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I wasn't actually out looking specifically for Owls this time. I was actually just out walking the dog over the moors, trying to nurse off a hangover. To my utter amazement, this stunning individual decided to land right in front of us. I was wearing bright clothing too! Yet as I've learned from my past mistakes, I now always carry my camera with me everywhere I go, just in case special things like this happen 😎
Actually taken in 2013 in Yorkshire somewhere. Can't remember where exactly. I'm sure someone will know ;-)
Inspired by Girl with a pearl earring from Johannes Vermeer.
a Dutch painter in the seventeenth century.
Photoshop editing from an "Image Creator" picture.
Actually a completely new shot this time! I have a couple from late afternoon from very near this spot but this one is from sunrise the next morning... :-)
Actually, it was an Avery hunt! SOMEwhere among all the teddy bears is a granddaughter!
(I hope this wasn't cheating for HTBT- I have fallen behind with my bear photography!)
HTBT!
actually Hans is not missing as the author's name of the photo is Hans = Yannis!
- Gretel par les Frères Grimm
En fait, Hans ne manque pas car le nom de l'auteur de la photo est Hans = Yannis!
Actually have no idea what they are (perhaps Mycena sp?), but they were really dinky, growing on moss on an oak tree trunk!
Merrington Green - Shropshire
Actually, it was some sort of scarf exhibition in St David's Cathedral, the purpose of which completely passed me by, but the effect in the cathedral was beautiful.
actually i have two pictures for the color brown :)
378/365 aDaD "a duck a day" day328 37daysleft
(only 37 days left-- i can do this :)
Joey actually spends most of his time indoors rather than outside the house.
I used to put a bell on him all the time years ago as he would frequently jump into our neighbor's yard and he would sometimes wander in the dirty culverts in the neighborhood.
Although he doesn't mind wearing a bell, I think he values his privacy away from both Sunny and Cherie. The bell alerts his presence to both cats and Cherie likes to follow Joey around the house.
Unlike 6 years ago, Joey no longer ventures outside our compound and doesn't even bother to sneak into our neighbor's yard. He'd spend about 10-15 minutes outside and makes his way back indoors.
In retrospect, I wish I had trained him to be an indoor cat rather than let he do what he pleased. All the troubles that led him to the vet's for treatment were in fact, caused by his outdoor escapades.
Since last year I've disallowed him from jumping down to the roof below my bedroom, for fear of his inability to jump back up the window.
Joey had been diagnosed with arthritis last year, further compounding his chronic kidney disease condition.
Sometimes I wonder if Joey misses his late companions, Adam and Tommy. He does get along well with Cherie the tortie, but is very wary of the physically bigger Sunny.
Joey turned 14 years old sometime in October 2024 and I adopted him exactly fourteen years ago on January 29th, 2011.
The sunset is actually fantastic in this place since the rays of the sun made possible so many beautiful shades. The best time to walk around Alpe di Siusi is at sunset when the last rays of sun bath the green fields, creating a magical and relaxing effect. It had rained all day. The rain started early in the morning with a big thunderstorm but later took a break. During the whole afternoon, I could not stop taking pictures of this beautiful valley with these beautiful houses before the rain would show up again.
Follow me:
We actually just wanted to watch a movie and order something to eat, but then someone started taking off their pants... maybe it was me... but it's just more comfortable without pants :P and beside how i can resist my pretty cute Latisha♥
At first you can see in my face a new Blush made by Moon Dust and it is so so so cute♥ Come and grab it here at the Kawaii Project my loves ♥
♥Moon Dust - Hearty Blush [Lel Evox]
... comes in so many different versions!
