femme fatale - play in a classic movie
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Brooklyn Memorial (World War 1) at Prospect Park.The soldier is wearing puttees around his legs.The image was sculpted by Augustus Lukeman and was dedicated in 1921.It's a quite moving image,I think.By the angel's hand gesture it looks like he's telling the soldier what heaven is like as he carries him there (my opinion).Shot at Prospect Park.
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ― Rachel Carson
HFF! Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment- always highly appreciated.
In 1922 Trwyn Du became the first Trinity House lighthouse to be automated,[7] when it was converted to unwatched acetylene operation.[8]
The lamp was converted to solar power in 1996 and the lighthouse was modernised extensively at that time.
At present the Lighthouse has a 15,000 candela light that flashes once every 5 seconds and can be seen 12 nmi (22 km) away. Additionally, a 178-kilogram (3½ cwt) fog bell sounds once every thirty seconds.[9] There was also a lifeboat station built in 1832, nearby, but this closed in 1915.
The tower has been unmanned since 1922 and is checked from Holyhead Control Centre. In August 2019 Trinity House started trials of a new fog horn, stating, "The bell is activated by an ageing electronic striker mechanism which no longer provides the assurance of reliability which is needed
The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It ... is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be.
Marianne E. Neifert
Thank you for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
middle of the day, darien, georgia. fleet is here, not out shrimping. i'm not sure why. very hot, very muggy, storms on the way, pent-up, superheated atmosphere ready for some relief, and we wait patiently for the same.
littletinperson
ⓒ Celtic Rose Photography
This Picture is copyright . None of these images may be reproduced and or used in any form of publication, print or the Internet without my written permission.
The Royal Liver Building /ˈlaɪvər/ is a Grade I listed building in Liverpool, England. It is located at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building is one of Liverpool's Three Graces, which line the city's waterfront. It was also part of Liverpool's formerly UNESCO-designated World Heritage Maritime Mercantile City.
Opened in 1911, the building was the purpose-built home of the Royal Liver Assurance group, which had been set up in the city in 1850 to provide locals with assistance related to losing a wage-earning relative. One of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete, the Royal Liver Building stands at 98.2 m (322 ft) tall to the top of the spires, 103.7 metres (340feet) to the top of the birds and 50.9 m (167 ft) to the main roof.
The Royal Liver Building is one of the most recognisable landmarks in the city of Liverpool with its two fabled Liver Birds which watch over the city and the sea. Legend has it that if these two birds were to fly away, the city would cease to exist.
The Liver Birds are 5.5 metres,18 feet high. Their added height gives the Royal Liver Building an overall height of 103.7 metres, 340 feet. A building of skyscraper proportion, and once one of the tallest buildings in the country, the Royal Liver Building is currently the 4th tallest building in Liverpool.
Wikipedia
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. —Rachel Carson
Panorama
Le Centre de glaces Intact Assurance est un complexe sportif comprenant le Centre sportif de Sainte-Foy et l’ancien Anneau Gaétan-Boucher réunis en un seul équipement d’envergure. On y compte notamment cinq glaces.
Au cœur de l'anneau de 400 mètres se trouvent deux patinoires de dimensions olympiques, soit une pour le patinage de vitesse courte piste et l'autre pour la pratique du patinage artistique, du hockey et d’autres sports de glace. Une piste de course et de marche comprenant trois corridors, entièrement fenestrée et longue de 465 mètres ceinture le tout. S’ajoutent à ces nouvelles installations les deux patinoires de dimensions nord-américaines situées dans l’ancien Centre sportif de Sainte-Foy, soit les patinoires Robert-Chevalier (la « bleue ») et Roland-Couillard (la « rouge »).
Ainsi, le Centre de glaces Intact Assurance formera le seul bâtiment du genre dans tout l’Est de l’Amérique du Nord; les autres anneaux de glace intérieurs comparables se trouvant à Calgary, Fort St John, Milwaukee et Salt Lake City.
Jeton de caddy publicitaire édité par l'Assurance Maladie en 1995 à l'occasion du 50ème anniversaire des ordonnances d'octobre 1945 instituant la Sécurité Sociale.
A l'époque, des voix s'élevaient déjà pour demander la privatisation de la Sécurité sociale, faisant table rase de l'esprit de solidarité qui a présidé à la fondation de cette institution d'où le slogan "Une grande idée à préserver".
Advertising trolley token issued by Health Insurance in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the orders of October 1945 establishing Social Security.
