You do something long enough, you'll eventually learn the little things you can do to help interesting stuff happen. One thing I have learned is this phrase:

"I'm a photographer. What can I do to help you?"

Just something as simple as that opens up all kinds of doors and possibilities. This week, it's how I ended up shooting Mexican sodas on a table-top studio in my basement.
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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.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the appointment of Professor Iven Mareels as Lab Director of IBM Research-Australia.

2019.10.11お気をつけくださいね。備えあれば憂いなしスーパーもコンビニも品薄状態だね、、少し乗り遅れた、やっちまったなでも大丈夫ですコンプあるしこれのドリンクタイプもまだあるからオナカスイタ状態になっても完全食続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

2020.2.19うす塁斗ですハンサムライブが2.152.16と両国国技館で開催されました。若いフレッシュなオモロイ子達と可愛いかっこいい子達とぶち上がってきた！！それはもう夢の時間でした。そして、またハンサムライブでの大きな夢も広がり膨らみました！！控えめに言って最高すぎ何が良いってノリが男子。楽屋とかバックステージとかちょくちょくステージ上でも男子校みたいな感じがでてしまう、ふざけたよすべてふざけてるよ(^^)いつまでもふざけてふざけてカッコつけてやるんだろうよみんな(^^)アーティストではない役者、俳優で歌って踊ってアミューズで15周年の LIVEHandsomeを作ってきたけどそれはみーーーんなのおかげありがとありがとう。みんなって、ホントみんななんだよね関係者、応援してくれる方、少しでも携わって続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

rickowensonline:

LAS PALMAS AVE, HOLLYWOOD, 2002

peterboyden:

americanapparel:

Source: idea.ltd

BOYDENS Magazine

20aliens:

Home of Architect Colin St. John Wilson, Cambridge, England 1972. 

Getting to be there with her in the ghostly moonlight made everything Harry had gone through worth it... even if her brother was hellbent on tormenting them.

After some discussion with the applied math research groups here at UCLA (in particular the groups led by Andrea Bertozzi and Deanna Needell), one of the members of these groups, Chris Strohmeier, has produced a proposal for a Polymath project to crowdsource in a single repository (a) a collection of public data sets relating to […]

Ahsoka's conflict with Obi-Wan can serve as a lesson in disagreement and debate.

The voice of Ahsoka Tano tells StarWars.com about writing the new Little Golden Book and rewatching Star Wars: The Clone Wars for inspiration.

Emmy Nominee Leslye Headland to write, produce, and serve as showrunner for new untitled Star Wars series for Disney+.

Earlier this year, the team from Wyvern Gaming provided me with a review copy of Sojourn. This solo game was designed by Philip Loyer and released in 2019.

In Sojourn, a player takes on the role of a time traveler trying desperately to return home. To travel to a specific named time period (such as the one in which the traveler’s home exists), the traveler must use a Timesphere, which has unfortunately shattered into fragments that have been scattered across different time periods. Luckily, the traveler still has a handful of temporal charges at the ready that allow them to jump into random time eras in search of the fragments that can be reassembled into a working Timesphere. Before running out of the charges, or dying from injuries sustained in the various destination time periods, the traveler must find all of the fragments and make the leap home.  

The premise here is very good, even if it does evoke classic time travel tropes (Quantum Leap anyone?). The problem is in the execution. I got Sojourn to the table several times over the past couple of months, and each time I hoped I’d have a better experience than before, but it never worked out that way. The components feel cheap – while the wooden cubes are adequate, the included cards are very thin and poor in quality (easy to bend and tear). The artwork is unremarkable. 

The rulebook is lacking. It doesn’t include an inventory of items, which is one of my pet peeves. How are you supposed to know if anything is missing or what things are without a proper inventory? For example, the rules reference Lockout cards, but without a visual inventory, I had no idea what these were until I thumbed through all the cards (turns out they are part of the Timestream card deck). The rules also reference the traveler meeple, but don’t indicate whether that is the blue or red meeple included in the components. I’m assuming it is the blue meeple based on a picture in the rulebook showing the game set up for play, but it would be nice if the designer included specifics in the text of the rulebook. More unanswered questions – how many Paradox cards are in the deck? This is important since a Paradox card lets you make a time jump without using a temporal charge and thus is the only way to win the game if you’ve run out of charges.