.. and take also a look in their Moon Dust-Mainstore and check out the Marketplace for so many more amazing tattoos♥
next one is this damn hot eyeshadow made by TEAR and i am so in love with that. Come and try it here in their TEAR-Mainstore and take a look also TEAR-Marketplace cuties♥
♥[TEAR] Heart Break Eyeshadow - BoM EvoX
Last one for today is this smoking hot pose made by Fuddle. This and many more poses for hot evenings you can find here at the Fuddle Mainstore or check out the Marketplace ♥
♥Fuddle - "Slippery" Poseballs
... i remember that purple is your fav color :P ♥♥♥
Head:
lel EvoX AVALON 3.1
[Heaux] Tulip - Browless - Blush *VE
identity faces - scars 9 //light// left
DOUX - Morning
Body
[BODY] Legacy (f)(1.6)
Picasso Babe Skin for Legacy (MODELESQUE/BLUSH) S
*KUNDALA* Abdominal Muscles BOM A19 (Legacy)
[theSkinnery] BodyScars Addon 7 light 50%
Decor:
FOXCITY. Photo Booth - After Dark (Dark EEP) (Rez)
dust bunny . bunny bell . wrapped tacos
dust bunny . chubbees plushie . pink . decor
dust bunny . meowshroom plush . pink . decor
dust bunny . unicorn donuts
dust bunny . bunny bell . bunwrap
dust bunny . makeup cart . black
dust bunny . love tarts
dust bunny . maple market bouquet . decor
dust bunny . blossom cake . gift
Photographs taken off the Mochras causeway, North Wales
The causeway to Mochras, a tidal peninsula in North Wales famous for shells, wildflowers, and camping, it's often called "Shell Island" by visitors despite locals preferring the Welsh name.
Despite its name the site is not actually an island and is instead a peninsula located near the village of Llanbedr. Its main route is cut off at high tide - creating that island feel.
In fact the area was not even a peninsula until the intervention of part of the nobility in the 19th Century. The current estuary was formed following a diversion of the Afon Artro by the Earl of Winchilsea in 1819 to improve access to the wharf at Pensarn which was the shipment point for slate from Llanfair and Llanbedr.
The Mochras causeway floods twice daily with the tides, but it's not a constant, daily occurrence of being fully submerged; it's predictable and depends on high tide times, requiring visitors to check tide tables (available on the Shell Island website) for safe crossing windows. You must avoid crossing when the tide is in, as the road becomes impassable and dangerous, even for cars, with water levels rising significantly.
Actually, it is a church at the end of a DOUBLE rainbow at the end of a rain storm at the end of the day. The rainbow missed the water tower on its other side.
This panoramic shot is stitched together from three shots and then cropped. My 20mm lens is pretty wide but this was an ultra wide scene.
Actually, this was the entrance to the main building of The Ulaman on Bali. The round opening reminds one of the round doors of the hobbit houses.
On the left is Lake Magadi, a large saltwater lake on the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater which is actually the world's largest collapsed volcanic caldera. We came through here on our way from Tarangire to Serengeti; we came back and spent a day inside the caldera after the Serengeti. The caldera is unique because it has several different habitats in a relatively small area.
The main geological feature of the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority is the Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. The crater, which formed when a large volcano exploded and collapsed on itself two to three million years ago, is 610 metres (2,000 feet) deep and its floor covers 260 square kilometres (100 square miles). Estimates of the height of the original volcano range from 4,500 to 5,800 metres (14,800 to 19,000 feet) high. The crater floor is 1,800 metres (5,900 feet) above sea level. The crater was voted by Seven Natural Wonders as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa in Arusha, Tanzania, in February 2013. The Ngorongoro volcano was active from about 2.45 to 2 million years ago.
—from Wikipedia
You can actually see this Mothership thunderstorm sucking up dirt and stones with its severe updrafts. This storm raced across Kansas at 60mph which made it very difficult to chase. The storm smashed up several towns as well as cutting off the power, it also produced Golfball size Hail and 85mph straight-line winds.
We managed to escape the worst but still took a lot of large hail. Some other chasers weren't as fortunate as they got caught up in it and had their vehicle windows smashed because of the stones and hail near Sharon Springs, Kansas.
If you fancy a photographic storm adventure like this then we are now taking bookings for the 2021 photography masterclass storm chase tour, which is Tour 5. see this link for more details.
www.weatherholidays.com/stormchase-usa/book.html
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All images are copyright © John Finney Photography.
Don't use without permission.
Please contact me here before using any of my images for any reason. Thank you.
