Bronx veterinary center of westchester square
Tiny Village Project
2023.06.06 05:36 ecesllc Tiny Village Project
MODESTO COMMUNITY ACTION ASSOCIATION has announced that they are moving forward in development for the community wide effort at batting the escalating issue of unhoused and under housed folks in the area.
Since 2014, the Modesto Community Action Association has worked with various agencies and advocacy groups to build better, more accountable programs that provide real results to this problem. The group consists of both clients and providers of these services, which we feel often need to be given perspectives more often of those who actually use these programs and services.
Our goals include a drop in center and this project, Tiny Home Village.
Our outreach is done with many people who are involved in the daily struggle to survive. We are in touch with people who are dying to be active and involved, yet have no clue where to start. We seek to unite these people in the effort to make real and lasting changes in the waya service is provided and the responsibly we have to fellow human kind to give a hand up, not out, if we have those means.
This is a three phase plan that will identify and attempt to develop a plot of land we can have through either a partnership with a landowner or real estate agent, or with the city or county, using the resources of locally based doners to build a small community of affordable tiny houses and provide the homes as long term solutions for housing.
Each would be equipped with appliances and the community would be secure, with 24/7 on site security and manager who would be also living on site. The units would require the eventual occupants to provide in kind labor and solict financial assistance, to contribute to the effort. Residents will have a case manager and a plan towards self sufficiency, with check in required to be able to stay. There would be no restriction on length of tenancy, and rent would be adjusted to the work hours they contribute to the ongoing effort to keep the community solid.
Tenants meeting every week. On site manager On site security Fully equipped 200-300 square feet units for individual or family. Phase one - demo units (4), community outbuildings, and garden, and staff units.
Family units are larger, up to 340 sq feet. Individuals can be placed in one of three 150-300 sq feet units prr initial design and budget estimate.
The current goal is to raise the funds to raise funds. A funding campaign will be available online soon. We will seek the backing of both government grants and private donations. The committee is going to start meeting on Zoom (see schedule). We are going to be expecting to appoint the replacement of our founding Board member, Lola Kennedy, who passed away after a long illness last month.
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2023.06.06 05:01 Darren716 Post WWE Raw 6/5/2023 Show Discussion Thread
Venue: XL Center (Hartford, CT) Attendance: ~8900 Winner | Loser | Match Finish | Stipulation |
Becky Lynch | Sonya Deville w/ Chelsea Green | Man-Handle Slam | MitB Qualifying Match |
GUNTHER w/ Imperium | Kevin Owens w/ Sami Zayn | Roll-Up following Imperium brawl with Sami | |
Ronda Rousey and Shayna Bazler | Kayden Carter and Katana Chance | Kirafuda Clutch | |
Ricochet | Shinsuke Nakamura | Double DQ when Bronson Reed attacks both men | |
Zoey Stark w/ Trish Stratus | Natalya | Z-360 | |
Indus Sher w/ Jinder Mahal | Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander | Referee Stoppage | |
Seth Rollins (c) | Damian Priest | Curbstomp | For the World Heavyweight Championship |
IMPORTANT NOTES - Kick-Off with Seth Rollins making his way to the ring and welcoming us to Monday Night Rollins and says the last week has been a non-stop par-tay before thinking to himself when was the last time they had a World Title match on Raw. He had to go all the way back to two years ago and says that is too damn long so he put out for the call for an open challenge which was answered by the Judgement Day's Damian Priest. Seth admits he's kinda excited for it since he wanted to fight the best, and love them or hate them, The Judgement Day are as as good as it gets and he's looking forward to showing them that as good as they are they just ain't him. The Judgement Day come out to interrupt with Finn and Damian walking down the ramp and Seth wants to know where Rhea and Dom are out wondering if they're gonna jump him from behind or making out somewhere. Priest says Dom and Rhea has their own business to take care of and Seth says he's sure they do before asking why Finn and Priest have to go everywhere and ask if they even gotta hold on together when they go to the bathroom. Finn calls him funny but says no one is gonna be laughing when Priest beats him for the title tonight. Damian admits that he thinks Seth is a deserving champion and he's beaten everyone he's been in the ring with, but so has he. Damian says he never knew when this opportunity was going to happen so he is taking full advantage and he doesn't need Finn, Dom, or Rhea to take care of Rollins. Seth tells Priest if he's so confident then why doesn't he put his money where his mouth with and leave his crew in the back and suggests it may be better if he leaves Finn in the back since he usually can't handle a fight with him. Finn tells Seth that he doesn't dictate how they roll but Priest interrupts to say he's fine with the stipulation because either way he's leaving tonight as World Heavyweight Champion and put a short end to Seth's title reign. Seth says he's looking forward to it, and even if the reign ended tonight it'd still be much longer than Finn's was.
- Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are interviewed backstage about what happened on Smackdown. Sami says he isn't the one to say he told you so but he's glad to say the Usos do what they should have done months ago, well at least Jimmy was able to but hopes Jey follows suit. They are interupted by Kaiser and Vinci, Ludwig says that the Bloodline is no longer their problem, Imperium is. Kevin goes on a rant saying that they told them already last week to not appear when they aren't asked. GUNTHER appears and tells Owens he needs to control his temper. Owens says he'll show him how much he can control it and challenges him to a match right now and storms to the ring.
- Backstage Matt Riddle says he's tired of seeing GUNTHER cheat week after week and says if it wasn't for Kaiser and Giovanni he would have lost the Intercontinental Championship long ago. Kaiser and Vinci come by and demand to know how dare he degrade GUNTHER's good name and asks Riddle what he's going to do about it before shoving Riddle. Riddle grabs Vinci and flips him over the crates before grabbing Vinci's leg and locking him in an ankle lock until officials come by to pull him off.
- Backstage Shayna Bazler says they manifested this a decade ago when they were still in the octagon and Ronda says they are finally going to legitimize the titles and want to see anyone try and challenge them. Katana Chance and Kayden Carter approach them and say they're up for a fight but Ronda and Shayna both dismiss them and attempt to intimidate them. Ronda says if they have a death wish so bad then they'll get their baptism by fire.
- Ricochet is shadow-boxing backstage when Bronson Reed approaches and calls him lucky for qualifying for Money in the Bank when he rag dolled him two weeks ago. Ricochet says it wasn't luck that he beat a former world champion and Bronson couldn't get the job done against Nakamura. Bronson says he was dominating Shinsuke until but is cut off by Nakamura saying until he beat him. Bronson walks off as Ricochet tells Nakamura he respects him but that won't change things tonight or at Money in the Bank.
- Backstage Chad Gable says Otis is the reason they came together with Maxine Dupree and Maxine says Otis is what made her realize their true potential but wants to know what that Viking troll. Chad tells her that he has a plan to train Otis to deal with the Viking Raiders and is having him read up on Viking literature but he is also going to teach her how to deal with Valhalla and tells her to get changed so they can train.
- It's time for Miz TV! Miz says he knew once he heard about the World Title match that tonight would be special so he had to secure a special guest and welcomes out Cody Rhodes. Cody comes to the ring and Miz says he looks dashing tonight before getting down to business. He says last week Cody listed all the cities he'll be in and challenged Brock Lesnar, the same man who broke his arm, to a fight? Isn't that kinda stupid. Cody says Mike is coming right out of the gate with it. Miz corrects him that in this ring he is The Miz thank you. Cody says he hadn't heard it been called stupid, he heard it called crazy, gutsy, and required balls which Miz knows a tiny bit about. Cody says since we all know Brock is on his yearly vacation so he has a feeling he won't be seeing Brock for a while but he will be waiting every week for him. Miz says he has a surprise for Cody, another multi-generational superstar who can know exactly what Cody goes through and introduces the one and only Dominik Mysterio who makes his way down with Rhea Ripley. Miz starts to talk but Rhea tells him to be quiet and Miz complies before she hands the mic to Dom. Dom attempts to speak but is booed out of it, Cody sarcastically asks for them not to boo Dom and Rhea demands that they show some respect. Dom powers through the boos to say that he listened to Cody talk last week like he was the big dog but compared to someone who did hard time he's just a birdie with a broken ring. Then he heard him list off all the crappy towns he'll be at and it made him realize that Cody is a bad father who'd rather be out waiting for Brock than at home with his daughter and says him a dead-beat just like Rey. Cody says he has a lot of empathy for the 15 minutes Dom spent in prison and calls that real hard time and says Dom ended up with a worse prison tattoo than he did. Then at Wrestlemania he didn't have a match at Rey, he had a public spanking. Cody admits that it is true that Rey made some terrible mistakes in his life, because he's looking right at one. Dom goes to leave but then smacks Cody as he's looking down and then hides behind Rhea as he taunts Cody and Ripley challenges him to take a shot. As Dom and Rhea retreat up the ramp Miz tries to hug Cody but instead Cody knocks him with a forearm from his titanium cast.
- Backstage Paul Heyman invites us to join him to join him this Friday when family drama will play out as Jey Uso makes his historic choice. As a wiseman he must at times deliver unpleasant news even if it is to Roman Reigns, and this is some unpleasant news. This will tear apart the Anoai family when Jey makes the right choice to stand by his brother...Solo. Heyman says you can share a womb with Jimmy but he will never be closer than with your Tribal Chief Roman Reigns, and says this Friday Jey will acknowledge that fact, or else.
- During the main event Finn attempts to blindside Seth on the outside but Rollins is able to super kick him off. Priest asks Finn why he's out there before re-focusing on the match. Following the end of the match Balor enters the ring to stare down with Seth.
SHAMELESS PLUGS
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2023.06.06 04:09 Distinct-Ad3277 Which color wheel do you guys use ?
You know how in drawing programs the color wheel usually have a squarish and triangle hue/sat,\/value adjuster in the center ?
Just curious what kind of color wheel do you guys use. The square or the triangle one ? and the reason for it.
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2023.06.06 03:45 Tomochiness Joestar Farms is all but finished!
| I spent a stupid amount of time on my farm(s). The regular house is meant to be themed after Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Phantom Blood. Granted, I still married Lance because that guy is a hottie (pun mostly not intended). I just wanted to share my aesthetic because I'm so low key proud of it. Joestar Farm. Complete with training facility near the pond, DIO's castle in the lower left corner, and a proper plaza square in the center. The house! Themed for an archaeologist since that's the profession Jonathan Joestar went into. Along with his two children George and Elizabeth (Lisa). The cellar because who doesn't need a workshop space. The kitchen The library- on the right, Jonathan Joestar's study, and on the left, Dio Brando's. Lotta little easter eggs for the choices made. A proper teahouse because Phantom Blood took place in England and we gotta have some mystical tea time. Slime Shed turned into DIO's castle. Complete with graveyard out front and menacing torches to lead the way. Dio's Throne Room for where the end of Phantom Blood took place! The vineyard/gardens of Joestar manor! The visitor's residence, styled for young Jonathan Joestar The vineyard restored (kinda basic, but I don't have full mods for making the best use of furniture placement) This was really tough to do because you can't customize the walls/flooring in the house, so I had to get creative with the panels to try and make it cozy. Lower floor of the vineyard house! I made it into a video game arcade because why not. Still working on the island house, but these residences are all done. SDVE is such a treasure. I cannot wait for more updates. submitted by Tomochiness to StardewValleyExpanded [link] [comments] |
2023.06.06 03:14 DreadWolf776 Game time question
| Hey just wanted to see if anyone else has faced a similar issue recently. I purchased another 60 days of play time, after a little bit of a break for financial reasons, and haven't actually received my digital code. Instead the order is just listed as "awaiting fulfillment" on my square enix orders page. Never had this happen before, always received the code email within 10 minutes. Contacted support but haven't heard anything submitted by DreadWolf776 to ffxiv [link] [comments] |
2023.06.06 02:53 Destrae [Trip Report] March 8-24 (Tokyo/Yokohama/Kyoto). 16 day weeb dream vacation - Kingdom Hearts concert, JJK exhibit, so many arcades!
I wasn't going to do a trip write up at all, but I'm planning a return trip in the Fall and I realized some of the things I learned on my first trip might be useful for other people, so here we go! I don't often see post write ups from people who are specifically into rhythm games/ arcades/ anime stuff
Dates: March 8 - 24, 2023 Background: Planned this trip mostly for myself but one of my friends decided to tag along fairly last minute. I had planned to spend the whole trip in Tokyo but the one thing she wanted to do was Kyoto, so we added a side trip + a very pleasant day at a Ryokan. I used Wanderlog to plan (HIGHLY recommend, this site is amazing), and my basic daily itinerary was morning shrine > pick an area to explore and have 1-2 major things per day. The person I was travelling with ended up taking a long ass time to get ready each day, so most of my morning stuff got cut or rearranged.
Costs: I will fully admit I did not budget for food/ shopping, 100% vibes. I simply do not acknowledge what I spent
- Flight: $1,500 (Delta from MSP > SEA > Haneda. Direct from MSP had not resumed yet)
- Hotels: ¥314,000 (Roughly $2,300 USD for all 3 hotels total) [¥205,000 (Tokyu Stay Tsukiji, 15 nights) + ¥30,000 (Tokyu Stay Kyoto, 2 nights) + ¥79,000 (Kyokoyado Muromachi Yutone Kyoto, 1 night)]
- Shinkansen: ¥42,000 for 2 round trip tickets from Tokyo/Kyoto and back. Roughly $300 USD, machine did not take foreign CC only cash
Highlights - The Kingdom Hearts concert, I maxed out my luck on this trip and we were able to see this on it's last night in Tokyo. Absolutely incredible!!
