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Vincent definitely has a way with ladies! Students relaxing at lunchtime get diverted by a little Rottie!
DSC04988
Tyler Yates is a Dean’s Honored Graduate from the Department of Computer Science. He is graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and is a member of the Turing Scholars Honors Program. He is being recognized for his academic achievements as well as his research in natural-language processing.
Tyler completed his undergraduate thesis, Automated Generation of Questions from Factual, Natural Language Sentences, under the direction of Dr. Bruce Porter. His project combined his interests in natural-language processing (NLP) and automated question answering. Research on NLB, a key component of human-computer interaction, focuses on building computer systems that can understand and generate natural languages, such as English. His research has specifically been on the topic of automated question generation (AQG). The goal of AQG research is to build a computer system that, given a natural language text, generates natural language questions whose answers are found in the given text.
Beyond his impressive thesis work, Tyler participated in the Freshman Research Initiative in the computational intelligence in the game design stream. This was an experience he credits with inspiring his interest in research and his thesis topic. He served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for some of the most challenging upper-division computer science courses. He was also a presentation leader for the UTCS Roadshow, an outreach group that takes UT students to middle and high school classrooms to excite students about computer science. Next year, Tyler will start a position as a full-time developer for Indeed.com in Austin, Texas
Source: hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/16/image/an/
Retouching: Lightroom
___________
AM 0500-620 consists of a highly symmetric spiral galaxy seen nearly face-on and partially backlit by a background galaxy. The foreground spiral galaxy has a number of dust lanes between its arms. The background galaxy was earlier classified as an elliptical galaxy, but Hubble has now revealed a galaxy with dusty spiral arms and bright knots of stars. AM0500-620 is 350 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Dorado, the Swordfish.
This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th anniversary on 24th April 2008.
Two of the boys in the interaction are my grandchildren, August 2004 in MD USA swimming party, at the end of summer. This was a discussion, after it they got together, two of my grandchildren and the young girl with a bird very well.
This photo remains one of my favorites
as I succeeded so well to catch not only the interaction between the kids, but each others very different expression.
I found Frances on ModelMayhem, during my "I need new models, and will look anywhere!!!" search of '08.
The shoot the day before (also from MM) had been a tad lackluster, so I was feeling a bit down on the whole endeavor, thinking that the initial interaction was too different from a Flickr meet to be satisfying.
Because it's one thing to meet up with a fellow photographer for some fun and photos.
It's a completely different thing to meet up with someone who is either looking to get paid, looking to get some pix for their portfolio, or is looking for both and is very wary, as there are excellent odds that you're either a) a psycho looking to complete his skin suit or b) a creep looking for a date.
But when Frances showed up, I played it like I used to, mainly because she'd been delayed, and so we spent some time talking about those troubles.
Which led into some really nice discussion, which got things right where I want them.
And that's when I started shooting.
Of course, when she mentioned 2012, then the Invisibles, I had to fight the urge to a) kidnap her and keep her forever, and b) ask her to marry me.
But that's neither here nor there.
Also, fyi, she's tiny! SO adorably tiny. Not freakishly tiny, just right tiny. Man, I'm not a tall guy, and I've been hanging out with some tall ladies, and it's not like I have a complex about it (I totally have a complex about it), but it's extremely pleasant to shoot someone w/o needing a step stool.
The deep dark secret of the shoot with Frances, up on the blog: blog.louobedlam.com/post/68939713/frances-doesnt-know-thi...
We've had a pretty good winter, with lots of snow and cold winter weather that started early in the season and kept going at regular intervals. (I know I'm in the minority when I define that kind of winter as "good," but I think it's far better than the interminable mud seasons we've had for the last several years.) We had enough cold stretches that I'd have expected more lake ice along the shore than this, but things at Illinois Beach seemed a little muted. There were some nice formations, but they only barely reached into the water. With the long stretches of sub-arctic cold we've had, I'd have expected ice several hundred feet out into the water.