In the limelight - or well, actually the LED light that the humans have in the living room but the Human does not like very much. But it suits me, doesn't it? Shows off my nice fur. They also replaced the carpet this year. The cow hide missed so many hairs and the Human wanted an animal friendlier alternative. It is a carpet that I can scratch and it has very short hairs sticking up, so it is easy to clean and Big Human doesn't have to sneeze.
I'm not actually 100% sure of the ID on this. It seems to be a grey shrike thrush, but somehow didn't look exactly like one. Maybe it was just the light as I had to do a real rescue job with post processing to bring out the detail in what was a backlit shot.
My sixth Iron build against jaapxaap using the White 4x4 Flower with Rounded Petals White 4x4 Flower with Rounded Pedals. Check out Iron Builder to follow the whole battle!
Last year for Brickworld I purchased 18 white nets for a different project that I have not yet posted. When I stumbled upon the idea to use the seed part to make a lace tablecloth, I was excited to remember I had enough for a 4x4 square (16) on hand.
63 of the seed part were used: 62 on the tablecloth, and 1 on the candle.
(Actually, a smaller section of falls that flows below Oneida.)
I spent Friday hiking at Ricketts Glen State park. RGSP is comprised of 13,000+ acres and spans Luzerne, Sullivan, and Columbia Counties in Pennsylvania. The Glens Natural area holds 22 free-flowing waterfalls that cascade through the hillside. The hiking is difficult at times but is well worth the effort. This is a section of smaller falls that flows just below one of the most popular in the park, Oneida Falls, which you can see in the upper-right background.
Actually only part of what is on tap at West End Outdoors - Athens AL
AMAZING selection of beers and cider and some premo wines like you would never expect!!
I took this a few years ago in New Orleans. The bird was actually behind the angel's head so I moved it closer to her hand.The texture is one that I made myself. Thanks for taking a look. I appreciate all comments. For what it's worth the texture was made in 2012, the photo was taken in 2015. I don't why, but it bugs me when the computer makes mistakes!!
Wryneck (Jynx torquilla) is actually a woodpecker, though it doesn't look like one. If you look closely you can see it has zygodactylous feet, with two toes pointing forward and two pointing back, like all other woodpeckers. It is also Europe's only truly migratory woodpecker as it spends the winter in sub-Saharan Africa (though some breed in the Himalayas and these winter in Indo-India). Interestingly I have seen it wintering in Ethiopia alongside a non-migratory cousin called Red-throated Wryneck (Jynx ruficollis) which looks quite similar apart from its red throat. (Here's a Red-throated Wryneck taken by Rich Andrews www.flickr.com/photos/richandrews/16277032606/in/photolist ) Wryneck is also the only European woodpecker where the sexes are identical and the only one with camouflaged plumage.
Wrynecks used to breed in Britain and in Victorian times were found in every county in England and Wales south of the Humber. But they had dwindled to extinction by the 1970s while a small population temporarily colonised Scotland, which was way outside its original range. But I don't think it has bred there since 2002, so is now classed as an extinct breeder in Britain. Fortunately it still breeds in southern Scandinavia so still drifts across the North Sea to arrive in Britain each year, albeit in small numbers. The weather conditions were conducive to Wrynecks arriving as several appeared in Britain at the weekend. One even turned up in the West Pennine Moors NW of Bolton close to my brother's house. I let him know and he went out and managed to photograph it, his first Wryneck.
Actually, this was the entrance to the main building of The Ulaman on Bali. The round opening reminds one of the round doors of the hobbit houses.
I actually took this shot through a closed and rather dirty window also, but I was adjusting some problems on my small camera and so took a few misty scenes. I really liked the street and buildings opposite our own apartment block. Editing brought out those fantastic clouds a lot more and showed more of the mist also. I also realize too much editing can add some unwanted effects as in the trees here (called a halo), so I must be more careful.
De NH Industries NH90 is een Europese middelgrote, tweemotorige, multifunctionele militaire helikopter. Het was de eerste productiehelikopter met een volledig fly-by-wire vluchtbesturing.
Dankzij een relatie bij de Koninklijke Marine mocht ik een dag meevaren op het luchtverdedigings- en commandofregat de Zeven Provincien. Onderdeel van deze dag was ondermeer een demontratie van de luchtmacht, met haar NH 90 Helicopter, op volle zee, Het weer was niet zo fraai, maar dat kwam de setting eigenlijk alleen maar ten goede....