- Sushi Yuu, Roppongi (omakase sushi for about ¥20,000 per person, we paid more with drinks)
- ShibuyaSky, the open air viewing makes the experience so much better, plus there's a bunch of different spots to hang out up on the observation deck
- Fushimi Inari, the whole shrine blew me out of the water, absolutely must experience in person
- TeamLabs Planets, so few things live up to the hype and this is one of them
- Golden Gai, the bars were so much fun, got the full experience of a salaryman pissing on the side of the konbini
Lowlights - Caffeine- if you are addicted to non carbonated caffeine like I am be prepared to be disappointed. The monsters are only 40mg compared to America's 150mg+. I'm glad I brought caffeine pills
- Tsukiji market is really not worth going out of your way for, it's nice if you're near it but it's really just a fish market + insane lines for most of the food
- I'm still mad about how bad the food was at the Square Enix cafe is, at least we got coasters + placemats out of the deal. This was genuinely my only bad experience in Japan
- Everything on this subreddit told me that people in Tokyo don't really care about tattoos, however they do really seem to care about colored hair. I have very long, bright ombre hair and I was a bit of a sideshow attraction, including people taking photos of me in public multiple times. Probably the most frustrating part of the trip was being stared at constantly
- Japanese thrift stores love old American clothes, I was definitely let down by the majority of these
Goals: - Buy anime stuff
- Play rhythm games
- Go thrift shopping
- See cherry blossoms
- Collect shrine stamps (goshuin)
Advice: - TAX FREE SHOPPING: This has to be first because no one mentions it?? There are 2 types of tax free, discount and rebate. Everywhere has a minimum for tax free. Don Quijote you have to go to the separate tax free counter, and they will seal the bags shut. You're not supposed to use the tax free items in the country - I didn't know this and did it anyways? There seems to be no repercussions unless they open your bag and count every individual KitKat. I had to open the bags to repack everything anyways. The places that do rebates are generally malls, you bring your receipt + passport and they'll give you the 10% back in cash (minus a fee). When you get to the airport, you scan your passport after you drop your luggage, indicating you made tax free purchases. You do not need to keep your receipts anymore
- Don Quijote does sell luggage but Ginza Karen is cheaper
- Besides the standard things that every single trip report has (get a suica, you'll walk a lot, etc etc), the biggest thing I learned is not to go to an area without at least 1-2 specific goals in mind. For example, I had given us like a half day to go around Shibuya/ Harajuku, but because we didn't look into what malls or stores we might like to go to, we ended up wandering pretty aimlessly and not really enjoying the area. This happened a few different areas we went to, so I decided that in the future I would pin some stores on Google Maps and try to make it to those specific stores
- Install LINE and set up an account. It's crazy how much connects to LINE. For me the biggest thing was 1) making Sushiro reservations and not having to sit in the store for an hour plus waiting for our table and 2) being able to grab a chargeSPOT to charge my phone. I brought a battery pack but at this point it must be like a decade old, it took the entire night to recharge and died on me during the day a few times. I have a Pixel 6 Pro and was literally constantly charging my phone
- If you're coming from the Americas, don't try to do something on your first night. Get your Konbini dinner and go the fuck to sleep
- Getting from place to place can take longer than expected, you'll have to navigate the stations, find the entrances (sometimes hidden in malls) and exits (sometimes closed), don't make plans too tight together
- Navigating Kyoto was so much more confusing. At first our Suica cards didn't work because we apparently didn't tap out at a station in Tokyo, so we were buying day passes and paying in cash on the bus. Some of the buses have 0 English and 100% Kanji (navigation difficulty: extreme). Suica cards DO work in Kyoto so if you're having issues go to a gate with an attendant and they can help
- It can be weirdly hard to find bathrooms, most konbini have them but you're supposed to ask the cashier if you can use them. I speak very basic Japanese but hammed up the gaijin card here and would just ask to use the toilet in English, no one ever told me no Weeb specific advice:
- If you want to do pop ups (like the Jujutusu Kaisen Animation exhibit), a Japanese e-sim will be a lifesaver. You need a Japanese phone number to do SO much, they really make it extremely frustrating to make reservations without it. I did manage to make reservations for the Square Enix cafe though, the write-up is on my profile. (Was it worth it? Absolutely not, worst food all trip, -3/10)
- Prices are all over the place for figures, especially prize figures. There's a solid chance you might buy something and see it cheaper at the next shop, however going back/forth between shops in Akihabara can be a huge pain in the ass. I'd recommend 1) making a list of things you want the most and 2) setting a per item budget and a total budget. A lot of the anime stuff was cheaper in Kyoto as well
- You can find a ton of gachapon stuff at Surugaya, so you can just buy what you want and don't have to gamble. Surugaya bins are organized by series
- Use collabo-cafe.com to find cafes and pop up events you might be interested. Plan ahead because reservations can be hard to come by
Now on to the super detailed trip report! Here's the big
album if you don't want to look through photos separated by day. Warning for flashing video
Day 1 (travel)
- Landed in Haneda around 3pm. Immigration + customs took about an hour (we did the visit Japan web ahead of time and had both QR codes ready). There was virtually no lines anywhere
- It took about an hour to navigate to the hotel. I chose to stay at the Tokyu Stay Tsukiji because 1) it was really cheap, 2) it was close to the Ginza line, and 3) it had a washer in the room. Although the location was slightly inconvenient for late nights, I'd say it was totally worth it for the ability to grab food in Tsukiji market, and the room was pretty large compared to some other areas of Tokyo. In fact, the room was so cheap that when we went to Kyoto, we opted to not check out of the Tsukiji room and just leave the majority of our possessions there. This didn't cause any issues and made travelling on the Shinkansen way easier
- I thought we were built different and could do some stuff this evening. We ended up walking to the Donki and being assaulted by sound in every direction. 7/10 didn't discover the 2nd floor until days later. At this point exhaustion kicked in and we got a Lawsons dinner and crashed
Day 2 (Akihabara,
photos)
- Going to Akihabara on our first day in Japan sure was a choice. Thankfully neither of us suffered jetlag on the way in. Checked out like 10 different game centers and a ton of anime shops. Managed to find the only Monster Rehab of the whole trip here
- Konbini lunch + strong zero! That flavor was terrible :')
- Dinner at the Monster Hunter cafe (no reservations required). Expectations were low but my travel partner is a huge MH fan. The food wasn't bad but the drinks were awful. The ambiance is nice and there were definitely some regulars there playing MH on the consoles they had set up
- The new Namco game center had like 12 brand new Taiko cabs and all of them had phone mounts so you could film yourself playing! I was really intimidated by everyone there being extremely good so we didn't play any games here
Day 3 (Shibuya & Harajuku,
photos)
- Breakfast at Tsukiji outer market since we were already there
- Went to Shibuya Loft for the Bravely Default pop up shop
- Checked out Tower Records
- Ate lunch at Japanese McDonalds
- Went to Takeshita Street. TBH this felt like in-person AliExpress, I'm sure the charm of the early 2000s is long gone
- Visited Hachiko
- Shibuya Sky Observatory
Day 4 (Asakusa,
photos)
- Started at Kaminarimon Gate & went down Nakamise shopping street. It was very crowded on a Sunday but I enjoyed it immensely, you just need some patience to get where you want to go. I liked trying all the food, most of the food stalls here were cash only
- Senso-ji temple, bought Goshuincho to collect stamps
- Ate lunch and dinner in the area, there's a ton of food options
- We ended going all the way over to Yoyogi park as well but nothing was in bloom. Because it was overcast the park looked really sad
Day 5 (Shinjuku & Kabukicho,
photos)
- Now is the time to come clean, I'm a huge Yakuza/ RGG fan. In the morning I had my Majima birthday cake delivered by PRIROLL. I pre-ordered it and chose the delivery day where we didn't have morning plans. It comes frozen and needs to defrost in the fridge. While we left Majima to chill, we made the pilgrimage to Kabukicho to see the iconic gate. It was raining in the morning so we hit up some arcades then went shopping
- There's a really cool mall that seems anime-centric (I believe it's called Shinjuku Marui Anex). It had a Godzilla store, Cinnamoroll Cafe, a JJK pop up, and best of all... A Surugaya. These stores have bins where everything is ¥100-300 and we ended up buying way too much in every one we came across
- Went back to Kabukicho and explored a bit, went to Golden Gai and drank at a handful of bars. Almost missed the last train because I drunkenly insisted on a final game of MaiMai. 10/10 staying in Kabukicho next time
Day 6 (Ikebukero & Rippongi,
photos)
- The plan today was to check out Ikebukero and Roppongi, but we ended up spending so much time at the first mall that we didn't really do anything in Roppongi besides get dinner. Went to the Pokemon Mega Center and the cafe. The main cafe was closed so it was just take out, all the food was really cute but the waffles were kind of terrible
- Gashapon no Depato Ikebukuro was super overwhelming. A lot of the smaller gashapon stores are somewhat organized by what is in the machines, this one just felt chaotic, and it went on forever
- Sushi Yuu was incredible, I didn't take photos of every single course but I was so full that couldn't finish my dessert at the very end. The owner speaks some English and I made our reservations by messaging him on Facebook
Day 7 (Yokohama,
photos)
- We didn't get to Yokohama as early as I would have liked - I took us out way into the suburbs to try to find this Yakuza plushie from the claw machines. I looked up the locations on the Sega website, unfortunately this machine was extra rigged and I couldn't win it >:[ On the bright side all the rhythm games had no one else playing them
- Took the cable car over and went to the Cup Noodle museum. Unfortunately we didn't have a reservation so we had to come back later. Found some cafes in the area and had a late breakfast
- The museum was really small, the main draw is making your own Cup Noodles. Entrance costs 500 yen and this is an additional 500. We had some trouble navigating this part because no one spoke any English
- Had dinner at a pie restaurant that was 10/10
- Explored a bit of Yamashita park (Yakuza 7, anyone?) I was kind of disappointed I wasn't able to see this during the day
- Walked around Yokohama Chinatown & visited the local Round 1 ;)
Day 8 (Kyoto,
photos)
- I bought the Shinkansen tickets to Kyoto the evening before, so we weren't able to get great seats. The machines are also a huge pain in the ass and don't take American CCs, so plan ahead here
- It took us longer than expected to figure out how to use the tickets and read the signage, so we weren't able to get food before and I had to have one of the train bentos. I knew it was going to suck and it was worse than expected :(
- You can bring a full sized suitcase and just put it in front of you, seeing other people do this was unexpected
- My travel partner was destroyed at this point so she rested in the room. I went to the National Garden and Imperial Palace alone. The sakura were just starting to bloom and the weather was great, loved it. The National Garden is SO huge that I only ended up walking up the west side before I tapped out
- Checked out Heian-jingu shrine + the giant torii, I went to another smaller shrine with a great view but I can't remember the name
- We did photoshoots at ESPERANTO Kyoto. There's basically no reviews from foreigners about this place but it was fantastic!! Their online booking form didn't work for me, so I emailed asking for a reservation. I emailed in Japanese and English and they replied in English. They gave me time options and I replied with what package and room each of us wanted (the website says they require a deposit but they told me they didn't need one). When we got there they did our hair and makeup, and then you pick your kimonos out. The photographer spoke pretty decent English and we didn't have trouble communicating with anyone else here. They had our photos edited and printed about 30 minutes after we picked which ones we wanted. The whole thing took about 3 hours (it was longer because we used the same set room). I don't want to include my photos but I did add a video of my hairstyle because she knocked it out of the park
- Ended the day with okonomiyaki, one of my favorite Japanese foods
Day 9 (Kyoto,
photos)
- Fushimi Inari day! I ended up walking this alone, I did not realize how long it was going to take or the fact it was actually like 10,000 stairs. My knees were very upset on the way down
- It was not as busy as expected, I went at roughly noon on a Friday. Most people tap out before the actual mountain climb
- The Goshuin at Fushimi Inari are on paper, you can paste them into your books later. Even if you don't have a Goshuincho I'd recommend buying them because they are very cute!
- Shrine cats!!!! You can buy photos of them to help pay for their food
- After Fushimi Inari I somehow managed to walk to Tofukuji Temple (I did the garden but not the bridge) and Daigo-ji Gojunoto pagoda and garden. I wanted to cut my legs off after today
Day 10 (Kyoto,
photos)
- I started my day at the Kyoto Round 1, I had visited it on day 8 as well. This one is ace because it was literally always empty 10/10
- Decided to explore Gion a bit, ended up at the Machiya Starbucks and had the best thing I ate all trip (a custard dorayaka, I regret not going back for another)
- Ended up at Kiyomizu-dera Temple totally on accident. It wasn't super impressive in early spring but the view was still fantastic
- Ended the day at the Ryokan (Kyokoyado Muromachi Yutone). Ended up picking one without an onsen because we are both covered in tattoos, and I didn't want to deal with finding a private one. The cypress tub was a great trade off, and the food was incredible
Day 11 (Tokyo - Concert,
photos)
- Today we travelled back to Tokyo and went to the Kingdom Hearts concert. I ended up trying for the lottery for tickets back in like December 2022. Winners were announced the first weekend in January and you only had a few days to buy tickets. I have a friend of a friend living in Japan who did me the biggest solid ever and bought our tickets. I met up with her during the trip for the hand off. The seats are randomly assigned and we had AMAZING seats near the front. This was also the performance Nomura was at!
- We weren't supposed to take photos during the performance so I just have some before. Also, I made Organization XIII beads that attach onto my dress with magnets and I am very proud of it, so please excuse the bathroom selfie :D
- The concert was about 3 hours long and after all the travelling we were beat. We ate dinner, played our nightly games of Ongeki, and passed out
- Bonus video of the music box that plays Dearly Beloved
Day 12 (Ginza & Sumida,
photos)
- We were really starting to tucker out at this point. We managed to drag ourselves to the Ginza art Aquarium in the AM and the Tokyo SkyTree in the afternoon. Today was the Equinox so everything was crazy busy, the line to buy tickets for the SkyTree was literally like 2 ish hours long so we bought them online and went shopping in the mall
- The Art Aquarium was really cool, but a lot of the fish were in really small tanks. I didn't include photos of those :(
- The SkyTree just let people up as fast as they could so it was extremely crowded at the top, and not super enjoyable imo
- I spent the evening at the arcades in Akihabara :D
Day 13 (Tokyo - JJK Exhibit,
photos - flashing video warning)
- Today I went off in the am to see if I could buy a ticket to the Jujutsu Kaisen animation exhibit in person. The online site wouldn't let me buy a ticket because I didn't have a Japanese phone number. UNFORTUNATELY you couldn't buy tickets in person. I got super lucky again and 2 foreign exchange students from Europe were trying to do the same thing, however they did have a Japanese phone number and the site allowed you to get 3 tickets at a time. They were able to grab them for all 3 of us for that evening
- Putzed off to Hie Shrine, anyone that tells you it's a mini Fushimi Inari is lying
- Went back to Akihabara, found a Miku racing pop up!
- Went back to... Ginza? for the JJK animation exhibit, it took about an hour to go through. I included a ton of photos so just skip today if you're not interested in that show
Day 14 (Tokyo - TeamLabs Planets & SquareEnix Cafe,
photos)
- TeamLabs was so cool! I didn't include many photos since it's 95% selfies. Make sure you explore a bit as the string light room had a couple of different areas that are easy to miss, and it's possible to accidentally skip the hanging garden, which was beautiful! TeamLabs took us about 2.5 hours but we were 100% those bitches taking forever to get a million photos
- Since we were staying in Tsukiji we ended up just slowly walking back to the room for a much needed nap
- Back to Akihabara yet again! More rhythm games, some awful food at SE
Day 15 (Shinjuku,
photos)
- This was our last full day in Japan, we honestly didn't want to do anything but we managed to drag our asses to Shinjuku National Garden for the cherry blossoms. Unfortunately it was sprinkling a bit, at least it kept the crowds away
- Managed to check out Meiji Jingu, but at this point my travel partner was sick of walking and tapped out
- I went back to Kabukicho, walked around a bit and ended up back at an arcade (bless Ongeki for having stools)
Final thoughts (Misc,
photos)
- We were literally so annihilated by the trip that we took a taxi to the airport, it was about ¥8,000 from Tsukiji ($60 USD ish)
- I ended up buying a 24" suitcase from Ginza Karen for ¥6,000. It was 100% full of stuff I purchased. We also used one or those giant ¥500 bags from Donki as a carry on
- My Goshuincho was my favorite souvenir, I'm so proud of all the stamps I collected (I did get doubles at some shrines). I plan to bring this back late 2023 to try to finish it
- I have the old school GoogleFi plan and don't have to do anything extra to have international data. Lots of places & stations have free WiFi but you'll need to put your email in
- I don't really sleep that much and my schedule in the US is already busted, but it took me about 2 full weeks to get back on normal human hours. I'm tired again just writing this up and looking through all my photos
- My main regret is not trying more food, we ended up waiting until we were dying of starvation and ate at the konbini a lot (typical)
Edits for formatting submitted by
Destrae to
JapanTravel [link] [comments]
2023.06.06 02:27 BMXnotFIX Softail Fuel Pump Cover?
I just picked up a tank off a 2003 Softail Fatboy for a custom build and it's missing what I believe to be the fuel pump cover. Square gaskets hole in the center of the tank. I'm not really familiar with Harleys so maybe I'm just using the wrong wording, but I can't seem to find a replacement cover anywhere. Anyone mind pointing me in the right direction? It's going on a bike with an external pump, so I just need to cap off the hole.
submitted by
BMXnotFIX to
Harley [link] [comments]
2023.06.06 01:33 RobotTomPeterson Dozens of cars trapped inside bankrupt tire center at Washington Square Mall
2023.06.06 01:22 mmmmyah JSQCA June meeting live broadcast 7-8 pm Monday, party at Emma's later
2023.06.06 01:02 gloomchen Live WWE RAW Discussion - June 5th, 2023!