At the time, voices were already rising to demand the privatization of Social Security, making a clean sweep of the spirit of solidarity that presided over the founding of this institution, hence the slogan "A great idea to preserve".
EF100mm f/2.8 L IS USM + tubes allonge 68mm
Stack de 139 images capturées avec Helicon Remote et assemblées avec Helicon Focus
diamètre 22,6mm
épaisseur 2mm
"Macro Mondays"
"Swag"
Have the assurance of being protected in a group, while ....
Sculpture "Coloris" de l'artiste Camerounais Pascale Marthine Tayou
Placé en 2018 dans le parc public Citylife à Milan, en Italie, il représente une explosion de couleurs intenses inspirées de la gamme de couleurs utilisées dans l'art africain
L'œuvre est composée d'une chaussée en béton représentant la planisphère terrestre sur laquelle une centaine de poteaux métalliques aux couleurs pastel et de tailles variables sont plantés, entre 6 et 12 mètres de haut, et au sommet de chacun d'eux, il y a un œuf.
L’œuvre symbolise le village mondial et l'identité culturelle. Pascale Marthine Tayou est un artiste camerounais née en 1967 à Yaoundé au Cameroun. Pascale Marthine Tayou s'intéresse aux effets de la circulation des objets, des idées et des personnes dans le monde, mêlant géographies, combinant symboles, techniques et matériaux, issus de différentes traditions culturelles, afin de créer de nouvelles significations et de nouvelles interprétations de la réalité. (Merci à Jacqueline Al. de m'avoir aidé à trouver ses informations)
"Coloris" sculpture by Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou
Placed in 2018 in the Citylife public park in Milan, Italy, it represents an explosion of intense colors inspired by the range of colors used in African art
The work is made up of a concrete pavement representing the terrestrial planisphere on which a hundred metal posts in pastel colors and of variable sizes are planted, between 6 and 12 meters high, and at the top of each of them, it there is an egg.
The work symbolizes the global village and cultural identity. Pascale Marthine Tayou is a Cameroonian artist born in 1967 in Yaoundé in Cameroon. Pascale Marthine Tayou is interested in the effects of the circulation of objects, ideas and people in the world, mixing geographies, combining symbols, techniques and materials, from different cultural traditions, in order to create new meanings and new interpretations of reality. (Thanks to Jacqueline Al. for helping me find her information)
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love...
Have a blessed sliders Sunday all!
Patinage libre sur l’Anneau Gaétan-Boucher ou la course-marche sur la piste de course à pied intérieure. - The Centre de glaces Intact Assurance is the place to be for skating, running and power walking
When the company I worked for introduced Quality Assurance principles in 1988, as part of my role I taught the history and application of Quality Management techniques to my staff. I used to hold up Arnott's Biscuits as a leading example. All Aussies will know and love Arnott's wonderful biscuits.....until not all that long ago they used to deliver their products in sparkling red vans that were never dirty, always shining clean and personally I had never found an Arnott's Biscuit that I didn't like nor that was presented and opened without perfection. Now those to me at the time were some important hallmarks of TQM (Total Quality Management) that I thought were great examples for my students....exceeding customer's expectations, consistent quality of product.
I know many of you will have studied and applied this stuff in your professional and perhaps personal lives in recent times. This mural of an Arnott's advertising sign brought back those memories and I still love their biscuits (many made within a couple of kilometres from us in Brisbane, at times I can still smell their vanilla creams!) - although they are not so good for me health wise these days. Sadly in some ways, Arnotts was sold to Campbell's (soups) of the USA quite a few years ago, amid some controversy about selling off the farm and is now owned by American investment company KKR - see link below.
Today, they have modified their advertising to simply..."There is no substitute".
This is one of a number of old signs at Scotty's Garage.
The former Prudential Assurance building in London. I was lucky to get this as there is usually a guard on duty to keep the hoi poloi like me out, but I guess he must have been on a comfort break as I just walked in and no-one challenged me.
The clock of the Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society, on Bothwell Street at Blythswood Street, Glasgow
The Royal Liver Building is a Grade I listed building designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas.
Click here for more photographs of the Pier Head and Albert Dock areas: www.jhluxton.com/England/Merseyside/Liverpool/The-Pier-He...
The Royal Liver Building is located at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building is one of Liverpool's Three Graces, which line the city's waterfront.
Opened in 1911, the building was the purpose-built home of the Royal Liver Assurance group, which had been established in the city in 1850 to provide locals with assistance related to losing a wage-earning relative.