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The NH Industries NH90 is a European medium-sized, twin-engine, multirole military helicopter. It was the first production helicopter to feature entirely fly-by-wire flight controls.
Thanks to a relation in the Royal Netherlands Navy, I was allowed to sail for a day on the Air Defence and Command Fregate the Zeven Provincien. Part of this day was, among other things, a demonstration of the air force, with its NH 90 Helicopter, on the high seas, The weather was not so nice, but that actually only benefited the setting....
Actually this photograph of Selworthy Green in West Somerset was taken last year but I have little doubt it still looks the same this year and will do so next year. The lack of change and the continuity is what makes this location such a popular visitor attraction.
The village is part of the 12,000 acre Holnicote Estate in the care of the National Trust. These two cottages and the others on Selworthy Green were rebuilt in 1828 by Sir Thomas Acland of Killerton. Sir Thomas was a philanthropist and designed the village himself to provide housing for the aged and infirm of the Holnicote Estate.
This is actually one of the locations that Lee and Patrick from Fstoppers.com and I used as a lesson while filming Photographing The World. While some of you already know that, something you may not know is that Lee almost got us kicked out of here for flying his DJI Phantom 2! Apparently local building security thought we were using it to spy on people in their tiny apartments. Thankfully I was able to sweet talk my way out of the situation and still come away with the shot!
It’s unbelievable to me that people can live so tightly packed in like this. On the other hand, it’s also really cool to think that a place that most people rarely give a second look, or consider to be so ugly, can look so beautiful and interesting to a photographer. It reminds me of all those years ago when I was wandering the Stockholm Underground and came across what has always been one of my favorite photos in my portfolio, Belly of the Beast. It’s seeing places like this that always remind me that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.
To learn the techniques I used to shoot and post-process this image, you can find all the info about my new tutorial video series by visiting: bit.ly/landcape-cityscape-photography-tutorials
I actually liked this theme and my group too! our group worked so well and im glad with the happy result and im more glad that we got assigned "HardRock", black makeup, awesome poses, amazing clothes and instruments! :D x)
Our album name is "Slash" and heres the song that would go in our album: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DacuQln3N1c
I hope you like it! ;3
long stories shortened... (discarded and abandoned and intertwined short stories) well..actually they are chunks and fragmets and notes of stories that never made it
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a young PhD math candidate writing his dissertation on an obscure arab mathematician from the middle ages who specialized in cycles and periods in infinite series and develops a process to determine prime number density in a large number space. (which is all and good) except this makes it an excellent tool to decrypting military grade encryption, which is based on the computational difficulty of factoring large numbers into their prime components
the arab mathematician was ultimately censured by the religious mullahs for developing tools to rationalize the infinite, which is of course the nature of Allah and for man to attempt to place Allah into a human scale is blasphemy
so the arab mathematician disappears and the young phd candidate finds that his dissertation has been suspended pending review but cant get any information on who is reviewing it
finally another young mathematician approaches him and starts a long discussion on math and the nature of numbers and the mathematicians love of the underlying structure of reality that math represents. the phd candidate is leary of this mathematician cause he wont answer what he does or where he went to school or how he knows so many cutting edge fields in math
eventually, the young mathematician offers the phd candidate a position with the NSA, National Security Agency, (where all the big crypto and high math goes on) but explains that if he accepts that he will essentially disappear from his current world. his work will be classified, he will not be able to publish in academic journals or speak in public, or talk about his work to his friends on the outside, but the compensation is that he
would be able to work unfettered with the greatest math minds in the country, totally funded, free to explore any field or fancy he thought. after a few moments of thought, the phd accepts.
then the story will go back to the arab mathematician who is also approached my a young beared mullah, who offers him a position within his group of thinkers who do ponder and explore the nature of nature reality and Allah through mathematics, but that by joining them he would need to disappear from the world, after a few minutes of thought, he too accepts...