🎶 YEAH IT FEELS LIKE GREATNESS 🎶 Venue: XL Center (Hartford, CT)
Attendance: ~8900
- Seth “Freakin” Rollins defends the World Heavyweight Championship against Damian Priest
- Cody Rhodes to appear on special edition of “Miz TV”
- Becky Lynch to take on Sonya Deville in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
- Natalya to battle Zoey Stark in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
Additional Plugs
submitted by
gloomchen to
SquaredCircle [link] [comments]
2023.06.06 00:27 Spend-Extension KODO ASSETS
Every investor’s dream is to buy a property to receive passive income, but you need a lot of capital… or not? Can you imagine being able to invest free money, from $140 in a property and receive income from its rental and sale? With Kodo Assets it is possible, watch out! They have found the solution to eliminate this great barrier to entry, and that members can invest in the real estate sector without having to have a high capital. As? Applying Blockchain technology. I explain: Through Blockchain technology for smart contracts, it is possible to create new cryptocurrencies that can be given parity with any existing physical asset, such as real estate and gold, for example in the case of Pax Gold. And this is what Kodo Assests is about, tokenizing properties and giving their holders all the rights that derive from that property. Through the acquisition of the KODO1 token, each investor will receive in the form of dividends, their corresponding part of the income received from the rental of the property, and later by the capital gain at the time the sale is made. At first, the payment of said earnings was chosen in the USDC stablecoin and the chosen network where the tokens will be issued will be POLYGON. This generates a series of advantages, for example, once the initial verification requirements of the token holder are met, it is possible that these tokens are offered and retained by an indiscriminate number of people. This would allow, instead of offering autonomous units, the property is divided into as many tokens as square meters. Another great advantage is that since the token is part of a smart contract, the dividends and any other earnings will be distributed directly to the wallets of the KODO1 holders, which allows a higher profit margin since all types of fees and values would be avoided. payments for registrations and any other commission existing between the purchase and sale of real estate. Due to the possibility of great growth in the real estate area, his first project was decided to tokenize a property located in Sao Paulo. It is a commercial property located in the financial center of the city of São Paulo, in the Faria Lima region, at Calle dos Pinheiros, 1673, cj. 62, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, SQL 015.073.1023–4. The total area of the property is 1,144,525m2, with a BOMA area of 552.58m2, a private area of 473m2 and a common area of 671,525m2, according to registration number 141,264, registered in the 10th Royal Real Estate Registry of São Paulo. Some details of the KODO1 Token: **A total of 25,000 tokens will be issued in which they have NO plans to issue more or any policy for burning it. **Each token will be offered for $140.00, in addition to the cost of KYC/AML verification, which will be $13 per individual user and $25 per corporate user. The minimum purchase amount is 1 token and there is no maximum purchase limit. **The total value of this offer is US$3,500,000.00. **This token offer will take place between April 10, 2023(*) and September 9, 2023(*) or until the 25,000 KODO1 Tokens are completed sold out, whichever occurs first, and may be changed according to criteria of opportunity and convenience, to be defined by Kodo Assets Dates subject to change. For more details of the project:
https://www.kodoassets.com submitted by
Spend-Extension to
TheNextBigCrypto [link] [comments]
2023.06.06 00:04 DirtyDiscsAndDyes How long would this take an experienced turner to make?
| Ok so this is my second jar stash box thing I've made on my lathe. I have no formal training, just ambition and too many hours watching YouTube. Im wondering how much my lack of organization and experience cost me in these projects. Specifics. I start with a 5 inch deep blank I made of walnut burl and resin. The largest (bottom) part is 5 inch diameter top is 4 inch. Square cube of walnut on the top to make the nipple and a waste block on the bottom. I cast it in a plastic measuring cup so its almost round but not quite and the waste block is close to centered... but not 100%. Bottom and lid are both hollowed out. Sanded to 1000 grit and then finished with yorkshire grit and shelawax. How long would this take you folks to make from when you mount it on the lathe to completion? Enjoy the pics. I know the lid on this one could be tighter, im still learning. And light box does not do the depth of the resin and wood justice. submitted by DirtyDiscsAndDyes to turning [link] [comments] |
2023.06.05 23:35 Matt_the_Senior YAVP : L+ Ultra Ending
So... I made it at last, my first Ultra Ending. Raven Dark Elven Paladin, Starting C and finishing L+.
It was the first time I was trying an Ultra (well, after a few recent early fails due to carelessness). All in all, I didn't find it much harder than a Normal Ending : Having to stay C at the start of the game has some drawbacks, of course, like encountering hostile dwarves (I did the Rolf quest, too), but all in all, game difficulty is about the same. There are more quests to do and more things to plan, though, and I really enjoyed that (in a sense, it was like playing a new game).
The reason for Raven DE Paladin and L+ Ultra is that it's probably the easiest possible Ultra (or at the very least close to it) : Raven ensures that you get the Rune Covered Trident early, which in turn guarantees that you can start training Polearms and Thrown Spears early. DE Paladins have good survivability early on, and are beasts when it comes to melee *and* magic by the late game.
Starting attributes (unadjusted) were : St 15 / Le 4 / Wp 17 / De 14 / To 15 / Ch 1 / Ap 4 / Ma 17 / Pe 16
Le 4 allows to get the Potion of Litteracy, which was fed to the Demented Ratling. Pe 16 is enough to reach 20 after the bonuses are taken into account (+2 from job +Alert).
Early game was killing a Mugger, locating the stairs and getting the Blanket in the SMC (in the hopes of getting some loot, which didn't happen), getting the Pickpocket skill, then DD (went to DD8 to generate the Druid, but didn't fight him), Moldy Dungeon (to get the Tome of Donors), and finally the Caverns of Chaos.
I was extremely lucky to find a Surge of Power on D5, which turned out to be nothing less than the Bracers of War.
Then it was classical midgame stuff (herbs, Dwarftown, midgame locations). The Demented Ratling was fed : the Black Torc, the Potion of Litteracy, the Cornupia, the Ancient Mummy Wrapping (I had no use for it since I had the RCT and the Bracers of War), The Sword of Nonnak (same) and the Tome of Donors (I could have kept it, but I wanted to get crowned L+ asap). Gaab'Baay's quests went fast (I had found most of the needed stuff, and the second boar I encountered dropped a skull). Got crowned L+ at level 18, using the Borderland Settlement altar, and received Fire Immunity + Hammer of the Gods (which I never used). I already had Cold Immunity from the RCT, Acid Immunity from a lucky early Giant Slug, and Shock Immunity from blessing then eating numerous Lightning Lizards.
The Greater Vault in the FGJC was a one with 10 Great Red Wyrms. Needless to say, I didn't try to clear the center room at level 20.
Got a Ring of Djinni Summoning in the Rift, which I used to save Khelly. That's the only RoDS that I found during that playthrough.
While I was on my way to the CoC Great Vault, I found a tension room full of Balors. Since fighting 2 of them in a corridor wasn't particularly frightening, I could cast Slow Monster on myself and got quite a few levels.
Then, the guaranteed CoC Great Vault was one with Giants, which posed no threat by that stage. Got Far Slayer (the +18 +18 crossbow).
After that, I went back to the FGJC Great Vault, and blasted the Wyrms with Freezing Fury (the clerical version of Ice Ball) + Slow Monster cast on myself. Got quite a few levels there (something like from 42 to 49 iirc). The loot was underwhelming : Tome of Alsophocus, Staff of Wonder, bleh ! However, this removed the need to farm experience to reach level 45, which was nice.
Finished Rolf quest at that point. Received the Gleaming Shield just in time to use it (along with one phase dagger) against the Emperor Moloch. Considering how sturdy and fast my character was, it was only a matter of hit and run tactics (and escaping the level asap once I got the Crumpled Scroll).
Then the Blue Dragon Caves (got very lucky there with a Wand of Wishing (3 charges) + Helm of the Night Watchman + Staff of Purification), and finally the Merchants Guild. Found the Shirt of the Saints + Stone of Ages (not bad) + 11M gold (that turned into +3 Wp with the help of Garth).
After that, I killed Keriax (I'm not even sure he saw me), wasted some time raising attributes to the 60s (by dipping various stacks of 9x2s potions in blessed potions of Exchange), read a few spellbooks (just in case, really) and finally went for the deep dive.
I had some fun clearing the Chaos Plane using almost exclusively Wp 99 Rain of Sorrow (Acid Ball). Then drank all boosting potions, equiped the trinity and entered the portal.
Andor Drakon was killed using the RCT as a missile weapon. It took 37 shots (of which 17 missed) to kill him, and during that time he really didn't do much : One summoning spell (one zap from a wand of fireballs and the summons were gone), one darkness spell (no effect, since I was wearing the Helm of the Night Watchman), one attack spell, and one step towards me. Oh, and I forgot : he also did a great introductory speech ! Having drunk 12 blessed potions of Boost Speed before steping into the portal is certainly the decisive factor that turned a potentially hard fight into a very easy one.
Some random thoughts :
- The Farsight spell is awesome : it vastly boosts your vision range. Probably a quite rare spellbook, since I only found one.
- For some reason, that character only scored 10M points, while I had a character that did a Normal Ending score 12M points recently. I was quite surprised : I would have thought that an Ultra Ending would have beaten any Normal Ending.
- Provided you buy all potions from the Borderland Settlement whenever you have a chance, you should end up with enough potions of Exchange and enough stacks of useless 2s potions to do some serious potion dipping. Even better if you have the Potion Belt (which I didn't have) or at the very least Moon Sickle (to turn any useless 4s potion into another useless, but lighter, potion). Sadly, I had sacrificed Moon Sickle, so I had to make do with what I had. Nonetheless, I could get quite a few POGAs that way.
- I still had a few items destroyed in the Blue Dragon Caves, although I had 3 immunities (Lightning Lizard + TotRR + Blue Dragon Scale Mail) and 2 resistances (Ring of the High Kings, Gauntlets of Elemental Mastery). Still, if you leave any precious stuff before entering, the item destruction is very manageable.
- Talking about item destruction : only the half of the level where the Air Temple is located seems to be "dangerous" when it comes to item destruction. The other half seems to be completely safe, at least I never had a single item destroyed there.
- The bonuses from eating some Chaos corpses are nice, but nothing compared to what you can get from potion dipping.
I'm going to stop there. Big thanks to all who answered my questions during the past few weeks, and feel free to ask back if you have any question :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Screenshot ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DaPa/50 L+ DV/PV: 90/72 H: 1327/1327 P: 1580/1702 ----b---------B-%0ChAoS . .. ...# ..#. .....# .##.# ...##.# #..C.# ..=..#.#.##..# .=.##.....#...# ##...#..#....# #....#..[$..## #......@.....# ...=...#.......# #.... ##....(]# .=## .#.=.#.# # ## #### # themselves! The corrupting energies are turned into benevolent rays of cleaning nature and free your spirit and your body from all corruption! Then you are suddenly pulled back into your reality! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Background Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Star Race: female Dark Elf Class: Paladin Eye color: black Hair color: white Complexion: black Height: 5'3" Weight: 99 pounds Age: 138 (adult) Star sign: Raven Birthday: 2/Raven (day 2 of the year) YOUR HISTORY: Your parents were poor people. They loved you and cared for you, although you had to hunger more than once. In your childhood you were a credit to your family. Your people loved you and enjoyed your presence. During your youth you embarked on many small journeys to nearby towns on behalf of your parents. You learned to know lots of people and made many friends. Your life as a young adult was characterized by steady determination. Your goal lay clearly ahead of you and you never strayed from your path. You decided to become a Paladin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inventory ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total weight: 19495 stones Carrying capacity: 124575 stones He: uncursed helm of the Night Watchman [+0, +8] {Pe+4} [100s] Ne: blessed rustproof amulet of life saving [3s] Bo: blessed Shirt of the Saints [+8, +4] {Le+2} [20s] Gi: blessed eternium girdle [+4, +4] [12s] Cl: blessed cloak of protection [+2, +3] [20s] RH: blessed Trident of the Red Rooster (+36, 6d12+18) [+12, +12] {Ma+24} LH: - RR: blessed ring of the High Kings [+2, +3] [1s] LR: uncursed ring of mental stability [+0, +1] {Le+1} [1s] Br: uncursed bracers of war [+8, +4] {Dx+8} [10s] Ga: blessed elemental gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +3] [10s] Bo: blessed seven league boots [+6, +7] [30s] MW: - Mi: - Tl: - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stuff ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total weight: 19138 stones Carrying capacity: 124575 stones Helmets ('[') uncursed circlet of the pure mind [+2, +2] {Wi+8} [18s] Shields ('[') uncursed small black shield "Lust for Glory" (+1) [+5, +5] {Wi+3} [50s] Gauntlets ('[') uncursed thick gauntlets (-1, -2) [+0, +1] [15s] blessed thick gauntlets (-2, -1) [+0, +1] [15s] Cloaks ('[') uncursed cloak of protection [+0, +3] [20s] uncursed tattered cloak of the dark souls [+6, +3] {Wi-3} [23s] Girdles ('[') uncursed adamantium girdle [+0, +3] [18s] Boots ('[') uncursed eternium boots [+1, +8] [55s] Necklaces (''') blessed ankh [3s] blessed amulet of free action [3s] blessed necklace of the eye [3s] blessed amulet of petrification resistance [3s] uncursed stone of the ages {Le+6} [2s] uncursed necklace of the eye [3s] One-handed weapons ('(') uncursed unpick axe (+3, 3d6+3) {To+10} [75s] uncursed orcish knife (+1, 1d3+2) [10s] Two-handed weapons ('(') blessed staff of nourishment (+0, 1d10) [40s] blessed staff of parting water (+0, 1d10) [40s] blessed staff of purification (+0, 1d10) [40s] blessed staff of sensing traps (+1, 1d10+2) [+1, +0] [39s] blessed staff of purification (+0, 1d10+1) [40s] blessed staff of mundane insights (+0, 1d10+1) [40s] blessed staff of nourishment (+2, 1d10) [40s] Missile weapons ('}') uncursed long bow of hunting (+6, +3) [30s] blessed heavy crossbow "The Far Slayer" (+18, +18) [350s] blessed long bow of hunting (+6, +3) [30s] uncursed long bow of hunting (+9, +3) [30s] Missiles ('/') Tons of them Tools (']') uncursed waterproof blanket [10s] blessed waterproof blanket [10s] uncursed square key [1s] uncursed tinderbox (23) [3s] uncursed holy symbol [5s] blessed small key [1s] blessed fireproof blanket [10s] heap of 2 uncursed torches [20s] heap of 2 blessed magical writing sets (3) [10s] uncursed triangular key [1s] heap of 2 blessed torches [20s] uncursed fireproof blanket [10s] uncursed tiny key [1s] blessed hexagonal key [1s] heap of 2 uncursed boxes with flint and steel (40) [10s] uncursed round key [1s] Rings ('=') uncursed ring of mental stability [+0, +1] {Le+1} [1s] blessed ring of invisibility [1s] Wands ('\') too many to fit here Potions ('!') Many Scrolls ('?') Many too Books ('"') Not enough space to display them all Food ('%') Alot Gems ('*') Quite a few ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weapon Skills ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Melee weapon Lvl Hit Dam DV Level Required marks --------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- -------------- Unarmed fighting 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 22 Daggers & knives 7 +6 +3 +1 skilled 46 Clubs & hammers 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 25 Maces & flails 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 25 Swords 10 +9 +6 +3 excellent 239 Axes 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 25 Whips 1 +1 +0 +1 basic 25 Pole arms 15 +20 +12 +22 Grand Mastery Twohanded weapons 1 +1 +1 +0 basic 25 Staves 2 +2 +0 +2 basic 40 Missile weapon Lvl Hit Dam Ra Level Required marks --------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- -------------- Slings 3 +6 +4 +1 basic 15 Bows 10 +20 +15 +3 excellent 475 Crossbows 7 +14 +10 +2 skilled 45 Thrown axes & hammers 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 7 Thrown daggers 4 +8 +6 +1 skilled 19 Thrown rocks & clubs 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 7 Thrown spears 10 +20 +15 +3 excellent 253 Boomerangs & scurgari 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 7 Shields Lvl DV Level Required marks --------------------- --- --- ------------- -------------- Shields 5 +10 skilled 71 Damage caused with your melee weapons: -------------------------------------- Right hand: +287 bonus to hit, 6d12+125 damage Damage caused with your missile weapons: ---------------------------------------- No missile weapons available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skills ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alchemy ..................100 (superb) [+1d3] Alertness ................100 (superb) [+1d5] Archery .................. 75 (great) [+2d4] Athletics ................100 (superb) [+2d4] Backstabbing .............100 (superb) [+1] Climbing .................100 (superb) [+1d5] Concentration ............100 (superb) [+4d4] Courage ..................100 (superb) [+3d4] Detect traps .............100 (superb) [+1d3] Disarm traps ............. 