Hi, it's time to have some fun from the past! This Weekday Escape is retro! Vitamin Hana wants you to escape a room - no surprise - but also to redecorate it. Yomino Kagura isn't so demanding, their escape is... Tagged as: blog, browser, esc-forest, escape, escapemen, free, japanese, no1game, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g, vitaminhana, weekday-escape, yominokagura

A great many people only experience science fiction by what my mother and millions of others referred to as "monster movies". From Frankenstein to Aliens and beyond, the unknown and the unexplored are often our undoing. Bleak Horizons, edited by Tarl Hoch, is a wonderful collection of 15 stories that mix SF and Horror with various levels of anthropomorphic settings and characters. And, full disclosure, one of those stories is mine. Happily, the mix includes more than just blood thirsty monsters and end of the universe scenarios.

Overall my favorite stories in this anthology are Hardwire, Pentangle, and The Ouroboros Plate. My least favorites are 4/13/2060 and Not Like Us. Below is a short review of all the pieces. I think you should snag a copy, if only to read my favorites and have a taste for this genre. However, I also really enjoyed Carmen Miranda's Ghost Is Haunting Space Station 3 so you have every right to question my taste.

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Online criminals have been systematically targeting TurboTax, filing fraudulent tax returns of individuals, and diverting their tax refunds to prepaid debit, cards, stealing their personal information, and using and impairing their credit ratings. Continue reading →

IBM announced today it is providing IBM Business Partners worldwide with $4 billion in financing for credit-qualified clients over a period of 12 months. This financing, through IBM Global Financing, can make obtaining credit easier and more accessible to enable IBM's global partner ecosystem and their clients to acquire advanced technologies such as cloud, analytics and PureSystems. As part of today's news, IBM is also launching a new mobile app as another step to simplify the way IBM's Business Partners can apply for and secure financing for their clients within minutes via any mobile device -- anytime, anywhere.

NOTE: This post has been updated to reflect that X-Peditions' 2020 season has filled.

X-Peditions is a collaborative project between Strobist.com and Washington DC-based Focus on the Story. You can learn more about our program in general, and/or get early notification for next year's program, at X-Peditions.com.

Posted by: iamrman

I had the idea of crossing over the New Mutants with Dungeons and Dragons. The classes I have assigned to various characters don't necessarily correspond to canon D&D classes, so die hard fans will probably hate it.

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The finalists are:

• Neil Clarke
• Ellen Datlow
• C.C. Finlay
• Jonathan Strahan
• Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas
• Sheila Williams

I'm a subscriber to Uncanny Magazine, edited by the Thomases, and a Patreon supporter of Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke. I keep up with neither magazine as much as I'd like, but I generally enjoy both of them. Uncanny Magazine in particular has a very high hit rate for me when I do make time to read it.

(I also had the pleasure of meeting Neil Clarke in his kaffeeklatsch at Dublin Worldcon last year, which I really enjoyed & learned a lot from.)

I have one of Jonathan Strahan's anthologies from last year, Mission:Critical on my to-read pile, and I've also been eyeing the Made to Order: Robots and Revolution anthology published this year.

Ellen Datlow edits a lot of horror, which I'm cautious of, and I happen not to have read any of the Tor.com short fiction she acquired last year, but that could be remedied (in a well-lit room during the day, etc). She also lists a couple of anthologies, and while I'm not touching a Best Horror of the Year anthology, I might risk the ghost stories anthology.

C.C. Finlay and Sheila Williams edit respectively F&SF Magazine and Asimov's Science Fiction, neither of which I subscribe to or read regularly, but because I'm already not keeping up with the things I do subscribe to, not for any stronger or more considered reason.

The finalists are:

• Sheila E. Gilbert
• Brit Hvide
• Diana M. Pho
• Devi Pillai
• Miriam Weinberg
• Navah Wolfe

You can find lists of books published in 2019 edited by each of these finalists at this crowdsourced page at File 770, of which:

• Brit Hvide: 2 books on my wishlist
• Devi Pillai: 1 read, 2 on wishlist
• Miriam Weinberg: 2 on wishlist
• Navah Wolfe: 1 read, 1 on to-read pile

Devi Pillai edited A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, which I love so much, and Navah Wolfe edited The Twisted Ones by Ursula Vernon, which is one of the few marketed-as-horror books I have willingly read. (It won't ever be my favourite Vernon book, but it was a good read.)