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Daniel sipped his 6th coffee (colloidal suspension for caffeine transport) while his batch jobs on ramanet, the Indian supergrid, finished their checksum verification. His chin, a bit stubbly, itched. His eyes, a bit red, were sore. The goa trance shoutcast feed had mushed into a fast cadence drone. The flat screen monitor warped and bulged with the oscillating fan blowing on Daniel's face
'O' glamorous larval life of a PhD student...' he jotted and doodle-circled on his notepad.
Daniel cracked his neck and jutted his jaw, stretching out the accumulation of kinks, as RamaNet finished the final integrity check on his dataset. this two hour round of processing on the Indian supergrid would cost about $130 out of his precious grant fund, but you couldnt beat the bargain. 120 minutes times 150,000 PCs in the RamaNet processing collective = 1,080,000,000 seconds or 18,000,000 minutes or 300,000 hours or 12500 days or 34.25 years of processing time for the price of a video game. Calculation was commoditized now. You uploaded your pre-fromatted dataset to RamaNet. the data was packeted and sent to out to 150,000 Indians who lent a few percents of never-to-be missed CPU cycles off their systems for background processing. when their alotted package was completed it was sent back to RamaNet for re-assembly into something coherent for the buyer. in return the Indians got a rebate on their net access charges or access to premier bollywood galleries or credit towards their own processing charges. a good deal all the way around. Daniel's dataset, an anthology of complex proofs from a long-dead arab mathematician, was queued with amateur weather forecast modeling, home-brewed digital CGI for indie movies, chaos theory-based currency trading algorithms, etc. the really high end, confidential jobs, like protein folding analysis or big pharm drug trials were more likely handled by the huge western collectives of several million collaborative systems, usually high-performance machines in dedicated corporate server farms. the cost there was out of Daniel's range, but you got a faster return and better promises of encryption for your buck.
Daniel scratched his scalp and flexed his fingers. 'two months from today i will be a doctor of mathematics...and no job. damnit. i need to find something fast.' Daniel calculated in his mind how quickly the student loans repayments would kick in and completely wipe him out. RamaNet would have done it in nanoseconds, ha! he laughed to himself. Daniel had avoided the rounds of job interviews and recommendations that passed his way. he was too absorbed in his research to look ahead, and perhaps a bit intimidated by the idea of the job hunt flea market. flexing his CV, getting a monkey suit, trying to explain his research to recruiters, who were often the same finger-counting business majors in college that made his skin crawl. Daniel always felt a bit embarrassed when he announced he was math PhD candidate. folks would immediately glaze over,
tsk tsk out a 'that's interesting', and swiftly change the subject. something will come up, he mantra'd to himself over and over, something will come up. stick with ali, there is something real in there, just a bit deeper. the real problem was his thesis advisor. dr. fuentes was not returning his calls, his secretary was not taking appointments from Daniel. he had submitted his finished draft of his thesis two weeks ago, but hadnt heard back since, except for a cryptic email saying that the review committee was having some issues with his paper and that Daniel would be hearing from him shortly. Daniel was rerunning his calculations on RamaNet to assuage the gnawing doubt that he completely botched some component of his argument and that the review committee was debating some manner of telling him to redo the entire effort. no PhD and no job. that would ice the cake. Daniel started calculating his body mass and general aerodynamic resistance relative to the height of the school cathedral to figure out if he had time to reach a terminal velocity before impact...only a failed math PhD would attempt to determine at what speed his body would smack concrete, he morbidly thought to himself.
ali ja'far muhammed ibn abdullah al-farisi slipped meditatively on his cup of water, thinking about his proof. he dipped a finger in the cup and held up a droplet of water under his fingertip, watching the sunlight prisimatically splay out on the mouth of the cup. 'praise be Allah and his wonderous bounty' he mumured to himself.
the elders had been in conference all day over his proof. though the heavy doors to their chamber were closed, he would occasionally hear muffled but distinctly angry shouts. ali sat on a divan in the anteroom, served numerous cups of tea by an obviously nervous secretary. ali knew there was deep resistance to his research, but for the life of him he couldnt figure out why. he was a simple mathematician. he came up with some unique observations. he wanted to share them with his peers...
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Overview: biotech researcher discovers a new life-extension technology and is murdered. He is cryogenically frozen for 150 years. When he is
revived he must stop a dark corporate conspiracy – and find his murderer.