66 (good) [+3d4] Dodge ....................100 (superb) [+1d3] Find weakness ............100 (superb) [+1d3] First aid ................100 (superb) [+1d5] Fletchery ................ 56 (good) [+3d3] (mr) Food preservation ........ 77 (great) [+1d3] Gardening ................ 17 (mediocre) [+3d3] Haggling .................100 (superb) [+1d5] Healing ..................100 (superb) [+1d5] Herbalism ................100 (superb) [+1d5] Listening ................100 (superb) [+2d4] Literacy .................100 (superb) [+1d3] Necromancy ............... 21 (mediocre) [+0] Pick pockets .............100 (superb) [+1] Stealth ..................100 (superb) [+1d5] Swimming .................100 (superb) [+1d3] Tactics ..................100 (superb) [+1d3] Two weapon combat ........ 77 (great) [+3d4] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spells ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acid Bolt : 1069, 15pp (Effectivity: +1) Baptism of Fire : 1617, 7pp (Effectivity: +6) Bless : 309, 8pp (Effectivity: +0) Calm Monster : 1871, 7pp (Effectivity: +7) Clairvoyance : 1214, 40pp (Effectivity: +1) Cure Disease : 9, 15pp (Effectivity: +0) Cure Light Wounds : 321, 5pp (Effectivity: +0) Cure Serious Wounds: 1010, 10pp (Effectivity: +0) Darkness : 1046, 4pp (Effectivity: +0) Divine Digger : 997, 100pp (Effectivity: +0) Divine Intervention: 72, 3840pp (Effectivity: +0) Divine Wrath : 1290, 12pp (Effectivity: +2) Enlightenment : 937, 75pp (Effectivity: +0) Ethereal Bridge : 1316, 92pp (Effectivity: +10) Farsight : 1242, 17pp (Effectivity: +4) Freezing Fury : 1181, 24pp (Effectivity: +5) Heavenly Fury : 1735, 30pp (Effectivity: +4) Hellish Flames : 1257, 10pp (Effectivity: +0) Holy Awe : 8, 23pp (Effectivity: +0) Invoked Devastation: 1256, 30pp (Effectivity: +0) Lesser Divine Touch: 1666, 8pp (Effectivity: +0) Light : 2147, 2pp (Effectivity: +6) Lordly Might : 1674, 9pp (Effectivity: +7) Major Punishment : 1725, 20pp (Effectivity: +0) Minor Punishment : 2167, 8pp (Effectivity: +3) Nether Bolt : 1930, 12pp (Effectivity: +1) Neutralize Poison : 11, 18pp (Effectivity: +0) Rain of Sorrow : 1171, 34pp (Effectivity: +6) Revelation : 826, 33pp (Effectivity: +2) Slow Monster : 3379, 6pp (Effectivity: +5) Slow Poison : 274, 6pp (Effectivity: +0) Web : 1356, 12pp (Effectivity: +0) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Her further life: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- After slaying Andor Drakon and dispersing his malevolent energies the pillars of Order appear before you. All the forces of Order seem to be united behind them. You are lifted to the status of an Avatar of Order and the tales of your deeds are spread all over Ancardia. Your deeds are recounted at camp fires and interpreted by philosophers and priests alike. The common man looks up to you and you slowly start to be revered as a minor power of Order. After a few millennia have passed you are raised to the position of a demigod to guard and protect Ancardia from the forces of Chaos and Balance forever. Under your guidance Ancardia becomes an orderly and organized world without striking changes. Peaceful order (and boredom?) spreads and the world enters an era of peace and tranquility never again leaving it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Her achievements during her battles: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Star, the dark elven paladin, transformed into an avatar of Order. She scored 10700656 points and advanced to level 50. She survived for 0 years, 94 days, 18 hours, 32 minutes and 35 seconds (209275 turns). 10 companions were killed during her adventures. Star visited 225 places. Her strength score was modified by +49 during her career. Her learning score was modified by +71 during her career. Her willpower score was modified by +49 during her career. Her dexterity score was modified by +55 during her career. Her toughness score was modified by +57 during her career. Her charisma score was modified by +60 during her career. Her appearance score was modified by +57 during her career. Her mana score was modified by +56 during her career. Her perception score was modified by +35 during her career. She was the champion of the arena. She was a member of the thieves guild. She killed the emperor of the ancient minotaur race. She defeated the arch enemy of a mighty karmic wyrm. She saved Khelavaster from certain death. She met Rolf, the legendary emperor of the dwarves. She avenged Rolf's blood. She ended her adventuring life in the palace of Andor Drakon. 15220 monsters perished under her attacks. The following 60 artifacts were generated during her adventure: the si the dwarven rune axe "Rolf's Companion" the scythe of corruption "Moon Sickle" the potion of literacy the golden gladius "Death's Sting" the dwarven shield "Rolf's Saviour" the Chaos Orb of Elemental Water the Chaos Orb of Elemental Air the Chaos Orb of Elemental Fire the Chaos Orb of Elemental Earth the heavy crossbow "The Far Slayer" the ebony spear "Bugbiter" the scorched spear the girdle of the emperors "Celestrix" the rune-covered trident the sword of Nonnak the elemental gauntlets the ring of the High Kings the crown of science the ancient mummy wrapping the ankh the hammer of the gods the small black shield "Lust for Glory" the Crown of Chaos the black torc the Medal of Chaos the Shirt of the Saints the bracers of war the Chaos Orb of Elemental Mana the black rune-covered dagger "Needle" the rune-covered sling "Whirlwind" the sapphire amulet "Preserver" the black tome of Alsophocus the Trident of the Red Rooster the weird tome the rune-covered halberd "Wyrmlance" the axe of the minotaur emperor the tome of donors the antediluvian dwarven map fragment the antediluvian dwarven map the ancient dwarven key the unpick axe the stone heart "Bergbringer" the gleaming dwarven rune axe the gleaming dwarven shield the twisted quarterstaff "Kalmius' Shield" the helm of the Night Watchman the lead great axe the staff of wonder the mighty tower shield "The Wall" the glowing gem "Third Eye" the circlet of the pure mind the beheading axe "Headman's Hand" the intricate wooden staff "Nature's Breath" the black whip of extinction the glistening scimitar "Eagle's Claw" the tattered cloak of the dark souls the cornucopia the stone of the ages the weird fire starter She possessed the following intrinsics: She was fire resistant (also through items). She was poison resistant (also through an item). She was cold resistant (also through items). She was lucky (also through an item). Fate smiled upon her. She was sleep resistant (gained through items). She was able to control teleportation. She was stun resistant (also through items). She was paralyzation resistant. She was resistant to death rays (gained through items). She was shock resistant (also through items). She was able to see invisible things (gained through items). She was immune to shock attacks. She was immune to fire attacks. She was immune to acidic attacks. She was immune to ice attacks (gained through an item). She was able to breathe water (gained through an item). She was able to resist confusion attacks (also through items). She had the following talents: Affinity with Axes, Affinity with Polearms, Affinity with Swords, Alert, Careful, Defensive Fighter, Dodger, Good Shot, Greased Lightning, Keen Shot, Long Stride, Melee Weapon Master, Miser, Quick, Quick Shot, Strong of Will, Treasure Hunter, Very Careful, Very Quick. She had a final speed score of 490 (final base speed: 180). She was a messiah of Elderon. She asked for 1 divine intervention. She was a holy champion of Order. The following monsters were vanquished: Dispatched the legendary will o'wisp Aksarnerk. Dispatched the legendary tarantula Shiksazzar. Dispatched the legendary berserker lord Arngrim. Dispatched the legendary necromancer Gorvin. Dispatched the legendary goblin Groof. Dispatched the legendary orc scorcher Arik. Dispatched the legendary dark orc Enryb-eel. Dispatched the legendary ratling thief White-Mask. Dispatched the legendary dark elven priestess Althenia. Dispatched the legendary eye of destruction Sheelak The All-Seeing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Playing Time ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You played for 96 hours, 23 minutes and 21 seconds. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ancient Domains Of Mystery Version 3.3.4 Windows Deluxe (Steam) Build: Nov 12 2020 10:42:23
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2023.06.05 23:05 Joadzilla Thousands are living in RVs on Los Angeles’ streets. Leaders want to shrink the number, but the solution is elusive
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/05/us/los-angeles-rv-dwellers/index.html
Los Angeles CNN —
Early one recent Friday morning, sanitation workers, homeless-outreach workers and LAPD officers arrived on a little street in the west of Los Angeles. Jasmine Avenue is lined with low-rise apartment blocks, an imposing Catholic Church, a school and a handful of dilapidated recreational vehicles.
That morning on Jasmine Avenue, RV residents were offered $500 gift cards and a motel room. The city also offered to tow and destroy their RVs. One RV managed to leave, under its own steam, with what smelled like sewage leaking along the road as it left. This clearance is one small part of what has been a piecemeal approach by officials trying to tackle a burgeoning phenomenon of people living permanently in RVs on these streets.
“I’ll take a motel room,” one RV owner told me as he packed up his belongings after about six months on Jasmine Avenue. “See what happens.” But he did not let the city tow and destroy his RV. He towed it elsewhere himself, using a chain and a beaten-up SUV. He wants to keep it.
“The idea sometimes our clients have is, ‘What if this doesn’t work? If this doesn’t work, then I’m back on the streets. I’m back to square one,’” said LaTonya Smith, interim CEO at the St. Joseph Center, a nonprofit that helps the city find accommodation for the unhoused. “People who are living in RVs consider themselves to be housed, and in order for them to leave that RV, sometimes we have to incentivize.”
There are, by the latest count, more than 11,000 people living in RVs across Los Angeles County. And that number has been rising. The Covid-19 pandemic forced more people into poverty. Some of the RV dwellers have jobs but either don’t want to pay apartment rent, or can’t afford to pay it, in a city where the average one-bedroom apartment costs around $2,500 a month.
Some RV dwellers own the vehicles, but others rent them to the monthly tune of a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000, city Councilwoman Traci Park told CNN.
In Los Angeles, you are allowed to sleep in a vehicle on some streets. There are, of course, parking restrictions on many streets. But as the number of RVs has grown, enforcing those restrictions has become harder. Large, immobile RVs require large tow trucks. And, according to the city, destroying a dilapidated RV that might contain harmful chemicals can cost up to $9,000 per vehicle.
Outreach workers from St. Joseph Center interact regularly with RV dwellers. A spokesperson told CNN: “Staff encounter a large percentage, probably safe to say as much as 80-85%, of individuals who are ‘leasing’ RVs or may have purchased an RV that is not suitable for habitation or a ‘legal’ sale.”
Park and others argue that these RVs endanger their residents and blight neighborhoods, acting as magnets for crime and damaging the environment. Some advocates for the unhoused agree the impact on city neighborhoods is an issue.
“There might be trash everywhere,” said Smith from the St. Joseph Center. “People come outside their neighborhoods and homes, that’s not something that they really want to see.”
In the five years since Los Angeles County commissioned one of many reports into the RV problem and potential solutions, the number of RVs on county streets has risen by more than 50% – from more than 4,500 in 2018 to more than 7,100 at last count. Reports are regularly requested and written by various city and county departments.
“I’m tired of studies and reports,” Park told CNN recently at her freshly painted City Hall office. She was elected last year on a platform dripping with intent to handle the various homelessness issues plaguing Los Angeles. Among her first targets: people she calls “vanlords,” some of whom, she says, rent out rotting, unsafe RVs. “There is a thriving trade in RVs being rented out as dwelling units on the internet,” Park said.
Park proposed a motion that would explicitly add RVs to part of the city code that, “Prohibits a person or entity from reserving any street, parking space, or other public space without written authorization from the City while conducting business pertaining to new and used vehicles.” The motion would also force RV owners to comply with a state law, “which requires that any RV offered for sale, sold, rented or leased within California meet the design safety standards of the American National Standards Institute and Fire Protection Association.”
Right now, she said, “Apparently anybody in the city of Los Angeles can buy a junker RV off of a salvage lot and without any oversight or regulation, rent that unsafe inoperable vehicle out to a vulnerable person as a dwelling unit.”
“The point here is not to criminalize homelessness. The point is to regulate what is currently an unregulated marketplace that is causing serious public safety and environmental impacts all over the city,” Park said.
“Too often, RVs that are used as dwellings on LA’s streets are in grave disrepair,” Park’s proposed motion reads, in part. “Meaning that people living in them face unsanitary and sometimes dangerous conditions.”
She has opposition.
“It’s actually good, to provide housing for people” even if it’s an RV, said Dmitry Korikov, a filmmaker who says he volunteers helping people – mainly refugees from Russia and Ukraine – navigate van life on the streets of Los Angeles. “I lived myself in a motor home for two years. So I know how things (work), how the system works.”
He tells RV dwellers which streets they can park on, and connects them with private companies that service the vehicles for a fee: filling up the freshwater tanks, emptying the sewage tanks and sweeping the sidewalks.
“Everyone should have a right to use public streets,” Korikov told CNN. “If you cannot give them an apartment or give them a job to be able to afford an apartment and you tell them that you need to be in tents on the street, but not renting someone’s motor home, that’s evil.”
CNN put Korikov’s points to Park.
“I understand the dilemma,” she said. “On the other hand, I have seen too many of these explosions and these fires and we have got to deal with the collateral impacts that these vehicles are causing in our neighborhoods.” A small number of people have died in RV fires on the streets over the past few years, according to local reports.
Park says she is concerned that the unhoused are being exploited by the vanlords. And she is concerned about the impact the vans are having on the neighborhoods in her district, which includes Venice and much of western Los Angeles, where homeless populations tend to be higher.
One Venice resident told me he returned home from work recently to discover that the sewage tank in an RV had been emptied into the road. He had to walk through human waste to get to his front door.
“We have not resolved the RV issue yet,” Mayor Karen Bass told The Los Angeles Times in March. “But we absolutely will because it’s a very serious issue.”
One of her first moves when she took office as mayor late last year was to declare a state of emergency on homelessness. Her first target was not the RVs on the streets, but the tents on the sidewalks. Her administration has swept over a dozen tent encampments and moved more than 1,200 people into temporary accommodation in motels, the city administrative officer has said. The operation is dubbed Inside Safe.
The idea is to eventually move all those people into permanent housing, in line with an increasingly popular doctrine among housing researchers known as “housing first.” The theory is that the most impactful move in saving someone from homelessness is to provide them housing, with other services such as mental health or substance abuse treatment to follow.
Bass’ office, the city administrator’s office and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority cannot say how many of those people moved off those streets as part of Inside Safe are now in permanent housing. The mayor will hold a roundtable with the press in the coming weeks to discuss the data, her office said. The St. Joseph Center said is has found permanent housing for 32 people. A spokesperson told CNN the center expects those numbers to increase in June.
“I’m not going to leave people on the street while we’re building,” Bass told CNN this spring. “People die on these streets!”
When it comes to the RVs, a pilot program in one city council district has, over about 15 months, seen 41 RVs moved off the street and seven people moved into permanent housing. “That is why our program will be used as a model throughout the city, represented in the 2023-2024 budget adopted in May 2023,” Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez told CNN. That city budget includes $1.3 billion for the fight against homelessness.
City officials have approved a plan to deal with the RVs that includes concerted outreach to those living in them, incentivizing them to move into motel rooms, creating safe parking areas that can accommodate RVs, and finding permanent housing for those living in RVs. Now that plan needs to be implemented.
That final and fundamental piece of this puzzle is arguably the most challenging.
“We need more housing. We need more affordable safe housing,” Smith said. But housing is expensive and takes time to build. And for now, for thousands of people, an RV’s roof over their heads is all they can afford in Los Angeles.
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2023.06.05 22:50 nope_not_here_ Define center / guidelines
I'd like to make a6 postcards etc but how do I use certain guidelines for example to define a centered square, or just the centre of the canvas? I fumbled around with grid but all it does is juggle between different sizes of squares 😅 I just want to make a centered rectangle or square on my canvas. Can someone help me out?