So Martin Scorsese said that the Marvel movies are “not cinema” and the internet kind of blew up because it is inherently polarizing, and the possibility that Scorsese is both one of our most talented living directors and also wrong about this particular subject is not particularly fun discourse for a lot of people on […]

No doubt — this is a crazy, scary, sad, worrying time for everyone. Most of us are sheltering in place and trying our best to adjust to a new reality. While we are not performing heroic deeds like all the frontline healthcare workers and first responders, grocery store employees and delivery drivers, we can all … Continue reading nine cool things on a tuesday (stay home, save lives edition)

Mayoral foibles, Google's urban charm offensive, finalists for George Brown's new wood building, and how many avocado toasts will you need to give up?

1 Please don’t poke the mayor – Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson found himself criticized in light of calling George Bemi’s award-winning Ottawa Library a “Stalin-ist bunker”. Watson’s rebuke wasn’t so elegant, but the following debate explored how contemporary ideas of wellness and accessibility requires real investment in restoration and renovation. Here in Toronto, Mayor John […]

The post Another Glass Box: The Stalinist “Bunker” Edition appeared first on Torontoist.

A great card offering big rewards for Best Buy lovers. Best Buy is one of the largest retailers of consumer electronics in the world and sells computers, smartphones, gaming systems and more. The company offers several store credit cards to reward customers for purchases, including the My Best Buy® Credit Card. If you sign up, you’ll be able to earn 5% rewards on everything you buy at the store, which you can redeem for Best Buy gift cards. Once you […]

The post My Best Buy® Credit Card Review appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

How to establish credit is a common concern for younger individuals. While they may be ready to make their first significant purchases, the lack of any credit often presents a major hurdle. Similar obstacles confront those with the task of rebuilding poor credit history. Thankfully for both groups, a secured credit card allows each to start (or restart) their credit journey with the goal of financial independence. How do secured credit cards work? Let’s take a closer look. What is […]

The post What Are Secured Credit Cards? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

If you’re like most adults in the U.S., there’s little doubt your mailbox — the snail-mail version — is regularly inundated with credit card offers. The vast majority of the offers declare your pre-selection, or pre-qualification, for its credit card. Even better, some note you have actually been pre-approved for its best offers and rates. But what exactly does this mean, to be pre-approved? And what does it mean for you specifically? Are these prefixed words simply a marketing ploy […]

The post What is Credit Card Pre-approval? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Meredith McIver is the speech writer who took responsibility for Melania Trump's plagiarism (you may have heard about it?). But people aren't convinced that Meredith is even real, leading to the internet's new favorite conspiracy theory. Is Meredith McIver a fake persona created by Trump? Let's examine the evidence.

And if you'd like some appetizer Trump memes before you get started, now would be the time.

We are isolating together for this freewheeling hour of silliness where we take your Harry Potter questions and have some fun.

ALSO, SOME NEWS: Now there are TWO Patreons: One for just PotterCast, one for Roll 9 3/4 and all the other Mischief Media shows. BOTH get you access to our discord, where there are Harry Potter, gaming, television, movies. cooking, crafting, and a ton of other amazing conversations happening. PLUS lots of amazing bonus content updated weekly.

PotterCast's Patreon
Mischief Media Patreon

Also visit Mischief Merch!  We have so much cool swag there.

Also, there is a LOT of content to entertain you on your quarantine on the Mischief twitch channel — and there will be PotterCast streaming there soon. Watch the hashtag #MischiefFromHome for more!

By Leo Babauta These are times of heightened change, disruption, uncertainty, fear, anxiety. It can feel pretty crazy for most of us. So how do we cope? What can we do in the middle of chaos and crisis? This is when meditation becomes of critical importance. Without meditation, we have no way of dealing with […]

Workers in the bottom quintile of the wage distribution experienced a 35 percent employment decline while those in the top quintile experienced only a 9 percent decline. Large differences across the wage distribution persist even after conditioning on worker age, business industry, business size, and worker location. As a result, average base wages increased by […]

The post Facts about labor markets ouch, when are rising wages bad edition appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

For $20, fans of German soccer club Borussia can have a cut-out of themselves placed in the stands at BORUSSIA-PARK. According to the club, over 12,000 cut-outs have been ordered and 4,500 have already been put in place. Here is the tweet and photo. And some sports bettors are betting on simulated sporting events.  (Again, […]

The post Coronavirus sports markets in everything, multiple simulations edition appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Posted this to collector's edition topic, but figured I'd give everyone a heads up:

https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/playstation-4/games/products/persona-5-royal-phantom-thieves-edition/11098855.html

Price is "on sale" for free until May 10th, so claim it while you can.