Summer 2015 - Hot genius free-lance biotech researcher unravels the key component of a radical life-extension gene therapy that will ensure 300 years of robust life to its recipients. The researcher is murdered shortly after he hides the critical component. His distraught friend has him cryogenically frozen. 150 years later, the researcher is revived by the same major bio-med corporation for which he had originally been working.
Quickly he realizes that their motives are less than altruistic: his modification of the gene therapy is needed to resolve an unforeseen debilitation now creeping up in the recipients of the life-extension process. The recipients, now nearing 125 years off added life, are decompensating into psychotics. The researcher at first tries to remember and reconstruct what he did with the hidden critical component, but stops in disgust when he learns that in the past 150 years the life-extension therapy has been reserved solely for the ultra-affluent and has created an extreme and cruel global gerontocratic elite. He voices his disgust to his corporate minders, who cease being beneficent and show their true colors as trying to gain control of this critical technology in order to control the elites.
In the process of dealing with the corporation, he learns about his murder and begins investigating.As he comes closer to the identity of his murderer, he uncovers a wider conspiracy and is the target of more murder attempts.
He was killed by a friend in 2015. The friend was the CEO of a small bio-gen firm that the researcher was doing the LET work for. The CEO, a biz-head with a genetics academic background, took the researcher’s work and exploited it as his own, in the process growing his small firm into a bio-med powerhouse and him into one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
The CEO also was the first recipient of the LET and is now 190 years old, but doesn’t look a day over 45. Smart, urbane, ruthless, the CEO used his wealth and position to start the cabal of Ultras. It is a faction of the top 50 smartest and wealthiest people in the world who have ‘ascended from the world’ (faked their demise) and control the global economy with their vast coordinated wealth. Perhaps they will call themselves ‘The Ascended’. We need to decide how the cabal lives. Are they sequestered on a luxurious island compound, or do they live in the open, surgically re-sculpted after each faked death, or do they live in the open.
Also we need to figure out what the world will look and feel like in 150 years.
As the ultras decompensate into psychosis, the CEO orders the researcher to be revived in order to find a cure. The CEO had the researcher’s lab notes decrypted and figured that the he was close if not successful in finding the missing component to stabilize the LET.
Tiberius Syndrome: the decline into cruel psychosis experienced by the ultras, named after the roman emperor Tiberius’ degenerate behavior after he sequestered himself on Capri.
The ironic twist might be that there is no cure, no stabilization. The psychosis is not the result of the LET alone, but also due in part to the unfettered ego/wills of the ultras. Absolute power corrupts…
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a brazilian hacking syndicate was subcontracted by a st petersberg crew to run interference on a hit on SWIFT, the global currency clearinghouse notification network. The UniFavela clan was going to run a multi-flank raid. They specialized in fast propagating virii and had created a custom mail-in virus that exploited a few microsoft vulnerabilities that they had discovered and kept mum. Their target was a Latin American PR spokesman listed on the corporate web site for press queries. The PR flak would be just the sleepy guard on the wall for their virus to slip past. 30 minutes after opening an inocuous spoofed email from a French e-trade publication requesting clarification on the SWIFT-Indentrus partnership. the virus would port scan and map its entire site LAN, salmoning its way up the router paths till it found the deep waters of the main corporate campus network in Brussels. Shortly, the internal LAN at Brussels would be suffering switch and router buffer overflows and traffic would gasp, ack, and sputter. UniFavela would then towel whip out a vanilla DDOS on the main company web site, any INTERNIC-registered addresses, and any other system in the IP block reserved for SWIFT that had previously port scanned as interesting, or ,even, as nothing. Mongols charging the village gates and tossing flaming torches on thatched roofs. IT Operations would be running to and fro, trying to figure out the internal bandwidth crunch and if there was a bleedout causing the external net problems.
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The Post-Human Story of Minos:
the CEO of a powerful commercial combine is bore an illegitimate son by his indiscreet wife in retaliation for his own dalliances. the son has a hideous deformity but is fantastically brilliant - brilliant enough for the father overcome his own repulsion of the child - as a bastard and a freak. the father sequesters the child in an elaborate virtual domain. the child, a hacker savant, is used to breach competitor nets. but as his power in the digital realm expands, the child transforms into the tyrant-monster. using the nets, he lashes out at people who have caused him pain, then evolves into enjoying the taste of terror and fear. He becomes the Minotaur.