A lot of these problems might be possible to overlook if the gameplay itself was engaging. It isn’t.

At any time during the game one can play Timestream cards from one’s hand (these cards have positive effects such as restoring temporal charges, healing the traveler, etc.), open a new destination in the timeline, or travel to a destination in the timeline. You must travel to multiple destinations to collect the fragments, but each time the traveler makes a jump to a destination, they risk injury, which is calculated by rolling dice and comparing the outcome to the injury risk value printed on each destination time period card. There are so many destinations with 50% or higher values that it makes it very difficult to survive for long in the game. I felt as though I was just going through the motions as each game progressed, and there wasn’t any joy in it. Perhaps executing the game in two player competitive mode would spice things up, but that requires two complete copies of the game, and I don’t think it’s worth the $30+ gamble to find out. 

I have another game from this designer on my “To Play” shelf, and I’m willing to keep an open mind and give it a try (because everyone has ideas that don’t work out well in practice from time to time) but I cannot endorse Sojourn as a game that belongs in anyone’s collection.

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

Publisher: Wyvern Gaming

Players: 1

Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 15 minutes

Game type: solo game (competitive and coop modes available by combining decks), dice rolling, action queue

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.

Bankovní rada České národní banky ve čtvrtek snížila základní úrokovou sazbu o 0,75 procentního bodu na 0,25 procenta. Cílem snižování sazeb je zmírnit dopady šíření koronaviru na ekonomiku. Centrální banka to uvedla v tiskovém prohlášení.

Firmy si budou moci odložit platby za sociální pojištění za tři měsíce. Odvody za květen, červen a červenec smí uhradit až do 20. října, rozhodla vláda. Odložená částka se však bude úročit.

Koronavirová krize výrazně ovlivnila český pracovní trh. Ve srovnání s loňským rokem evidují personální agentury v posledních měsících přibližně poloviční nabídku nových pracovních pozic. Ubylo práce v gastronomii a cestovním ruchu, naopak logistika zažívá žně. Pro firmy zůstávají nejcennějšími pracovníky lidé z oblasti IT.

The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One is Talking About

Both our economy and the environment are in crisis. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while the majority of Americans struggle to get by. The climate crisis is worsening inequality, as those who are most economically vulnerable bear the brunt of flooding, fires, and disruptions of supplies of food, water, and power.

At the same time, environmental degradation and climate change are themselves byproducts of widening inequality. The political power of wealthy fossil fuel corporations has stymied action on climate change for decades. Focused only on maximizing their short-term interests, those corporations are becoming even richer and more powerful — while sidelining workers, limiting green innovation, preventing sustainable development, and blocking direct action on our dire climate crisis.

Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made, and policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.

We can address both crises by doing four things:

First, create green jobs. Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air. The transition to a renewable energy-powered economy can add 550,000 jobs each year while saving the US economy $78 billion through 2050. In other words, a Green New Deal could turn the climate crisis into an opportunity - one that both addresses the climate emergency and creates a fairer and more equitable society.

Second, stop dirty energy. A massive investment in renewable energy jobs isn’t enough to combat the climate crisis. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must tackle the problem at its source: Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas, and coal.

The potential carbon emissions from these fossil fuels in the world’s currently developed fields and mines would take us well beyond the 1.5°C increased warming that Nobel Prize winning global scientists tell us the planet can afford. Given this, it’s absurd to allow fossil fuel corporations to start new dirty energy projects.

Even as fossil fuel companies claim to be pivoting toward clean energy, they are planning to invest trillions of dollars in new oil and gas projects that are inconsistent with global commitments to limit climate change. And over half of the industry’s expansion is projected to happen in the United States. Allowing these projects means locking ourselves into carbon emissions we can’t afford now, let alone in the decades to come.