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2023.06.05 22:42 RunIll8423 My PLA won’t stick to the bed
I’ll put the details here before I say everything I’ve tried, Ender 3 max PETG filament Bed temp: 70 Nozzle temp: 240 When I try printing the bed level thing with the squares, it keeps on dragging the plastic of the filament sometimes when it turns unless it’s on the top right. I’ve adjusted the bed repeatedly but each time I do it usually stays the same. The bed is clean (it’s just the bed the printer comes with) and the xyz are all 0. If this all still points to the bed being off centered than can someone please explain to me how the paper technique works? I put the nozzle not above the very corner but above where the center of the lil gear thing you turn. I would lower it till I got some little friction between the nozzle and the paper so if I pulled the paper I could feel the vibrations of it in my fingers. I’m not sure if I forgot to include anything here but I hope this helps
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2023.06.05 22:16 Raetian Proficiency Class Pack - Let's Talk About Builds #5: the Sapper
We return today to the PCP for the next entry in our series of build discussions: this time, we’re talking about the Sapper! I plan to move through the classes alphabetically, but can rearrange things on request, so let me know if there's a class you want to see discussed next - otherwise we will finally be looking at the Tech Specialist in the next post.
At
Squaddie rank, all Sappers receive the following perks:
Explosive Ordnance (PROFICIENCY) - Soldier gains a Grenade Pocket, allowing the Sapper to equip an additional grenade (or rocket, if using Iridar’s Rocket Launchers mod). Soldier’s rockets and grenades deal an additional +3 environmental damage. At Proficiency level 2, the Grenade Pocket grants +1 bonus charge to a grenade equipped in it (notably excluding rockets); the soldier’s grenades and rockets gain +25% chance to crit, dealing +1 damage; and maximum scatter with rocket launchers is significantly reduced. At level 3, Soldier gains an additional +1 bonus charge to the Grenade Pocket for a new total of +2; maximum rocket scatter is again reduced; and standard grenades and rockets deal an additional +5 environmental damage, +1 base damage, and +1 crit damage.
Launch Grenade - Soldier uses a grenade launcher to fire grenades, rather than throwing them, for greater range and explosion radius. Non-offensive grenades like smokes also benefit from being launched.
Defensive Mine - As a free action, soldier may deploy a small proximity mine within a 2-tile radius of their position; this deployment does not break concealment. Defensive Mines deal 4-5 damage and have a 1-tile triggeexplosion radius (meaning a 3x3 square); they count as explosives for the bonuses granted via
Explosive Ordnance but naturally do not receive benefits from equipped grenade launchers.
Rank | Perk 1 | Perk 2 | Perk 3 |
CPL | Blast Padding: Soldier gains +1 armor and an innate reduction to incoming explosive damage taken of 66%. | Skirmisher: Soldier gains +1 mobility and, at the end of each turn, gains +2.5% chance per tile moved that turn (to a maximum of 25%) to convert any standard Hits taken into Grazes instead. | Entrenched: When this soldier is attacked through full cover, incoming damage is reduced by -2 HP flat, and the attack cannot crit. |
SGT | Demolition: Soldier may fire their primary weapon at a target’s cover, significantly damaging or destroying it but dealing no damage to the target. Consumes 2 ammunition and cannot miss. 3-turn cooldown. | Return Fire: Up to twice per turn, soldier will automatically fire back with their primary weapon when targeted by an enemy attack (including melee and AOE attacks, but excluding Overwatch fire). | Fire Support: Soldier gains the ability to suppress a target with their primary weapon, and +10 aim on the suppression shot if the target triggers it. Suppression, of course, costs 2 ammo. |
LT | Air-Burst Grenades: Soldier’s thrown, launched, and rocket-propelled grenades gain +1 tile to their explosion radius. Defensive Mines and Heavy Weapons do not benefit from this increase. | Salvo: Launching, throwing grenades, or using heavy weapons are no longer turn-ending actions for this soldier. | Concussion Grenades: Soldier’s equipped flashbangs gain +1 charge and most other grenade/rocket types will now also Disorient targets on impact. Allies are immune to this Disorientation effect. |
CPT | Charge!: Soldier may activate this ability to charge up to an enemy within movement range and attack them point-blank with their primary weapon - behaving similarly to a melee dash attack but shooting instead of slashing. This attack is guaranteed to hit. 4-turn cooldown. | Reposition: Once per turn, after landing a turn-ending standard shot on a flanked or exposed target, soldier is refunded a movement action point with a 35% mobility penalty. | Rapid Deployment: Free action. After activating this ability, soldier’s next support grenade thrown or launched this turn will not cost an action. Valid items that benefit from Rapid Deployment are: smoke grenades, flashbangs, battle scanners, mimic beacons, ultrasonic lures, and frost grenades. |
MAJ | Concentrated Corrosives: This soldier’s equipped Acid grenades/rockets Rupture mechanical targets, causing robotic enemies to take +2 damage from subsequent attacks. No effect against targets immune to acid. | Burn Out: This soldier’s equipped Incendiary grenades/rockets gain +25% chance to inflict Panic on organic targets. Targets which do not Panic then have a 75% to be forced to move to a new position instead. No effect against targets immune to fire/Burning. | Chemical Warfare:This soldier’s equipped Gas grenades/rockets inflict a 1-action Stun on organic targets, such that they lose 1 action on their next turn. No effect against targets immune to Poison. |
COL | Destructive Nature: Soldier may equip Heavy Weapons, regardless of armor worn, and their equipped Heavy Weapons now benefit from the bonus damage provided by Explosive Ordnance (note, ONLY the damage bonus and none of the other benefits). | Shredder: Soldier’s primary weapon attacks now shred armor. Shred value scales with weapon tier as follows: +1/+2/+3 Shred. | Hold Position: When full cover, the soldier may activate this ability to reload their weapon and immediately enter a special form of overwatch, firing on any enemies in range that move (or attack, with the *Covering Fire ability), until their ammo is depleted. Cannot be used while Concealed. 4-turn cooldown. |
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: - Obviously, what perks do you select, and what perks, if any, do you prioritize picking up in the Training Center later to augment the build?
- What gear do you equip this soldier with?
- What squad size do you play with, and what role or synergy does this soldier occupy within that squad?
- If using Not Created Equal or something similar, what rookie stats do you look for in an ideal candidate?
- Are there any additional mods you use that influence the way you build and/or play with this soldier?
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2023.06.05 21:45 AslandusTheLaster The Recolonization
Original prompt: [WP] It’s been 1,000 years since terraforming became a success. Mars is a paradise planet, Venus is growing strongly, Jupiters moons are all colonised. Even Mercury has cities of hardy adventurers. Now it’s time to turn to the most uninhabitable planet in our solar system; the remains of Earth (
link)
Sterranos had received the missive a few weeks ago, but it was only now that he had finally made it to the rendezvous point. First his family had had a going away party, though it was more like a wake since it was unlikely he would return from the mission. They'd tried to be encouraging, but it was hard to hold back tears when he'd only just come of age a few years before. To think that it had been mere days since he was chastised for napping in the Yoppur tree's shade when he was meant to be keeping watch on the villages' Krellits. The large goat-like creatures were hardy enough that they were unlikely to get eaten, but they wandered off all the time, and the wild variants tended to be dangerous.
Once the reminiscing was done, he'd gathered supplies, enough to make it to the city as well as a few days extra in the very likely event of delays. Naturally, he'd faced delays almost instantly as a two-headed Krellit attacked him on the way to the dockyard. He'd carried to corpse of the beast to the boat before setting off across the lead sea, slicing it up and hanging the strips of meat to dry in the open sun while he stuck to the onboard shelter. Despite the relatively mild start, he knew he would miss the lush foliage of his home.
He got attacked by a swarm of glass skitters during the trip, which could have been a dire problem for a relatively small boat... The little buggers did love to chew on the cord timber his village traditionally used for boats, after all, but Sterranos' skill with a blade meant that they had been filleted before they did any real harm.
All that had been relatively quick, the distance between his home and the bubble city was only a few days travel with a good trip, and by the time he made it only a week had passed. Unfortunately, then he had to deal with the bureaucracy involved in getting into the city. Sterranos had taken some classes during his youth on reading and filling out paperwork, but those skills had little use out in the wilds so he was extremely out of practice. It had taken him two days just to get all the forms done, and he'd needed to ask help from the town guards multiple times.
Then came the waiting period, because apparently the bubblers were more afraid of him bringing disease or "wild madness" into their city than of him missing his deadline. In that regard, the monster attacks were actually a blessing in disguise, he'd burned through all of his starting rations and eaten about half of his Krellit jerky before they finally let him in. He was soon informed that his departure was scheduled within days, so he decided to take one last look around the city he'd so seldom visited in his youth.
Sterranos had always been amused by the quaintness of the people living in the bubble cities. Even the largest among them stood about a head shorter than him, and they looked adorably pudgy compared to his lean build. Their veins weren't visible on the outside of their body, so he knew they'd likely have passed out from heatstroke if they needed to leave their bubble. Still, he spent another day or two enjoying the luxuries of his home planet before the day of his scheduled departure. A few trips to saunas and some samples of local hallucinogenic flora later, he was boarding the shuttle offworld.
It wasn't until they'd broken through the thick atmosphere of Mercury that the situation truly began to sink in. He knew he was on an expedition to Earth, birthplace of humanity and currently irradiated hellhole, that much was on the notice. However, seeing his home planet in the distance, it began to sink in that this wasn't just a trip to a different land, it was likely he'd never be able to see any part of his homeland again.
Ulysses was excited to see the station known as USC Hearth out the window of his shuttle. The United Spacefarer Confederation had arisen during the mass exodus of humanity from earth, and the Hearth was their largest non-planet-bound station. It was such an honor to see it in person that he wasn't sure there was any measure to properly incapsulate it. Even with his years of study to prepare, there had still been a lottery to be the one in charge of the expedition, so he was a lucky man indeed.
He'd made the reservations weeks in advance, having prepared even before being confirmed for the expedition to beat the waiting list. The office was not as large as he was used to, but he knew that size and weight were at a premium on spacebound vessels, so he willfully ignored it. Ulysses waited for a few minutes before his excitement got the better of him and he dashed out to greet his new crewmates as they disembarked.
The first to arrive was a shuttle from Venus. The young woman who emerged had a cybernetic arm and short hair dyed a light blue.
"Good morning, Miss. My name is Ulysses, and I'll be your captain for this expedition," Ulysses said, nearly stumbling over his words.
"Marvelous, are we doing the presentation here? I had assumed we'd be in an office, but I suppose it would be more efficient to just do it on the way to our destination," the woman said.
"Oh no, I've got a room ready for us, but I thought I'd welcome everyone in person. Isn't it wondrous? Setting out to do what's never been done before? Staking a claim in a new world?" Ulysses said. "By the way, I didn't catch your name?"
"Oh, Ophelia, and indeed it is! Where is the room? If there's time I'd like to set stuff up before the others arrive," Ophelia said.
"Sector 5, Subsector 23, Hall 14, room 342. It should be on the right side of the hall if you head straight there from here," Ulysses said.
"Thanks, I'll see you there Ulysses," Ophelia said, before heading off down the hall. She carried a metal suitcase with her, no doubt packed with plans and cybernetic tools.
The next ship to arrive was the one from Mercury. The man who stepped out towered over Ulysses, his head nearly touching the ceiling of the station.
"Good Morning, Sir. Ulysses is the name, and I'll be your captain for this expedition," Ulysses said.
The Mercurian looked at him, looking confused. Ulysses quickly determined that the man didn't speak the Martian trade tongue, and tried again in Common Solari. The heat of the sun-side worlds made deep breathing an important facet of survival, and this was reflected in the guttural, boisterous bark of the Solari language. It made the language rather difficult to speak in any manner that didn't sound angry, and Ulysses' attempts to do so made him look quite silly.
"Ah. A martian. Great, you're like a bubbler squared," the man said. He paused for a moment before pointing at himself and saying, "Sterranos."
"I... will take that as a compliment, thank you. We're meeting in Sector 5, subsector 23, Hall 14, room 342. Not too long a trip, as long as you keep an eye on the nav signs," Ulysses said.
"I don't know those terms," Sterranos said.
"Right... Just follow-" Ulysses said, pointing at the door. He stopped when he realized that Ophelia had already left, and quickly adjusted his plans. "Mmm... You know what? I'll bring you there. The others can probably find their way."
Lyridia exited the vessel with a smooth stride as she entered the USC Hearth. Her cousins from Jupiter's other moons followed after her, though the classic rivalries quickly flared up. Ryani of Callisto and Tallis of Ganymede were busy arguing over whose wells were the best, despite the fact that they were fundamentally the same design with minor differences. Juni of Europa was mumbling complaints about the heat, as she did constantly when offworld.
Lyridia knew she was going to have to act as ambassador for the in-belters, since Io was the only place on the outer belt where the terrain didn't require immense cybernetics or an... alternative physiology to properly thrive. Well, outside of the bubble cities, at least, bubblers were all pretty similar as far as she knew. Thankfully, all of Jupiter's "finest" spoke Martian, so communication wouldn't be a hassle, but cultural norms were always tricky and her cousins had absolutely no tact.
She checked the message they'd gotten on the way to the Hearth, and found the directions to the office they were meant to head to. Still, she made sure to keep a mental map of the area as she read. While it was unlikely that they'd meet any surprise lava flows on a space station, accounting for one that didn't happen cost nothing, but failing to predict a flow that did could cost everything.
As they set out for the office, another shuttle from outside the belt entered the hangar, so they stalled for a moment longer. A duo stepped out, a man in a heavy jacket and a woman wearing the body portion of a space suit and a rebreather. The man had the sign of Titan on his arm, and the woman's suit bore the insignia of Urania Minor, the furthest colony in the solar system.
Lyridia stepped toward them, greeting them in the cold tongue.
"Greetings, are you here for the expedition?" she asked.
The woman nodded. She mumbled something, but it was unintelligible under her rebreather. The man leaned toward her, then turned to Lyridia.
"The expedition to Earth, yes? That is correct," the man said. His words seemed to slur together, as if he was making an effort not to separate his teeth when he spoke. "This is Miss Kythyra, I am Rulkir."
"Uh... Should I ask about the suit?" Lyridia asked.
"It is very hot here," Rulkir said.
"I know, right?" Juni said.
"Quiet, you," Lyridia said.
"So how do we find this office?" Rulkir asked.
"Don't worry, I'm great at navigation," Lyridia said.
The group quickly got to work attempting to unravel the labyrinth of USC architecture.
Ulysses had quickly gotten back to the hangar, but after an hour he checked the docket to find that all the shuttles for the expedition had arrived already. He called back to Ophelia, who informed him that it was still just her and Sterranos in the office.
He began checking with passers-by and the nav-signs to find where his lost crew members had gone, and after half an hour tracked them down to a ventilation duct. A woman in a thermal exo-suit was waiting outside the duct, while a large amount of shouting came from inside it.
"Excuse me, ma'am? What's going on here?" Ulysses asked. The woman shook her head, and Ulysses spotted the symbol on her arm. He repeated the question in frozen phonics, the language used on cold-world planets where letting moisture out of one's mouth was a good way to end up with a frostbitten tongue.
"We are looking for the meeting place. The Ioan girl said it was through here," she said, leaning in and whispering her words into Ulysses' ear through her breathing mask. He could feel the chill of her breath, and the light frost sticking to his cheek. It did bring him some joy to know they'd managed to get a thermomancer on their team, but he was somewhat confused about her words.
"Hello? Uh... Ioan girl? Are you in there?" Ulysses asked.
"Yes!" a woman's voice called out from inside the vent.
"Ow! Watch your feet, Lyridia!" a man called out in Martian.
"Quiet, Tallis!" the woman said.
"Uh... My name is Ulysses, and I'm the captain of the expedition. Why are you in a vent?" he asked.
"This was the best way to get to the office without passing too close to any of the electrical centers. Very dangerous places, those, they could overheat and melt the metal of the station! Then we'd have a massive lava flow problem!" Lyridia said.
"The safety measures are... pretty thorough, as far as I know," Ulysses said. He wasn't an engineer, but he knew that incidents of catastrophic malfunctions like that could be counted on one hand. "We are kind on a timetable, if you guys could get out of there we'll be there in no time."
Ulysses stood next to Ophelia as he attempted to translate her presentation for those on the team that didn't speak the Martian trade language. It was mostly explaining the specifics of the device the Venusian technicians had created that could eliminate the radioactive particulate embedded in the surface of a planet. The USC had been cleaning up one of the less dangerous regions over the past month, and the group was going to be setting up the first true human colony to grace the planet since The Exodus. There were a few asides about the specifics of the planet itself, but little was known about the planet and it was pretty clear that Ophelia had little knowledge or interest outside of things she could directly tinker with, so those sections were barebones at best.