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'there was a mad scramble amongst all the big spook governments, dark side corporations, and the privacy maccabees once it was determined that quantum computation had left the tidal pool of academia, grown legs and air-breathing lungs, and was headed for the nat sec intel highlands. all previous encryption models were rendered obsolete, and worse, exposed. QC became an undefiable xray spotlight, laying bare any encrypted secret with a ease of opening a mathematical candy wrapper. And for a while it swung the advantage back to the state in the digital Boer War against the freecon partisans.'
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The Oort, to the Intras, looked as one people. Extra-stellar hillbillies, ekeing out a subsistance existence on extracted organics from the frozen crud comets and other planetesimals of the Oort Cloud that slung around the solar system in a 1K AU circuit. To the Oort there was no Oort. Each station, each kampong was distinct and seperate. Seperate dialects, traditions, norms, goals. Some were scientific collectives, some were tired mining operations, some were intense sectarian cults - they shared little between themselves beyond necessary trade links for scarce commodities.
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A young prince is disgraced in an internal court scandal and sent into a quasi-exile on a worthless mission. On his travels he builds the wisdom and learns the skills necessary to be a just and effective leader.
His exile was a gambit by his patriarch to remove Genji from the arena of pointless court intrigues and develop him as a real leader. The patriarch dispatched a team of loyal praetorians to discreetly follow and protect Genji on his odyssey.
Genji was sent as an emissary to the Oort system. He must pass through the Martian-Saturnine corridor, populated with industrial trading guilds and their private militias.
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Genealogy becomes paramount in a closed culture; hierarchy by heredity. Reference the roman patrician class’ death-grip obsession with lineage, or the medieval Japanese imperial court’s strict intra-elite caste system.
But in an era of extreme genetic engineering, how can bloodlines retain their importance? Perhaps this is the wrong question. Perhaps in an era of extreme genetic engineering, authentic bloodlines can only retain their importance. The longevity of an unchanged gene line demonstrates success in evolutionary competition. Over time however, the fitness of a rigidly enforced and ‘sequestered’ gene line will degrade. Consider the hemophilia of the European royal strata.
I would not want the imperial court of the inner system to be pure blue bloods, eschewing genetic manipulation. Rather I would have them take the opposite tack – and embrace genetic engineering in the pursuit of perfecting particular socially valued or distinctive attributes; a roman nose, elongated refined fingers, even the possession of certain ‘noble’ afflictions (for ex., the aforementioned hemophilia as a sign of noble lineage).
The elites should pursue genealogy with the same passion and gusto as horse breeders; studs and mares and percentages of bloodlines, enforced and suppressed gene expressions, surrogates, and gene modes des saisons.
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a bum finds a the wallet and keys of a man who jumped from a bridge
he goes to his townhouse to find something to eat or steal
is impressed and overwhelmed with the man's townhouse
showers, eats, gets cleaned up, finds some clothes
is ready to leave when he helps a woman wrestling with groceries at her door
she thanks him, but looks stunned.
‘are you the man in #560? umm..i have lived here for 3 years and have never actually seen you. you seem to leave so early in the morning and get
home so late and keep to yourself.’
they spend 30 minutes talking, having a generally warm friendly encounter.
‘well, I am so glad to have finally met you. Hope to see you soon.’ As she closes her door, the bum turns to leave but pauses and thinks for a moment, then goes back into the man's townhouse
he pours through the man's papers and keepsakes and learns that the man has no family that he speaks with, no friends, lives off a well-endowed trust fund
and
the bum moves in and takes over the mans identity
he brings warmth and sincerity to the man's identity
what makes a hermit tick? what lengths do they go to to remove themselves from society? does it become a game to avoid contact, trying to become a shadow, a phantom? does society dissolve away as a mental force in their thoughts, atrophy away or does it become an amputated impression?
what divsion line stands between a hermit and convict in solitary? the hermit, by and large, chooses their isolation, the convict has it enforced upon them. at what point does the human need for society or socialization collapse? is there anything left that we can inspect and evaluate? a hermit, however, is able to maintain walls against the Great Other, which would imply that they are seeking refuge from the world. a schizo or an autistic will be physically surrounded by others but unable or incapable of making contact.
when does the will to contact die? what is left over? do humans require contact to retain our humanity? can you love and sacrifice in a vacuum?
what defines humanity? oooh, a big question...