Even if the U.S. were to transition to 100 percent renewable energy today, continuing to dig fossil fuels out of the ground will lead us further into climate crisis. If the U.S. doesn’t stop now, whatever we extract will simply be exported and burned overseas. We will all be affected, but the poorest and most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of the devastating impacts of climate change.

Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics. For decades, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP have been polluting our democracy by pouring billions of dollars into our politics and bankrolling elected officials to enact policies that protect their profits. The oil and gas industry spent over $103 million on the 2016 federal elections alone. And that’s just what they were required to report: that number doesn’t include the untold amounts of “dark money” they’ve been using to buy-off politicians and corrupt our democracy. The most conservative estimates still put their spending at 10 times that of environmental groups and the renewable energy industry.

As a result, American taxpayers are shelling out $20 billion a year to bankroll oil and gas projects – a huge transfer of wealth to the top. And that doesn’t even include hundreds of billions of dollars of indirect subsidies that cost every United States citizen roughly $2,000 a year. This has to stop.

And we’ve got to stop giving away public lands for oil and gas drilling. In 2018, under Trump, the Interior Department made $1.1 billion selling public land leases to oil and gas companies, an all-time record – triple the previous 2008 record, totaling more than 1.5 million acres for drilling alone, threatening multiple cultural sites and countless wildlife. As recently as last September, the Trump administration opened 1.56 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, threatening Indigenous cultural heritage and hundreds of species that call it home.

That’s not all. The ban on exporting crude oil should be reintroduced and extended to other fossil fuels. The ban, in place for 40 years, was lifted in 2015, just days after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. After years of campaigning by oil executives, industry heads, and their army of lobbyists, the fossil fuel industry finally got its way.

We can’t wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time — we need them now.

Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice compensate the communities they’ve harmed.

As if buying-off our democracy wasn’t enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing. 

For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon’s own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms, and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate — all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods, and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards. 

Going by population, that’s essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming “sacrifice zones,” where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.

Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable, and be forced to pay for the damage they’ve wrought.

If these solutions sound drastic to you, it’s because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare — it is our present day.

Australia’s bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California’s fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before. 

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry. 

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.

Corporations Will Not Save Us: The Sham of Corporate Social Responsibility

Last August, the Business Roundtable – an association of CEOs of America’s biggest corporations – announced with great fanfare a “fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders” and not just their shareholders. 

They said “investing in employees, delivering value to customers, and supporting outside communities“ is now at the forefront of their business goals — not maximizing profits.

Baloney. Corporate social responsibility is a sham.

One Business Roundtable director is Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors. Just weeks after making the Roundtable commitment, and despite GM’s hefty profits and large tax breaks, Barra rejected workers’ demands that GM raise their wages and stop outsourcing their jobs. Earlier in the year GM shut its giant assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

Nearly 50,000 GM workers then staged the longest auto strike in 50 years. They won a few wage gains but didn’t save any jobs. Barra was paid $22 million last year. How’s that for corporate social responsibility?

Another prominent CEO who made the phony Business Roundtable commitment was AT&T’s Randall Stephenson, who promised to use the billions in savings from the Trump tax cut to invest in the company’s broadband network and create at least 7,000 new jobs. 

Instead, even before the coronavirus pandemic, AT&T cut more than 23,000 jobs and demanded that employees train lower-wage foreign workers to replace them.

Let’s not forget Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and its Whole Foods subsidiary. Just weeks after Bezos made the Business Roundtable commitment, Whole Foods announced it would be cutting medical benefits for its entire part-time workforce.

The annual saving to Amazon from this cost-cutting move is roughly what Bezos – whose net worth is $117 billion – makes in a few hours. Bezos’ wealth grows so quickly, this number has gone up since you started watching this video.

GE’s CEO Larry Culp is also a member of the Business Roundtable. Two months after he made the commitment to all his stakeholders, General Electric froze the pensions of 20,000 workers in order to cut costs. So much for investing in employees.  