The captain had planned for the group to do a few teambuilding exercises and maybe get to know each other before setting out, but thanks to the delayed arrival of most of the group they had to leave almost immediately after Ophelia finished her presentation. While he could theoretically spend the time on the trip doing them, he had planned for that time to be spent doing the final checks on their equipment and scanning their destination, so the time for anything else would be short.
Ulysses quickly herded his crew out to the landing pad to catch their shuttle to Earth, silently cursing that he'd had to make do with an automated craft since no pilot in their right minds would be willing to go to the dead world. It certainly made the timekeeping more annoying, as the ship would gladly leave without them, and having to explain to the people upstairs that they missed it would would almost certainly lose him his position.
As the ship departed, the crew donned their exo-suits and prepared for arrival.
Sterranos sat quietly while the group examined the charts, diagrams, and read the instructions of their equipment. He just noted the tab on his pack to activate his parachute, and began staring out the window. The pale girl with the rebreather was chanting quietly in the corner, and the so-called captain was attempting to convince the others to do trust falls.
Finally, the shuttle broke atmosphere, and a light came on over the door. The door slid open, much to the horror of most of the crew. Sterranos just rolled his eyes.
"See you on the ground!" Ophelia shouted over the roar of the wind before leaping out the door.
"Ophelia! Wait until we-" Ulysses shouted.
"Captain, do you trust this equipment?" Sterranos asked, cutting off the captain.
"Well, yes, but- Wait, what are you doing?" Ulysses said, as Sterranos lifted him up. The Mercurian threw the Martian out the door, before doing a swan dive out after him.
"No time like the present!" Lyridia shouted, jumping out. Her cousins followed quickly, giving similar missives.
"Miss Kythyra, do the omens look good?" Ruthir asked.
"The great pyre watches more closely than ever. Good or bad, whatever happens shall be magnificent," the girl mumbled through her rebreather.
The two held hands as they stepped out the door, plummeting to the ground below.
The ship flew for another few hundred feet before closing the door and returning to its hangar.
The crew drifted to the ground at alarming speed, the parachutes only offering a small increase in drag. One by one, they fell into the massive lake in the center of their "clean zone".
Sterranos, Ophelia, Ryani, and Tallis could all swim, and made it to shore in fairly short order. The others were forced to simply float using the inflatable parts of their exo suits and wait to drift to shore.
"So why exactly do we need so many people?" Sterranos asked, mostly to pass the time while they waited for their comrades.
"Were you paying any attention during my presentation? We fixed the radiation that made this place literally untouchable, but that was far from the only reason humanity left!" Ophelia said in native Solari Common.
"What are you guys talking about?" Ryani asked.
A silence immediately went over the group, but was cut off within a few seconds.
"YOU! Damned Spacers!" a tinny voice cried out from a hundred or so feet away. A man composed of overlapping sheets of metal stumbled forward, breaking into a sprint. "You left us for dead!"
Sterranos easily grabbed the man, whirling him around and hurling him onto a nearby rock. There was a loud clanging crunch as the robotic humanoid's spine was broken, but he quickly got back up and sprinted away.
"Spacers! The Spacers are back!" the man cried out as he fled, gripping his hips with his arms to keep his upper body upright.
"Well... This is going to be tricky," Sterranos said.
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2023.06.05 21:22 Ralts_Bloodthorne First Contact - Chapter 961 - The Shadows of Twilight
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For most species, the question "How far will you go to survive" is and always has been an intellectual exercise in morality and ethics. For humans, it's called "Tuesday decisions." - Pubvian Analyst
For you, the day I planet cracked your homeworld while you stared on in horror was the most defining point in your life.
For me, it was Tuesday. - General Raul Manuel Bison, Age of Wrath supervillain and Imperium Lord Knight
You better kill me, because if I get loose, I will not only kill you, I'll do in front of your kids and tell them that Daddy was bad. - Miguel "Iron Mike" Jaunita McBaine, Age of Warsteel Mythical Anti-Hero
In the end, it didn't matter who was right or wrong, just who was left. - Def.Kret, Welkret Historian, Second Precursor War Post-Reconstruction Phase
How was did it effect society when we discovered that which we had dismissed as ancient legends from a confused and barbaric time were true? It was catastrophic. - Reflixark, Tnvaru, Former Senator, academic, meditative
Nakteti felt the hand on the back of her head. Gentle, caring. It filled her with gentle warmth and a feeling of peace. She didn't bother holding back tears. She felt the hand leave her head and looked up.
Surscee and Chuck were kneeling.
Magnus stood by the Sword Knight, his back straight, one hand on the armored figure's chest, his hand slowly putting his dagger back into the sheathe.
The Digital Omnimessiah touched Chuck, whose code flickered and danced, then Surscee who, like Nakteti, was silently weeping. He then moved to Magnus.
"Stay thy gentle hand, Magnus," the Digital Omnimessiah said softly.
"Help them," Magnus said. "They're infants controlled by dead men. Help them, otherwise, what good am I? What good are we? What good are you?"
Nakteti noted that Magnus's eyes had a dull crimson glow in the depths.
"May I touch him?" the Digital Omnimessiah asked.
Magnus nodded jerkily.
The hand of swirling code touched the armor.
A long silent moment passed.
The Digital Omnimessiah moved to each of the armors, touching them for a long moment, before moving on.
Finally, the figure of swirling code moved to the side of the room, looking at the occupants.
He shook his head sadly.
"There is little left of the child," he said. "It would better that those who did this terrible thing would have had a millstone tied around their neck and then tossed into the sea. The act of what was done to them was a grievous sin."
Magnus just nodded stiffly. Chuck and Surscee and Nakteti had gotten to the feet to watch.
Nakteti felt her stomach twist.
"This will require more than just I," the Digital Omnimessiah said. "Those that I work through are suited to such."
The Digital Omnimessiah merely glanced at the corner.
Nakteti took a step back as the warsteel of the corner of the medbay suddenly
bulged, the thick coating of white enamel fracturing and crazing. The cracks began to drip red blood and smoke eked from the cracks. There was the sound of great bronze doors thundering open, the rattle of iron chains, and the smell of brimstone.
Two clawed hands pushed from the cracks, enamel falling to the floor. The hands pulled the wall apart, making room for a great horned head, with bestial features, burning red eyes, and a fanged maw that drooled liquid fire.
The great beast stepped into the medical center, the wall warping and twisting back into shape, the enamel gone, laying on the floor, but twisting runes remaining on the warsteel.
Nakteti held tight to her courage, pushing down the urge to scream and flee. She saw Chuck flinch slightly, saw the trickle of sweat down Surscee's temple and how Magnus tensed.
"What?" the great beast asked, staring at the Digital Omnimessiah. "This better be good."
"There are souls in need of redemption and succor," the Digital Omnimessiah said calmly. "I would that my son Vat Born Luke examine them so that I may succor them," he waved at the four armors.
"Hmph," the beast side. It moved forward on cloven hoofs of brimstone shod warsteel, shaking a burning iron chain whip out to let it drag on the floor.
It moved up and touched the Knight of the Tome.
Less than a second later the head turned to stare at Nakteti, eyes going from burning amber to bright crimson. A snarl appeared on the bestial features.
Its eyes went from crimson to cold gray.
The great beast
shrunk suddenly, melting, reshifting, changing.
A short, plump, matronly Terran woman stood in the beast's place. She wore a dark suit, her hair was black and cut short, her face was stern and her eyes gun-metal gray. She had a small enameled pin with red and white stripes on one lapel, polished black heels, and cufflinks that shone and glittered.
"Who did this?" the woman snarled. She took a step toward Nakteti, making a twisting motion with her hand. A long thin square blade dropped from her sleeve and into her hand. "Who. Did. This?"
Nakteti stepped back, the Terran matron more fearsome than the great beast.
"Tell me who did this. Tell me now," the woman snarled. "Was it you?"
She turned and stared at the others. "Was it this glittering mongoloid?" she pointed the knife at Chuck. "Or this mouth breathing imbecile? What about Braless Tits McGee here?" She pointed the knifepoint at Magnus then Surscee before whirling around to look at the Digital Omnimessiah. "Who. Did. This?"
"An evil from nine thousand years ago," the Digital Omnimessiah said gently. "They are beyond your wrath."
The woman snarled, making her face ugly. "We'll see about that."
"Perhaps my son should examine them," the Digital Omnimessiah said.
The woman said nothing, just vanished in a puff of smoke. When it cleared, a thin, androgynous looking male Terran with brown skin stood in her place.
"Father," the Terran said, going down on one knee.
The Digital Omnimessiah moved up and touched the kneeling man's forehead. "Arise, my son."
The man slowly stood up, looking around. "She's almost incoherent with rage. What's the problem?"
"These four tortured children," the Digital Omnimessiah said. "We cannot breach their armor lest they perish."
The man, Vat-Grown Luke, nodded, moving up and touching the Knight of the Tome.
He blinked several times.
"Oh my. I see why she's so angry," Luke said. He shook his head. "Template layer impressioning. Fetal tissue genetically modified. Chronotron stabilization," as he shook his head again three more of him moved off to stand next to the others, laying his hand on their chests. "I see what went wrong," he said.
The Digital Omnimessiah simply smiled sadly.
After a long moment the other three moved back and merged with the first, who slowly moved to the medical scanners, bringing up the holographic interface. Nakteti could see it flickering as the menus were jumped through. She glanced at Chuck and saw that the Digital Sentience looked startled at the rate the Terran was going through the data.
After a long moment he moved away from the console after dismissing everything with a wave of his hand.
Nakteti noted that he looked tired, like his shoulders were bowed by a heavy weight.
He knelt down in front of the Digital Omnimessiah, staring at the floor.
"What desperation made us do," he whispered.
Nakteti saw tears fall to the floor.
"What was coerced with force or threats lay on the heads of those who made the demands more than the hands that performed the deed," the Digital Omnimessiah said gently.
"The techniques, they predate me, predate you, Father," Luke said. "They reek of desperation," Luke seemed to lean forward slightly, pressing his forehead against the Digital Omnimessiah's hand. "Creche babies, designer children, are the base organic component. Local SUDS copies were impressed, as well as early generation RNA memory injection serums."
"Is there enough left of the child to save?" the Digital Omnimessiah asked.
Luke gave a low, pained chuckle, a self-mocking laugh that Nakteti had heard from herself more than once.
"Funnily enough, it is the child that caused the templates to start unraveling," he said. He closed his eyes. "The chronotron system was supposed to keep the organic tissue from maturing, supposed to keep the RNA memory injections from degrading, but the chronotron system kept failing."
"How so?" Chuck asked.
Luke heaved a breath. "Fetus and infants are known for rapid cell division, rapid growth, their neural tissue especially," he gave a slight smile. "It's why their heads are so heavy and they nap so often. It's tiring growing that fast when you're that little."
Luke stood up slowly, reaching down and tugging on the cuffs of his suit. "The chronotron stabilization system kept getting disrupted. Not long. Seconds, minutes, an hour here and there," he said. "But long enough for cell division to keep occurring, cell division not controlled by the system."
He moved over to the Tome Knight. "The tissues couldn't be fully locked, they needed to be able to form memories, carry out complex tasks, which are often a function of memory. That meant that they were forming new memories," he shuddered. "I've seen the REM combat system before," he sighed. "I know what it did to the man who used it."
Nakteti moved up and put a catching hand over the Terran's hand.
"Are they beyond even your help, Luke?" She asked softly.
The slender bald Terran closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "No with an although, Yes with a but," he said, his voice quiet and tired sounding. He opened his eyes and looked down at Nakteti. "The children, the babies, they will need the touch of my Father, then the not-so-gentle ministrations of, well, the Devil as well as my care."
The Digital Omnimessiah got a slight smile. "She does what she does in the service of us all," he said.
"So, they have to die to be reborn?" Magnus asked. Nakteti noted that his fists were clenched.
"Anyone else, and you would be correct," Luke said, turning away from Nakteti. "I can repair the genetic damage," he looked at Magnus. "I can repair the living tissue, the biological component. Remove the RNA memory serum effects. The Devil can root out the templates, tear them free from the infant's mind, leave nothing of the Combine soldiers. It will be painful," he put his hand back on the Knight of the Black Rose's chest. "But babies have a tendency to forget pain."
He turned, his hand sliding off the armored chest, and stared at the Digital Omnimessiah.
"I can do this.
We can do this."
The Digital Omnimessiah smiled.
"Then let us begin," he said, moving forward.
-----
Magnus sat on the log at the edge of the orchard, staring at the Rigellian white peach in his hand, thinking about what had transpired. What he had seen.
The rage, the ever present rage, simmered inside of him.
He closed his eyes and slowly inhaled, held it, then exhaled just as slowly, willing the rage to subside, as his mother had taught him, taught all of her children.
As she had taught them iron clad values.
There was no one left to blame. All who had done that monstrous thing were long dead. Thousands of years dead. If not on some forgotten battlefield, then time itself had wiped them away. Their names were forgotten, their deeds crumbled, their crimes washed away by the endless tide of time.
It didn't change how angry he felt.
He had never had children. He had thought about it. Thought about finding a bride. Maybe even setting aside his blade and becoming a craftsman or farmer. Maybe even an innkeeper, tavernkeeper, or storekeeper.
There were many things he could do, with a bride and children. Good, honorable professions.
But he was sworn to the Lady Nakteti and the thought of children had been wiped away by the grim necessity of duty.
It was a burden he had willingly accepted.
But he had always loved children. His siblings, the children of friends and allies, even small children of the folk he met along his travels and adventures.
In his dreams, he was a husband and father.
He had been over a hundred years old, still a young adult, when he had sworn his blade and his life to Lady Nakteti.
He knew he still had time. He intended on questing, searching for another living Terran, a woman who could accept him and that he could accept. Intended on, once his duty to Lady Nakteti was done, to search her out no matter how far he had to travel and no matter what dangers he had to face.
The malevolent universe would not grant a bride to one such as him without a fight.
He closed his eyes and took another set of long breaths.
The rage didn't cool, it just was pushed down, pushed away.
There was a rumbling under his boots and his hand went up over his shoulder, his hand reaching for his blade, even as he stood up, the peach forgotten as he dropped it to the ground and turned around.
The great beast was heaving itself up, out of where the dirt had been pushed away by smoking rock and stone. Lava shown in the cracks, and pleading hands reached out of the lava to grasp at the huge figure.
It pulled itself free, took a moment to stomp down the pleading hands, then let the iron chain whip fall from one hand, the barbed links glowing sullenly with twisting runes. It flapped its huge bat wings twice then folded them behind its back.
"You dropped your peach," it rumbled.
"I have indeed," Magnus said.
He watched as the huge figure moved over to one of the trees, reaching up almost daintily and picking a ripe white peach. It moved over to Magnus and stared down at him.
"Are you going to sit down or stand there with your sword half drawn, you Great Value Conan?" it asked, its bass voice vibrating Magnus's bones.
Magnus just smiled, letting go of his blade, turning around, and sitting down.
As he bent down to get the peach, he saw a pair of legs clad in dark charcoal gray slacks step over the log. He noted that her shoes were polished, the heels just over an inch tall, with silver buckles on them. The crease in the pants was sharp enough to shave with and the cuffs were perfect.
Magnus straightened up, hefting the peach, and looked next to him.
The matron sat there, staring at the peach in her hand.
"You would make a good Hell Knight," she said.
Her voice was rough, smoky, the kind of voice singers would kill for if it didn't hold a razor's edge of cruelty in its depths.
"Thank you," Magnus said.
"I could send you out to punish the guilty, kill the sinner, enforce my will upon the living," she said. She picked at the leaves on the stem of the fruit. "None of the weakness you are forced to show now. You could be the armored fist, the terrible swift sword of my wrath."
"My service is already pledged," Magnus said.
"To an alien. What of your own people?" the matron asked.
"To break my oaths to her, alien or not, would name me Oath Breaker, and no man would trust me, every hand would be raised against me, and would betray all that I am," Magnus said.
The matron nodded. "It was worth a try," she said. She set the peach in the divot where her legs pressed together and dug out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one and exhaling smoke.