One of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete, the Royal Liver Building stands at 98.2 m (322 ft) tall to the top of the spires, 103.7 m (340 ft) to the top of the birds and 50.9 m (167 ft) to the main roof.
The Royal Liver Building is one of the most recognisable landmarks in the city of Liverpool with its two fabled Liver birds, which watch over the city and the sea.
The Liver birds are 5.5 m (18 ft) tall. Their added height gives the Royal Liver Building an overall height of 103.7 m (340 ft). A building of skyscraper proportion that was once one of the tallest buildings in the country, the Royal Liver Building is currently the fourth-tallest building in Liverpool.
Beaux Arts centrepiece: Canada Life Assurance Co. building, Sproatt & Rolph, 1931 - with weather tower on top
_DSC1463 Anx2 1024h Q90
19th century construction for The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and that incorporates the Stock im Eisen on one corner. Stock im Eisen (German: "staff in iron") is the midsection of a tree-trunk from the Middle Ages, a so-called nail-tree (Nagelbaum), into which hundreds of nails have been pounded for good luck over centuries.
Once the entrance to Alfred Waterhouse's 1890s Nottingham Prudential Assurance building, now a bar. He was also architect of their offices on Holborn and several others around the country. The date given above the statue of Prudence is the year the firm was founded. Grade II listed.
This shot of the Old State House in Boston brings back memories of the great opening scene in Monty Python's the Meaning of Life'.
The film begins with a stand-alone 17-minute supporting feature entitled The Crimson Permanent Assurance (directed by Gilliam). A group of elderly office clerks in a small accounting firm rebel against their emotionlessly efficient, yuppie corporate masters. They commandeer their building, turn it into a pirate ship, and sail into a large financial district, where they raid and overthrow a large multinational corporation.
In reality, the Old State House completes an incredible 250 year history of American architecture in one shot. Built in 1713, it was the seat of the Massachusetts General Court until 1798, and is the oldest surviving public building in Boston.
The Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society building in Collins Street, Hobart, Tasmania.
Designed by A&K Henderson in the 1930s, there were around 20 near identical buildings constructed by the T&G across Australia and New Zealand.
Apparently six of them are still standing.
This one is a beautiful Art Deco period gem in the heart of the city.
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max, 6.86mm f/1.8 back camera, 5 mins at f/1.8, ISO 50. Reeflex ReeXpose camera app. Post in PS/NIK.
Some washing hanging out to try overlooked the magnificent corner domer of Bradford's Prudential Assurance Building.
The Prudential Assurance Buildings (1895), one of twenty-six local offices built for the company by the prolific artchitect Alfred Waterhouse. A wonderful example of late Victorian architectural exuberance in red brick and terracotta.
"People Get Ready-Jeff Beck& Rod Stewart""
www.youtube.com/watch?v=T43m6dcMk6U
Bunga dan kumbang/Kumbang dan bunga
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.
This iconic building, one of Nottinghams finest architectural structure was opened in the 1880’s for the Prudential Assurance Limited.
It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, a renowned architect of that era who also designed the British Museum in London. Although Waterhouse was renowned for his Gothic style, the style used in architecting this building is Flemish Renaissance. He used red brick, in contrast to the stone of his museum design but I have shown this in monochrome which works well, I think.
The build was quite a difficult one as it is on a downwards slope and also triangular in shape!
Since it ceased to be used by Prudential it has had several owners with the latest being the upmarket Alchemist Cocktail Bar chain who have at least eight other bars across the country.
12.2.2023.
After a brief stop at Meadowhalls' Platform 4, Hanson & Hall liveried Class 50 No 50008 'Thunderer' gets away on the rear of 1Z88, the 08.45 Chaddesden Sidings - Pontefract leg of the 'Technical Cobra'.
The rail tour will eventually finish at Bowness Exchange Sidings.
Class 37 No 37403 'Isle of Mull' was the leading loco.
Organised by the Branch Line Society and operated by Rail Assurance.
Sometimes when your world seems so big and real
You may run to the shelter of walls
Sometimes you may wish
You could be like your shadow
It fits wherever it falls
Whenever the night's too deep to find
And the morning is too far away
Wherever you are
There's always a star to guide the way
There to guide the way
If you listen long enough
If you dream it strong enough
A door inside will open
And a light will flood the dark
-> (Here's the link to the song Voice of the Heart in Youtube.