Dennis Muilenburg, the former CEO of Boeing, also committed to the phony Business Roundtable pledge. Shortly after making the commitment to “deliver value to customers,” Muilenburg was fired for failing to act to address the safety problems that caused the 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people.  After the crashes, he didn’t issue a meaningful apology or even express remorse to the victims’ families and downplayed the severity of the fallout to investors, regulators, airlines, and the public. He was rewarded with a $62 million farewell gift from Boeing on his way out.

Oh, and the chairman of the Business Roundtable is Jamie Dimon, CEO of Wall Street’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase. Dimon lobbied Congress personally and intensively for the biggest corporate tax cut in history, and got the Business Roundtable to join him. JPMorgan raked in $3.7 billion from the tax cut. Dimon alone made $31 million in 2018.

That tax cut increased the federal debt by almost $2 trillion. This was before Congress spent almost $3 trillion fighting the pandemic – and delivering a hefty portion as bailouts to the biggest corporations, many of whom signed the Business Roundtable pledge. 

As usual, almost nothing has trickled down to America’s working class and poor. 

The truth is, American corporations are sacrificing workers and communities as never before in order to further boost runaway profits and unprecedented CEO pay. And not even a tragic pandemic is changing that. 

Americans know this. A record 76 percent of U.S. adults believe major corporations have too much power. 

The only way to make corporations socially responsible is through laws requiring them to be – for example, giving workers a bigger voice in corporate decision making, requiring that corporations pay severance to communities they abandon, raising corporate taxes, busting up monopolies, and preventing dangerous products (including faulty airplanes) from ever reaching the light of day.  

If the CEOs of the Business Roundtable and other corporations were truly socially responsible, they’d support such laws, not make phony promises they clearly have no intention of keeping. Don’t hold your breath.  

The only way to get such laws enacted is by reducing corporate power and getting big money out of our politics.

The first step is to see corporate social responsibility for the sham it is. The next step is to emerge from this pandemic and economic crisis more resolved than ever to rein in corporate power, and make the economy work for all. 

In the latest episode of their thoroughly vetted podcast, Ken and Robin talk converting standard GUMSHOE scenarios to QuickShock, a Ukraine mole, QuestWorlds with Ian Cooper, and moving Lovecraft to Chicago.

Смешно
https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-swine-flu-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html
оказывается, в 2010-м WHO (это те самые люди, которые
придумали карантин против ковида и везде его пропагандируют)
замечательно сели в лужу, объявив свиной грипп пандемией
и проебав на том 18 миллиардов баксов. Но делали это
они не просто так, а под знакомыми лозунгами
"solidarity, equity and social justice". То бишь WHO
это такая коллективная Оказия Кортез, банда ебанутых
SJW, возглавляющая атаку международного капитала на
общественные и личные свободы.

В 2010-м со свиным гриппом у них не
получилось, теперь они пытаются с короной,
и у них все пока получается.

Многие спрашивают, кому нужно это адское
говно, "карантины" и все прочее, и зачем
либеральная общественность так за них цепляется.
А вот за этим, очевидно. Коррупционеры из WHO рвутся
к власти, а пропагандисты за "solidarity, equity
and social justice" (CNN, NYT, Guardian и иже с
ними) им помогают, ибо надеются урвать свой кусок.

Интересно, что в 2010-м в каждом магазине
(я как раз жил в Бразилии) на входе был специальный
рекомендованный WHO против свиного гриппа диспенсер
антисептического геля для рук, а сейчас их нет.
Специально ходил сегодня в аптеку, искал,
но нет антисептического геля и там.

В принципе, если бы кому-то хотелось
бороться с коронавирусом, они бы этим в первую очередь
озаботились, но никак. Очевидно, WHO, под впечатлением прошлого
раза, сама убедила себя, что корона это фейк, и никаких реальных
мер больше не предлагает. С другой стороны, реальных мер WHO
и не надо, пусть эта музыка будет вечной, им так выгоднее.

В общем, чиновник WHO это адский гад,
похуже любого коронавируса.

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