"I tempted Daxin with the same offer for three days and three nights," she said conversationally. "Like you, he denied me."
She shook her head. "Like you, he saw redemption in humanity."
There was silence for long moments, broken only by Magnus munching on the peach and the Lady Lord of Hell slowly smoking her cigarette.
A dragonfly danced among the small flowers in the grass around the log.
"I killed them all, just so you know," she said suddenly.
Magnus just stayed silent.
"Not because of those lost souls. No. I didn't know of them then," she said. "It was personal. They took me, tortured me. Forced me to do terrible things," she lifted her chin and exhaled smoke into the air. "I waited, watching for my chance, and chance itself gave me my window of opportunity."
She chuckled, warm whiskey chuckles.
"It drove me mad. Madder. I used the same technology on myself that they used on those children, layering myself over and over onto my own mind," she said.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
"I touched an alien mind. A hive mind. Inhuman, inexplicity alien. My own intellect worked against me and they infected me as I tortured them in my madness," she said. "In the meantime, I turned Darkside Station into a horror show."
She laughed, a cruel mocking thing. "They should have left me dreaming my dreamless sleep, those fools."
Magnus just nodded.
The Matron of Suffering tossed away her cigarette butt and it disintegrated into red sparks in the middle of the arc. She picked up the peach from her lap.
"I tore apart their minds and bodies. Laughed as I sundered their minds just as I ripped and tore at their flesh until it was done," she said. She looked at Magnus.
"I brought vengeance upon them nine thousand years ago in ways that you cannot imagine. For a thousand thousand years they suffered at my hands," she said, her voice cold and hard. Her face twisted with rage for a second before she got her expression under control, appearing cold and aloof. "They are beyond our rage, in this time and place, and what I did to them does not seem like enough."
Magnus accepted the peach, drew his blade, and cut it into slices, handing them back.
The storm clouds gathered overhead as the Lady Lord of Hell slowly nibbled away the fruit.
"It will rain soon," Magnus said.
"And wash away our sins," the Lady Lord of Hell said. "Get us another peach."
The first drops started to fall as Magnus walked over to pick two more.
He sat next to the Lady Lord of Hell in the rain.
Finally, she stood up as the light faded. She turned and looked at him.
"You would have made a good Hell Knight," she said.
And then she was gone.
Magnus sat there, staring at the fruit trees of the orchard, in the rain.
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2023.06.05 21:16 AstronomyPhil AP placement Unifi Design Center residential home
2023.06.05 21:11 welp007 As we watch CZ versus the SEC battle it out today, let us not forget that CFTC Chair Rostin Benham met with SBF 10 times in 14 months right after the GME sneeze. Benham wants to deregulate the SEC's oversight over Crypto tmrw in a House AG hearing, taking on that oversight role of Crypto himself.🔥
| Big mystery: Any one wonder what Chair CFTC Rostin Benham will say at the House AG hearing tomorrow on the pro-crypto bill that guts SEC investor protections & empowers crypto-friendly CFTC? You don't have to watch: just replay Rostin’s fawning sucking up to FTX’s SBF. Remember, CFTC Chair Benham met at least 10 times w/SBF in their attempt to get the CFTC to approve their anti-investor predatory model; Benham promised last year to release his/CFTC calendars showing the incestuous relationship, but never did. 🧐 No one should listen to the guy who was SBF FTX's partner in promoting FTX's special interest legislation that, surprise, took away SEC protections & expanded CFTC jurisdiction; read washingtonpost ToryNewmyer on the "courtship": Article transcript: Fried’s courtship of a Washington regulator The FTX executive wanted the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to oversee crypto. So did the CFTC’s boss, Rostin Behnam. Before his undoing this month, crypto magnate Sam Bankman-Fried aggressively pursued powerful allies in Washington. None was more important than Rostin Behnam. The chief of the federal agency that oversees commodities markets, Behnam holds a strategic perch among the nation’s financial regulators. And the 44-year-old Washington bureaucrat was indispensable in the boyish billionaire’s ambitious plans to reshape U.S. crypto regulation. Since last year, the two have worked in parallel on critical initiatives which, if not for the sudden demise of Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire, might have radically altered the nation’s attempts to govern the freewheeling market for digital currencies. Now that FTX has collapsed amid allegations of fraud, those initiatives may be doomed. But as the financial world examines why major firms threw hundreds of millions of dollars at the 30-year-old Bankman-Fried, the capital is looking anew at his courtship of Washington and why he sought to build ties with Behnam and the agency he leads, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The most ambitious of the two initiatives entwining the two men is a bill in Congress — one outlined by Behnam’s agency and then loudly backed by Bankman-Fried, who commanded a phalanx of lobbyists and public relations people. The bill would put the CFTC largely in charge of crypto exchanges like FTX. As the overall value of digital currencies swelled in recent years to as much as $3 trillion, some members of Congress and consumer advocates have clamored for clearer rules and stronger oversight of crypto trading. But many of the same advocates calling for regulation oppose the regulatory bill favored by Behnam and Bankman-Fried because, they say, the CFTC is too small, too lenient and less prepared than the Securities and Exchange Commission to undertake oversight of the burgeoning realm of digital currencies. Bankman-Fried, though, was a big fan: “It’s a well-done bill,” he said in an interview last month with The Washington Post. “And it’s well-positioned.” Behnam pushed for the legislation, too. The measure — co-sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), whom Behnam previously served as a senior aide — would considerably expand his agency’s reach and budget. While drumming up support, he predicted that regulation by his agency might even profit crypto businesses: “Bitcoin might double in price if there’s a CFTC-regulated market,” he said this fall at a conference at Georgetown University. The second initiative to join the two was Bankman-Fried’s novel proposal to the CFTC last year. The proposal forced regulators to rethink how risk is handled in all commodities trading — not just crypto exchanges — and could have had profound economic implications, supporters and detractors agreed. For FTX, the proposal would have allowed customers to make sophisticated cryptocurrency bets with borrowed money directly through its exchange website FTX.US, rather than making such trades through brokers. Some federal regulators have warned that the idea could harm consumers and destabilize markets, but CFTC officials spent months in discussions with FTX as it developed the proposal and, in public comments, Behnam offered positive remarks about the idea. Behnam repeatedly said that his agency had made no decision, but behind the scenes, according to Terry Duffy, chief executive of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, agency officials wanted to approve the proposal. They staunchly defended it in conversation with him this spring — so much so that Duffy, an opponent, told them he would sue the agency over it, he said. In his view, all of Washington seemed to be entranced by Bankman-Fried’s promises of innovation. “I’ve been [going to] Congress for 25 years — I’ve never seen a Washington, D.C., like I saw that time, from the regulators to the members of Congress, singing hymns that I’d never heard before,” Duffy recently recalled of his May visit to Washington on the On the Tape podcast. “No one else was calling BS on these clowns but me.” “You cannot try to make round holes and square pegs fit just because someone walks into town and sprinkles the infield with other people’s money,” he said. Bankman-Fried had given enough in political currency — donations — to expect to get an audience. The crypto mogul gave $40 million to politicians and political action committees before this month’s midterms, mostly to Democrats and liberal-leaning groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign donations. Another senior FTX official, Ryan Salame, gave large sums to Republicans. Behnam declined to comment for this story. At a recent industry conference, though, he said the FTX debacle underscored his previous call to plug gaps in U.S. crypto regulation “This really only elevates the urgency for Congress to pass legislation to address these issues, many of which we are seeing in real time with the FTX implosion,” Behnam said at the conference held earlier this month. A CFTC official said that under existing law, the agency had no authority to probe FTX or most of its affiliates. Aside from two smaller FTX-owned firms that the CFTC already regulates — LedgerX and LedgerPrime — “any suggestion that we could have regulated, examined, surveilled, reviewed, intervened or prevented the issues at the unregulated FTX or any company owned, operated or affiliated with FTX is patently false,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a company the agency regulates. As for Behnam’s push for crypto oversight, CFTC spokesman Steve Adamske said the chair’s “years-long advocacy for expanded authority for the CFTC is driven solely by the fact that digital commodity asset investors and customers remain vulnerable to fraud and manipulation because these markets are unregulated.” Now some are calling for more scrutiny of interactions between FTX and the agency. Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, which advocates for stricter financial regulation, is calling for an investigation into “how FTX ended up having so much influence at the CFTC.” He said the agency missed red flags at FTX, as Behnam demonstrated “a willingness to subordinate the public interest to the profit-maximizing interest of FTX.” All along, as Bankman-Fried and other FTX officials lobbied to make the CFTC their regulator, they professed their admiration for the federal agency. The CFTC is “a very thorough regulator who understands this space very deeply,” Bankman-Fried testified to Congress in May. “We are encouraged that the CFTC has taken such a deep, thoughtful, rigorous approach,” the company echoed on its blog. For a moment after FTX’s implosion earlier this month, though, it seemed that the respect between the billionaire and the CFTC had frayed. Bankman-Fried took out some of his wrath on regulators, saying in an interview with Vox, “f--- Regulators … they make everything worse.” By the next day, he wanted to make clear he didn’t mean all regulators. He tweeted that “there are regulators who have deeply impressed me with their knowledge and thoughtfulness. The CFTC has … But most are overwhelmed.” The CFTC traces its history back to 1922, when the federal government began regulating grain futures. In 1975, it spun off from the Agriculture Department as an independent agency, and in the decades since, it has expanded its oversight from futures for staples such as wheat, metals and oil to more complex financial products. Its authority took a leap forward in the aftermath of the 2009 global financial crisis, when it began policing the multitrillion-dollar swaps market, where traders exchange financial instruments to hedge bets on loans or prices of fuel and other commodities. In 2014, the agency also became the first federal regulator to nose into crypto. At the prompting of then-Commissioner Mark Wetjen, who had been nominated by President Barack O in 2011, the CFTC allowed a company called TeraExchange to facilitate trades based on the future price of bitcoin, a similar sort of maneuver to the financial derivatives the agency already oversaw. The agency later found that the traders on either side of the first such deal completed an offsetting transaction six minutes later in an illegally arranged scheme. The exchange got away with a slap on the wrist, as TeraExchange simply agreed to cease and desist from any future violations. But the regulator had planted its flag over the nascent industry. Wetjen stepped down from the CFTC a year later and quickly found work in crypto, joining the board of LedgerX, a crypto derivatives exchange. The company went on to secure three CFTC licenses that allowed it to facilitate commodities derivatives trades, making it an attractive target for Bankman-Fried as he eyed a future in the U.S. from his Bahamas headquarters. FTX bought LedgerX last year, bringing Wetjen into Bankman-Fried’s expanding constellation of crypto businesses. The crypto executive soon tapped Wetjen to serve as the architect of his aggressive Washington agenda. And Bankman-Fried continued adding former CFTC officials to his roster as he sought to build his Washington muscle. In August 2021, he brought on as general counsel of FTX’s U.S. affiliate Ryne Miller, an adviser to then-CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler, who now runs the SEC. He added Jill Sommers, another former CFTC commissioner, to the U.S. company’s board this September. Behnam, for his part, has seen his profile rise alongside the CFTC’s over the past decade. The New Jersey native went to law school at Syracuse University, cut his teeth working for his home state’s financial regulator and then practiced law in New York. But he landed on Capitol Hill in 2011, with a job advising Stabenow on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC. The committee and the agency were busy implementing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that expanded the CFTC’s scope to include the swaps market. Behnam jumped into that effort and spent the next six years on the committee’s staff, focusing in part on its work with the CFTC. Senate Democrats tapped him to join the commission itself in 2017, and President Joe nominated him as chairman last year. Appearing before the committee that October for a confirmation hearing, Behnam signaled he would try to strengthen the CFTC’s crypto powers, telling senators he wanted to work with them to “reexamine — and if appropriate, expand” the agency’s authority over digital assets. Once FTX hired several former agency officials, its first major move in Washington was a proposal, filed in December 2021, to allow people to make cryptocurrency bets using borrowed money directly through the company’s website, putting up collateral directly with FTX rather than with a broker. For months before it was submitted, the CFTC held informal discussions with FTX about the proposal, and the company made alterations in response, company officials have said. By May 2022, according to Bankman-Fried, his firm had “spent tens of thousands of hours talking with the commission about this proposal.” Little noticed by the public, the proposal provoked strong opinions in the financial world. In May, the CFTC invited industry players, supporters and detractors alike, to a special roundtable meeting. The participants included representatives of BlackRock, JP Morgan, Citi, Citadel, Goldman Sachs and CME. The meeting was titled “Staff Roundtable Discussion on Non-intermediation,” but it was clear to participants that the meeting was about the FTX proposal. Bankman-Fried was there — and the young billionaire, often portrayed as a benevolent tech genius, showed that he could be imperious, too. Proponents at the meeting praised the idea of using technology to enhance market efficiency. It would make the market more democratic, too, they said, by giving more people the ability to bet on the prices of cryptocurrencies. But the proposal also required regulators to reconsider long-standing protocols for how markets should work — removing brokers who could protect consumers and stabilize markets and replacing them in part with computer algorithms. Four hours into the meeting, a consumer advocate and former FDIC attorney, Todd Phillips, hit a nerve, saying the proposal would allow large, aggressive trading firms to prey on unsophisticated crypto traders. Bankman-Fried then took aim at his Washington critics, declaring that when it comes to understanding financial risks, his customers knew better. “I think I feel pretty compelled to say this,” Bankman-Fried began, glaring at some on the panel, a video of the meeting shows. “I’m going to be pretty blunt. Most of the traders on our platform know a lot more about these contracts than many of the people in this room, including many of the people in this room who are condescendingly talking to them about what they do and don’t know. There is some irony in, you know, some of the statements made by people attempting to protect those who know massively more than they do about the topic.” At least through October, Behnam and the CFTC remained publicly undecided on the FTX measure. But in remarks to interested groups, Behnam repeatedly touted the proposal’s potential, saying it could be an important technical innovation akin to the shift in the ’90s from the trading floor to computerized systems. “This is a unique intersection of the crypto space and traditional finance,” Behnam said at a Georgetown University conference last month, according to news accounts. He added that crypto innovators offered lessons for those in traditional markets. “They come into the traditional market space, and they’re just a bit puzzled,” Behnam said. “They’re like, ‘Why do you do it this way? We have a way that’s more efficient, where we can have trading execution that’s quicker with better pricing, and we can have settlement and custody in a much better manner.’ That’s where I think we have to learn from each other collectively.” Behnam refused to say which way the CFTC was leaning on the FTX proposal, but Duffy, the chief executive of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, believed that the agency aimed to approve it. Angry and skeptical about a move he thought would be disastrous for market stability, he went to the CFTC this spring where, he said, the staff rejected his complaints. “They wanted to approve it,” Duffy recalled in the Friday interview with the On the Tape podcast. “I said that would be lovely except that would be an arbitrary decision to approve a regulatory change for one asset class. They argued with me. They said, ‘No, it’s not. We have the ability to do it.’ ” On Nov. 11, the day Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive of FTX, the company withdrew its proposal. An agency official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a company it regulates, disputed Duffy’s claim that the CFTC had been poised to approve the application. “CFTC staff were nowhere near completing the work that would advance any recommendation to the commission,” the official said. “In fact, in the more than 11 months of review and working openly and transparently that allowed for plenty of public comment, the application did not hold up to our scrutiny.” While the CFTC mulled Bankman-Fried’s application, the executive launched himself on a mission to help the agency expand its jurisdiction to include crypto. A legislative proposal as complicated and fraught as one dividing regulatory authority over a new, booming industry might take years to advance; Bankman-Fried, moving with characteristic speed, tried to get it done in months. There was good reason for the crypto executive’s urgency. He argued that the legislation from Sens. Stabenow and John Boozman (R-Ark.), the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee, would unlock a wave of institutional investment into firms such as his by giving big-money players in traditional finance the legal clarity they needed to jump into the sector. The senators introduced their bill in early August, and Bankman-Fried was intent on pushing it into law by the end of the year, a goal he confirmed in an interview with The Post last month. The mission pitted him against a shrinking legislative calendar and detractors who criticized the bill from two sides. Consumer protection advocates said it was too lax on industry and threatened to undermine the power of the SEC, and an increasingly vocal segment of crypto die-hards argued that the bill would enshrine centralized crypto platforms like FTX and snuff out their decentralized competition. Bankman-Fried, however, had a well of political capital to draw from thanks to his prodigious campaign giving. He also had a key ally in Behnam, who would see his power grow if he became the first federal cop on the crypto beat. The agency head’s support for the bill extended beyond supplying Hill staff with its outline. Before the legislation was introduced on Aug. 3, Behnam’s office attempted to get all four of the other commissioners at the agency to sign on to a unanimous statement expressing a positive view of the measure, CFTC officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency deliberations. The effort fell short, and Behnam was left to put out his own statement, declaring that the bill arrived at a “critical inflection point where new legislative authority is needed to clarify ambiguities.” Behnam then made the rounds in favor of the bill. He called it a “huge step forward” in a September appearance before the Senate Agriculture Committee. Two weeks later, in what was billed as a fireside chat at NYU School of Law, he dangled the possibility that crypto investors would see a handsome return if the CFTC secured jurisdiction over the market. “Growth might occur if we have a well-regulated space,” he said, adding that bitcoin’s price could double. Now that FTX is in ruins, the measure has encountered new resistance on the Hill and beyond. Gensler, who had refrained from commenting on it until now, noted the bill was backed by FTX. “And you sort of wonder why,” he said at the Healthy Markets Conference earlier this month. “Because it was too light-touch.” submitted by welp007 to Superstonk [link] [comments] |
2023.06.05 20:00 StressedPizzaEater Swedish Defense and Civil Defense Ministers trip to Ukraine
I've worked on translating this and correcting as much as possible what the AI translator got wrong.