PS4: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0700-CUSA04924_00-PACMANCE2BUNDLE0

Xbox One: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/pac-man-championship-edition-2/bpv04qgbn8j8#activetab=pivot:overviewtab

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/441380/PACMAN_CHAMPIONSHIP_EDITION_2/

This is apparently Bandai-Namco's way of helping keep people entertained while stuck at home amidst the COVID stuff.

  Product Info: Developer: Goonswarm Publisher: Black Tower Website: Sin Slayers Twitter: @sinslayersgame

So Martin Scorsese said that the Marvel movies are “not cinema” and the internet kind of blew up because it is inherently polarizing, and the possibility that Scorsese is both one of our most talented living directors and also wrong about this particular subject is not particularly fun discourse for a lot of people on […]

Britt Adamson, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, has been named a 2020 Searle Scholar. The program supports bold research programs with the potential to discover fundamental insights and improve health.

Administrators still expect to secure a buyer by end of June

The entire BlueGriffon Tutorial has been updated for the version 3 series of BlueGriffon. Those thinking of using it to create a website can find the complete series online.

British pop singer Morrissey has accused DER SPIEGEL of falsely quoting him in a recently published interview. The magazine stands behind its reporting and has made the decision to post the audio online in response.

The Government is to provide a State guaranteed refund credit note for package holidays booked through Irish travel agents and tour operators in effort to help the industry during Covid-19 crisis.

Eurozone ministers have formally approved €240 billion in credit lines to help European countries meet the crippling costs of fighting the coronavirus outbreak.

We show that trade credit in production networks is important for the transmission of unconventional monetary policy. We find that firms with bonds eligible for purchase under the European Central Bank’s Corporate Sector Purchase Program act as financial intermediaries and extend more trade credit to their customers. The increase in trade credit flows is more pronounced from core countries to periphery countries and towards financially constrained customers. Customers increase investment and employment in response to the additional financing, while suppliers with eligible bonds increase their customer base, potentially favoring upstream industry concentration. Our findings suggest that the trade credit channel of monetary policy produces heterogeneous effects on regions, industries, and firms.

I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views.

Software versions include Standalone, Standard, Corporate and Media Wall, and the industry niche UK estate agents. There are common features for each of the editions, which can be viewed online.

Now in Feeds Box you can change feeds title, add tags to your feeds, and, most remarkable, you can edit feeds' settings. We have also fine-tuned feeds search in your Feeds Box.

The post Feeds Editing And Better Search appeared first on RSSground.com.

Scientists injected CRISPR gene-editing machinery into unfertilized eggs still developing in female lizards’ ovaries.

A glimpse into the lives of the MOSAiC mission’s polar bear guards—and the powerful predators they watch for.

LAUSD's decision to temporarily shut down schools causes an enormous disruption. And it's not clear how helpful the move will be in slowing coronavirus spread.

More scandal in the Orange County Sheriff's Department shows the department — like all sheriff's departments — should have independent civilian oversight.

Public health experts are urging people to stay home to avoid spreading coronavirus. But that means some people could end up losing their homes.

After weeks of dithering, Trump finally seems to have gotten the message that Americans are desperate for more than empty assurances on coronavirus.

Congress can and should do more to combat a coronavirus downturn — including a $1,000 UBI check to every citizen.

Soap is restricted and hand sanitizer is contraband at correctional facilities. We need to stop admitting people accused of low-level crimes.

With coronavirus on the rampage, perhaps the people who don't believe in vaccinations will rethink their irresponsible position.

Just when President Trump started to rise to the challenge of leading a nation through the coronavirus pandemic, he slips back to his old, tired tricks.

Inglewood can help solve the first-mile last-mile problem of public transit in a big way.

We're all in this together. It's far better for society if folks choose to help their fellow humans rather than rip the last roll of toilet paper from their hands.

Ideally, business owners and individuals will make the right decisions in the face of coronavirus. But then, there will always be companies like Tesla.