But then, I don't come up to Illinois Beach often -- Robin and I have only come up here in the winter twice before -- so maybe the currents are too strong here for a lot of ice to form. Maybe it all gets pushed south toward Chicago. I haven't been to Indiana Dunes this season, so I don't know what the ice has been like down there.
Side Note: If you've been following this page for more than 12 years, you might remember a trip we took way back in 2014 to see the ice caves of the Apostle Islands up on Wisconsin's Lake Superior shore. This is a rare situation when the National Park Service actually allows and encourages people to walk out onto lake ice ... but only in certain conditions. Lake Superior has to have had an especially cold winter, and the ice around the caves had to be firmly locked in between the many offshore islands in the area. Until this year, conditions have only been right for the caves one more time since out 2014 trip, two years later in 2016. We thought maybe things might work out this year, and were ready to rejigger our schedules to head up on short notice, but the notice turned out to be too short. The National Park Service did open the ice caves on February 16th, and from what I've heard, the crowds were wild. But then a winter storm came through the very next day, which churned up the lake and broke all the ice, and that was it for the Apostle Island ice caves. The first access to the ice caves in a decade lasted a total of 16 hours, and it might be another decade before it happens again. Or these 16 hours might have been the last time anybody will see the ice caves for the rest of human civilization.
But Robin and I are happy. We saw the ice caves in 2014, and they were spectacular. So the lesson we take to heart from this is that if something special happens, take advantage of it now. Don't wait for the situation to reach some tenuous form of ideal. Do it while you can.
"Puddle"
Gyrfalcon,
The British Bird of Prey Centre,
National Botanic Garden of Wales,
Middleton Hall,
Llanarthe,
Carmarthenshire.
TAKEN - Sat 30th Oct'21
The Gyrfalcon thrives in some of the harshest climates on Earth. This denizen of the mountains and high arctic tundra is a circumpolar species, found throughout the region of the North Pole. It nests in the arctic and subarctic regions of North America, Europe, Asia, Greenland, and Iceland.
It Came From Beneath The Sea
It Came from Beneath the Sea (Columbia, 1955).
Starring Faith Domergue, Kenneth Tobey, Donald Curtis, Ian Keith, Dean Maddox Jr., Chuck Griffiths, Harry Lauter, and Richard W. Peterson. Directed by Robert Gordon.
A massive six-tentacle creature attacks San Francisco, demolishing Market Street, the Ferry Building, and the Golden Gate Bridge in this sci-fi classic. The film marks the first of many collaborations between special effects legend Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer, who would later work together on 20 Million Miles to Earth, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, and many more. Offered here is a fantastic lobby card set, in which Harryhausen's colossal beast is on full display.
synopsis
It Came From Beneath the Sea was the first of several fruitful collaborations between producer Charles H. Schneer and special-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen. "It" is a giant, six-tentacled octopus, which is galvanized into action by an H-bomb test. Worse still, the monster is highly radioactive, rendering useless the normal means of defense against it. Scientists Donald Curtis and Faith Domergue team with atomic-submarine commander Kenneth Tobey to halt the creature's progress before it begins to attack major coastal cities. Alas, the monster manages to reach San Francisco, wreaking havoc on the Golden Gate Bridge, the Ferry Building, and Market Street before Tobey figures out a way to destroy it. The stop-motion animation utilized by Harryhausen in It Came From Beneath Sea is convincingly frightening, but before long he'd top this achievement with such superb projects as Earth vs. Flying Saucers and Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
review
It's easy to underestimate It Came From Beneath The Sea 50 years after its release. Not only have there been lots of monster-on-the-loose thrillers since, butits own creators, special effects designer Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer, have done much more obivously impressive work together during the ensuing 25 years. What's more, Harryhausen's earlier Beast From 20,000 Fathoms had a more haunting set of images scattered throughout its length. It Came From Beneath The Sea, however, had its own virtues that aren't entirely lost today, if you take the trouble to spot them. As a sci-fi film, it also utilized elements of the documentary, with a narration that makes the first half of the movie seem almost like a newsreel, which gives the action a greater immediacy than could be communicated by any plot summary. The