This depicts the experience of the Swedish Defense and Civil Defense Ministers trip to Ukraine from a human level.
First Tweet https://twitter.com/CarlOskastatus/1665700384784932867
We are in a secret location where soldiers are being trained for war. Sweden's Minister of Defense, Pål Jonson, and I are in Ukraine.
The temperature in the sandpit we descended into is approaching 30 degrees. The Ukrainian gnats are as big as small flies and occur at a frequency that makes a Swedish cloudberries bog feel as gnat-free as a winter day. The men in front of us each hold an AK-47 in their hands. On a given order, they raise their rifles and open fire towards each other. They aim and shoot at the sand wall just inches to the side of each other. With live ammunition at a distance of about 20 meters. We stand another 20 meters away without earmuffs. That alone would surely be a matter for a personnel responsibility board back home in a country with over 200 years of peace. But here, there is war. The young men who have just pointed loaded rifles at their comrades lacked military experience just a couple of weeks ago. In a few more weeks, they will be fully trained. But they won't be mustered out and travel in Asia for their conscription compensation. They will go directly to the front, and everyone knows that for some, it will be a one-way trip. There is a seriousness in the eyes of everyone we meet, but not a hint of despair.
We continue walking in the fine sand amidst the continuous and deafening clatter of automatic rifles. At regular intervals, the dull pounding is interrupted by the sound of tank salvos that strike deep in the pit of the stomach. All of this is framed by a lush Ukrainian early summer landscape. Amidst all the impressions, a kind of dissonance arises. What is beautiful, good, and meaningful takes lifetimes to build. It takes decades to build a cathedral, centuries to build a city, but it only takes a moment to destroy them. In some way, this transience manifests one of humanity's darkest asymmetries. This fragility is most clearly expressed in human life itself. Nothing is as vast, complex, and beautiful as life, yet it can be extinguished irreversibly with the slightest means in an instant. I think of the young men in front of me. Those who today would have been doing something entirely different if it weren't for their country currently facing an enemy that not only wants to use death and destruction as a political tool but to erase everything that is uniquely Ukrainian. The young men have just fired a salvo in the sand wall next to their comrades, not out of carelessness or recklessness, but because it is considered one of the few things that can give a mental sense and a semblance of preparation for the hellish torment that awaits them at the front.
It is the morning of May 26th. The night was spent in Kyiv, part of it in a shelter. The heavy Russian bombers fired cruise missiles during the night, and one of them was heading towards Kyiv. From the parking garage that served as our shelter, we could hear the air defense system, in the form of the American Patriot battery, working successfully. As we get into the cars, the convoy rolls northwest out of Kyiv. Alongside the wrecks of Russian tanks, triumphantly placed in Maidan Square, and sandbags in front of basement windows converted into shelters, the physical traces of war are almost non-existent in the city environment.
After a fifteen-minute drive, our cars stop. We are standing on a bridge abutment, but in front of us, where there used to be a bridge, there is now only an empty space about ten meters above the Irpin River. The gap is lined with twisted beams, reinforcement bars, and broken concrete elements. On the other side of the destroyed connection lie the suburbs of Irpin and Bucha, forever inscribed in the history books for the war crimes committed by Russian forces there. It was here, on the other side of the bridge abutment, that the Russian advance came to a halt. It was here that Kyiv was saved, here and in a few other places. I am shown pictures of the men who held the bridge abutment. Dressed in ordinary down jackets and armed with a mixed assortment of whatever was available. "History never repeats itself, but it rhymes," said Mark Twain. It was on this very river that the Red Army once fought against Hitler's Germany. Back then, the Russians defended themselves against Nazi brutal expansionism; now, 80 years later, it is a bitter, power-hungry Russia that is waging an unprovoked and flagrantly illegal war of aggression, with a narrative as twisted and damaged as the broken bridge element in front of us.
The bridge is already being rebuilt, but a few hundred meters away, the traces of what was irreversibly done are visible. After crossing the river on a temporary bridge, we stop at what looks like a gigantic scrapyard in a parking space. Stacked on top of each other are the wrecks of burned-out cars. Just over a year ago, these vehicles belonged to people fleeing for their lives. Most in vain. Small messages are written on the wrecked cars. Sunflowers, the symbol of Ukrainian resilience, are painted on the burned-out wrecks. When the bridge over the Irpin River was blown up, long lines of cars trying to escape were formed. While the evacuation was taking place, Russian forces indiscriminately fired into the rows of cars with civilians fleeing.
The man who receives us in front of the burned-out wrecks is the mayor of Irpin and the commander of the territorial defense for Irpin, a kind of equivalent to the home guard. Together with his counterparts in the suburbs around Kyiv, he was tasked with evacuating his municipality and defending Kyivagainst the Russian advance. Over 95 percent of Irpin's population was evacuated. Lives were saved to an extent that is difficult to comprehend, but in his gaze, there is also a testimony to those who could not, would not, or did not have time to be saved. For his efforts, he and his colleagues were awarded the "Nation's Hero" medal. It is hard to imagine a more deserving recipient of such an honor. He thanks us for the great support that Sweden has provided. Pål and I object, saying that it is we who owe him and everyone in his position a thank you for the immensely significant efforts they have made for their residents, for their country, and for all of Europe. We are told that we must continue our journey, but we would love to stay and express our gratitude and reverence even more. Irpin's strong man, in the most fitting sense of the word, receives a big hug from me and Pål before we roll on.
In the car, it is impossible not to think about municipal preparedness back home in Sweden. There is a lot of good being done in Preparedness Sweden, but often we encounter the objection that the state must open its wallet for the right things to happen, or in the worst case, for something to happen at all. The contrast to the meeting with the mayor of Irpin is monumental. Not once did he mention resources, even though he acted under a constant and ongoing existential resource shortage. Sweden's municipalities receive over 100 billion kronor in general state grants every year. I think about the core mission of municipalities and wish that more municipal politicians could also meet the mayor of Irpin and contemplate what truly constitutes the core activities of a municipality. Later that day, in my Twitter feed, I read about a medium-sized Swedish municipality that has 40 communication officers employed. Often, municipalities of the same size emphasize that they now have one preparedness officer, as if that is an achievement. Politics is about prioritizing.
Second tweet: https://twitter.com/CarlOskastatus/1665701191135756291 We have just turned off the highway towards Chernihiv and made our way onto smaller and smaller roads. The cars are rolling through an avenue of trees reminiscent of central Sweden, but in the image of what could have been Sweden, there is also a foreign element between each tree. On knocked-down wooden stakes, there is a small plastic sign with the unmistakable skull against a high-contrast background. "Danger - Mines." Everything except the narrow gravel road is ventured upon with life thrown into the equation. What used to be productive fields on either side of the road has been transformed into a dangerous no-man's-land. The men who meet us when we step out of the cars are engaged in mine and ammunition clearance. Twenty meters behind us, subordinate personnel walk around in the ruins of what used to be a building. The on-site chief apologizes for a moment as he makes an announcement on the radio for everyone to cease their search activities to ensure that nothing happens while we walk around.
Beside us are fenced-off areas surrounded by knee-high plastic tape. Inside the boundaries lie several artillery shells. Visually, the enclosed area reminds me of the training facility I visited with the Prime Minister at the MSB (Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency) outside Kramfors in April. There, indicators and markings were practiced on various replicas of mines and grenades. However, in front of us today, there are no replicas, only live undetonated grenades. This morning's findings are recounted by a member of the team. In addition to regular mines and unexploded grenades, the Russians have booby-trapped where one least expects it. It can range from aircraft bombs placed in a basement connected to a door handle to a small amount of explosive hidden in a discarded lighter lying on the ground. There are also examples of how booby-trapping is placed under regular mines and even under or around dead bodies. The person in charge on-site raises his hands in the air and bluntly states, "At the rate we are currently able to clear and secure areas, it will take us 750 years to rid Ukraine of mines and unexploded ammunition." Sweden is already helping in this area, but it becomes apparent that we and everyone else should do more. I promise to bring the question home and investigate what we can do.
A short distance from the burned-out wrecks of agricultural machinery at the mined and now unusable fields lies the small village of Yahidne. When the Russian campaign began encountering resistance in the advance towards Kyiv, Yahidne became yet another scene of Russian barbarism. The village's school was converted into a Russian military command center, the surrounding buildings were leveled, and the village's 300 inhabitants, including women, children, and the elderly, were gathered and forced into the basement of the school. The following 28 days turned the basement into a concentration camp. The captured residents began to die because they were deprived of the most basic human need - sufficient access to oxygenated air. In an article about Yahidne, some surviving villagers describe how the school, up until the invasion, was the pride of the village. A point of gathering, a place of hope for the future. The young generation's ticket to a better life than their elders. But it didn't turn out that way. What remains now is the school building as a trauma for all those who survived the hell in the basement. A place few want to approach. A building that still stands, but was used to destroy an entire village. A ruin of what could have been, and a testimony to what instead became.
I like transformer stations. The revelation is likely not surprising to those who have followed me in my previous role as chairman of the Parliament's Committee on Industry. Now we have arrived at one of the major transformer stations that are crucial for the residents of Kyiv to receive their electricity, heating, and water. The location we are at is a prioritized target for Russian remote warfare. We look at fallen high-voltage lines and burnt-out transformers. A cat comes up to us and greets us. The CEO tells us that it lives in one of the newly built technical stations. The old one turned into a pile of debris after being hit by a Russian cruise missile, but the cat survived and doesn't seem to have any plans to leave. I think about the information warfare on social media and how the carefree cat, if it were known, could have become a symbol of Russian imperfection.
By targeting this location and others like it, Russia has repeatedly attempted to disrupt the Ukrainian power grid in order to break the Ukrainian resistance and defense will. What Ukrenergo, the Ukrainian counterpart to the Swedish power grid, has achieved during this ongoing war is unparalleled. In Sweden, we have sometimes had the notion that our power plants are the most prioritized targets for military attacks, which has led, among other things, to the unfounded conclusion that we would need to shut down our nuclear power plants in times of heightened readiness. Anyone who knows how the power system works could tell you that this is a mistaken assumption, which is also confirmed by the outcome in Ukraine. Power plants are difficult to combat, but substations, transformer stations, and junction points are essentially easier targets. By attacking transformer stations linked to major consumption points, one not only causes significant problems for all downstream electricity consumers, but also creates imbalances that can propagate throughout the system and, in the worst case, destroy and disable the entire or parts of the power supply in a country.
The CEO tells us about the relentless race against time during the winter, repairs during ongoing remote warfare, and the ability to proactively shut down parts of the power system to better handle the imbalances caused by disabled junction points in the system. Ukraine's power system partly resembles the power system Sweden had in the 1980s—robust and predominantly based on predictable electricity production. This has been crucial for Ukraine to successfully endure the winter against all odds. Heavy predictable electricity production not only makes the power system less susceptible to disruptions but also makes it easier to sectionalize and run parts of the system in what is called emergency operation when other parts are vulnerable or have stopped functioning. This has enabled Ukraine to proactively shut down parts of the power grid during remote warfare, reducing the risk of disturbances spreading and damaging the entire system. Heavy predictable production is also one of the prerequisites for restarting the power system after a grid collapse. Sweden has reason to draw several lessons from what we have seen in Ukraine. Several of these are manifested in the parts of the Tidö Agreement concerning energy policy. In addition to this, the importance of reserve components and a well-functioning air defense cannot be emphasized enough to protect the power system from the pressures that an armed attack brings.
When we enter the room where Ukraine's Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov receives us, it is immediately noticeable that he has a warm and close relationship with Pål. Reznikov is interested in motorsports, and instead of the usual customary gifts, Pål has managed to arrange a pair of racing gloves signed by none other than Kenny Bräck, whom Pål knows from Värmland.
When Pål visited Reznikov already in December, they traveled together to Odesa and Mykolajiv. The Swedish Minister of Defense was then the minister in all of Europe who had traveled furthest east in Ukraine. If Pål had been able to decide for himself, without the involvement of Säpo, we would surely have been well on our way to the front to visit soldiers in the trenches by now.
I may be biased since we are colleagues, but before taking office, I didn't know Pål in any deeper detail. Behind an occasionally soft-spoken and strict demeanor, there is a person with material orientation and thematic knowledge at a level unique to the role, and a work ethic and drive that simply cannot be found everywhere. No other Defense Minister in modern times has had as many significant parallel commitments on their plate. NATO membership, a war in Europe with the development of military support packages, EU presidency, and the management of increased defense budgets. The conversation with Reznikov is candid and serious at the same time. We talk about the military support from Sweden that is coming soon and what the future needs look like.
It is time to move on from the Ministry of Defense to the place where we will meet with the President of Ukraine. It is not possible to overestimate Volodymyr Zelensky's importance for the determination and Ukrainian successes after February 24, 2022. No one knows exactly where we are going except the Ukrainian security service leading the way ahead of us. Checkpoints and security checks follow one another. Finally, Pål, myself, and the Swedish Ambassador, Tobias Thyberg, sit alone in a waiting room. After a short while, the door opens, and we are welcomed inside. Zelensky has a firm handshake and a presence in the room that is unparalleled. He thanks Sweden for everything we do, and we discuss the future. Our bilateral meeting was scheduled for fifteen minutes, but the conversation lasted for half an hour. We are escorted out of the building whose interior had clearly been transformed to meet the demands of war.
Last tweet: https://twitter.com/CarlOskastatus/1665701959825752066 The final visit to Chernihiv is coming to an end. We have just been shown young men and women who are undergoing training to become mine and UXO clearers. The commander on site leads us into an adjacent building and says that it is finally time for some entertainment. In a large auditorium where we are the only guests, a military orchestra is lined up on the stage. To the right, on a big screen, a slideshow with the Swedish and Ukrainian flags is playing. As we sit down, we find out that many members of the orchestra are fighting on the front lines. Like everyone else, they have also suffered losses. The orchestra begins to play, and it is impossible to remain unaffected. Here I am, in a country at war, which has suffered so many hardships, listening to an orchestra playing ABBA for me and Sweden's Minister of Defense. It is impossible not to love Ukraine.
On the way home, I sit alone with Pål and summarize the impressions. There is so much that touches deeply. We talk about defense willingness and the importance of trying to increase understanding of what the security situation means and can mean for Sweden in every given situation. The Baltic countries have a gloomy view of what lies ahead. We talk about the mayor of Irpin and his men in territorial defense who fought with what they had and contributed to Kyivnever falling during the critical first days. Pål summarizes frankly: "It's about making a decision from the beginning, you have to give everything right away and fight hard, so damn hard. It hurts, but there is no alternative."
Carl-Oskar Bohlin Minister for Civil Defense, Sweden
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