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genetic engineering will continue to deconstruct the human species
there will be catastrophic disasters: gene sequence specific viruses engineered to attack 'types' of people. Der Genkampf
petroleum will be replaced- hydrogen-powered locomotion and green power (in the wealthy states). the poor states will continue to be held hostage to oil politics
(cultures and civilizations do not move forward uneringly. they spasticly jerk forward and fro, in clumps andgrains, never ever as a lemming death drive.)
developed economies will be netized. a new state structure will be needed to manage and dsitribute resources. the corporate structure, the commercial backbone of the capitalist democracy, will replace the republic. it is flexible to markets and political forces, insistent on accountability, it provides a sufficient compromise between individual representation and republican government. they will begin their political evolution as projects in community development. assurances of an educated workforce by charter education. assurances of uninterrupted utilities by running their own power/water etc. net-based marketplaces create corporate agoras. employees are in fact de facto citizens of the corporation. citizenship, or regular employment, will be a reward for merit, stock shares will count towards suffrage.
great corporate collectives will arise. housing, education, security...all the needs of the middle class will be absorbed in the corporate state. the tradtional state will cede roles and responsibilities to the corporate state as their resources dwindle. a few isolated violent reactions (military or legal)by the republics against the corporate states, but they will fail over time. against, or more so, in conjunction with the homogenized corporatsists wil be the diasporae, non-corporates will glom to other modes of networked alignment, ethnic allegiance will become stronger over time - as the chinese, indian, and jewish disporaestrengthen as a formula for a successful competition against/with the corporates.
the american state, succored by its overwhelming techo-military supremancy, loses its mission, its vision - substitutes will to dominate for will to excel - and falls into the deep narcotic, insulated slumber of the unassailable. GE, nano, and the banknote net weaken the mythic cohesion of the american spirit. we are no longer united by common experience (mass-mediated or otherwise) the promise of science to make us stronger, smarter, near immortal is held like a manifest destiny or a divine IOU for services rendered to humanity.
Actually, it's no wonder that even after 144 years construction is not complete !! This small exterior detail shows the exquisite sculpture and craftmanship of Basilica Sagrada Familia in Barcelona Spain.
Sagrada Familia_0450.jpg
Camera: Agfa Super Silette L
Lens: Agfa Color Solinar 2.8/50mm
Film: Kodak ProImage 100
Developed by flash foto, München
Digitized with a Sony a7riii
Location: Laguna di Venezia, Italy
Actually, i do not really like the colors of this professional film. If i have the choice, i prefer the cheaper Kodacolor Gold 200. Due to Corona there was a shortage of that film in the summer of 2020 (and still is) so i had to resort to whatever film i could get.
The camera i used was my backup camera i fortunately took with me on this trip in case my main camera, an Agfa Ambi Silette, failed. When the Ambi fell apart in Burano and a vital part of the transport mechanism vanished in the water of a canal, i was glad i had the Super Silette with me.
I have yet to get a straight answer if the free roaming horses here are now a feral herd or are actually owned by someone. Either way, they are beautiful to see and photograph.
Actually the 'blood moon' was planned to capture but a lot of clouds made that impossible.
Hours later the atmosphere was mostly clean and i took this shot with the sigma 150-600 and 1.4 converter. Instead of a tripod i used my monopd and deactivated the electronic stabilizer.
On this single shot (no stacking) some afterwork with Infinity Photo was neccessary but I avoided to convert to b/w 😇.
Link Nikon Image space (full screen mode required):
Actually an optical illusion - it may look like you’re seeing right through but it’s actually a reflection. Belfast city centre.
Actually several but I only photography 2 above and 3 below. As I get close to photo they all eventually take of. Lots of Cormorants have come to Cornwall on water St. Lawrence River. I enjoy them yet many don’t and the even kill they, sad !!!