one-year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando this week, a group of experts on active shooter/hostile incident response will assemble at National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) headquarters to develop NFPA 3000, Standard for Preparedness and Response to Active Shooter and/or Hostile Events. It is expected that the initial standard will be completed by early 2018; then the public will have the opportunity to offer input for immediate review.

Knowing that today’s homes burn faster than ever, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) announced “Every Second Counts: Plan Two Ways Out” as the official theme for this year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign, October 8-14, 2017. Experts say you may have as little as two minutes (or even less) to safely escape a typical home fire from the time the smoke alarm sounds.

“Violette Heymann, 1910” by Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection ,CC0. Creative Commons’ Open Culture Platform is supporting 25 institutions in opening up access to their collections by the end of 2025. Members of the Platform community will be working together to create a policy template, conduct outreach,…

The post Moving Institutions Toward Open—Building on 6 Years of the Open GLAM Survey appeared first on Creative Commons.

Shares of Indian food delivery giant Swiggy rose nearly 8% on their trading debut Wednesday after its IPO became the country's second largest this year. The company raised 113.27 billion Indian rupees ($1.34 billion) in its IPO that closed Monday, pricing its shares at 390 rupees apiece. The IPO…

Unbabel on Wednesday announced an artificial intelligence-powered translation service, adding another rival to a highly competitive space.

The $20 Secret Santa limit applies to everyone except your friends who work in finance. Wall Street bankers are about to cash substantially bigger bonus checks at the end of this year, according to a report released yesterday by Johnson Associates. Coming after two consecutive years of lower…

In This Article: MUNICH (Reuters) - Siemens Energy has not proposed a dividend for the 2024 fiscal year, citing limitations to its payout policy as a result of obtaining project guarantees last year that are backed by the German government. A year ago, Berlin supported Siemens Energy with…

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (Reuters) -- Vietnam Airlines will issue a request for proposal to aircraft manufacturers next year to purchase 50 narrowbody jets, its CEO said on Wednesday. The carrier last year signed a provisional deal with Boeing BA for 50 737 MAX planes that has yet to be…

After hours of calls to BT, engineer no-shows, complaints raised and multiple promises, nothing has happened I am desperate to help my 80-year-old dad, JF, and his partner who have been left without a landline for more than two months by BT. This is especially difficult as my dad has relatives in…

Prelude is a new a new French startup that focuses on SMS verification; it’s coming out of stealth Wednesday. The two founders met when they were working for Zenly, a popular location-sharing app with tens of millions of users that was acquired by Snap (and later shut down). While you might not…

Potentially dangerous comets could be spotted many years in advance by following the meteoroid trails they leave near Earth, new research shows.

Have you ever had a personal word of the year before? Did you choose the word? Or did a word choose you? I don’t choose my word of the year. It comes to me, generally in December or January, and sometimes it surprises me. It’s something that’s been happening for me for the last seven […]

The post My Personal Word of the Year (And How to Find Your Perfect One) appeared first on Joyful Abode.

Getting organized is always one of the most popular New Years resolutions every year – not surprisingly. And you need. To. Do it. This year. Why? It’s not just because being organized for organization’s sake is a good thing (It’s not good or bad – it’s morally neutral). You NEED to stop procrastinating and finally […]

The post 8 Reasons You NEED to Get Organized This Year appeared first on Joyful Abode.

It's our 15-year PotterCast anniversary! WHAT!? This is our live show that we did to celebrate, the video of which you can access at fb.com/pottercast. In this episode, we do some nostalgia, we do some mailbags, we do some Q&A, we play some Quiplash, and we reflect on the magic of the past and the promise of the future.

Here are ways to support the show!
Join our patreon! patreon.com/pottercast - Now, you can also join our Discord community there!

You can also buy PotterCast-related merch at mischiefmerch.com!

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.

Todd Boehly’s acquisition of Chelsea has brought a wave of anticipation among fans and pundits alike. His vision for the..

The post What Todd Boehly’s Five Year Plan Could Look Like appeared first on Chelsea FC Blog.

It’s so easy to make and personalize! READ MORE...

If you're looking to save big on your next outdoor furniture splurge, now's the ultimate time. READ MORE...