script, by George Worthing Yates and Hal Smith, also drew from the best available model of its era, following the lead of Gordon Douglas's Them! (1954) by interweaving elements of mystery in the movie's first half-hour. And the film contained an extremely potent topical element -- the first 12 minutes of the movie are a realistic depiction of an atomic submarine on maneuvers, in a time when nuclear submarines were the scientific marvel of the moment. This is all presented in a cool, clipped realistic manner, with a strong but convincingly stated macho tone (which will figure prominently in the interaction of two of the key characters later in the movie); indeed, It Came From Beneath The Sea may well have been the earliest screen depiction of a nuclear sub in action, at a time when ships like the submarine Nautilus were making headlines and history around the world. It all served to make the first quarter hour of the film almost irresistably suspenseful, and gave Harryhausen one of the best lead-ins that one could ask for, for his effects -- luckily, the latter lived up to the anticipation and the movie ended up packing a powerful visual punch in its time, especially the scenes of the destruction of well known pieces of San Francisco real estate. What's more, the screenplay engaged in some interesting (though partly unfulfilled) sex-role by-play between the Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, and Donald Curtis characters, and also included an interesting subtext about the nature of bureaucracy -- the manner in which the survivors of the first shipwreck are treated nearly short-circuits the investigation before it begins, and the depiction of the inability of bureaucrats to deal with answers they don't expect or want are all strangely honest and disquieting, almost subversive elements to turn up in a mid-1950's mainstream movie.
The entities comprising the following grouping all hail from Royskanblu, a small but densely-featured and likewise-populated planet located just within the boundaries of the Delta Octant near where it borders the Beta Octant, and noted for the uniquely-structured global society in which all three of its distinct races of humanoid natives live co-dependently…
• Loofravan: Stout, somewhat pudgy humanoids of purplish/pinkish-to-bluish complexion, Loofravans are popularly reputed as the most intelligent Royskanbluish citizens while also being the least-physically-adept, while a rather more precisely-accurate characterization for them is as their world's most deeply-thoughtful, devout and, above all, disciplined people. Predisposed, seemingly by a drive intrinsic to their very species, to honor - in any and all ways possible - both the God that created the realm of their inhabitation and the processes of nature that harbored their specific biological formation as a race, the Loofravans are noted for holding the fairly unique viewpoint of these two factors of reality both being equally-important and co-dependent, with neither being adequate for a meaningful and sustainable universe's development without the other. To the end of upholding such notions of honor, Loofravans generally resolve to make the most out of both their own existence and the resources available in the world around them, and per their values and conceptions as a people, this entails an extremely disciplined, productiveness-emphasizing lifestyle, with particular importance being seen in ambitious inventiveness and technological pursuit. Hence, Loofravans have, throughout most of Royskanbluish history, served as the visionaries, though not so much the official political leaders, of their civilization's progress and growth, being very much the "brains" of its global operation. They tend not to be satisfied with "merely" seeing through the same kinds of advancements as other enlightened worlds are all expected to make in due time, either, constantly striving to design truly unique utilities of whose sorts nothing would exist anywhere otherwise while seeing themselves and themselves alone as the ones destined to bring certain ideas to life through their skills of invention. One prime example of a technological concept largely originated in Loofravan science and having since found widespread and practical application elsewhere is that of artificial "psychokinesis" in the form of neurally-interfacing equipment powered and directed in its usage by brainwaves.
Loofravans are by far the most well-renowned Royskanbluish people throughout the rest of the Prime Galaxy, mainly by virtue of having the most regular interaction with other worlds and their respective inhabitants; many thousands of them have come to take up residence on different planets, primarily within the Delta and Beta Octants, being driven to do so in large part by the prospects of seeing/exploring the environments, and delving into the research possibilities presented by the resources, of foreign realms. Despite their willingness to physically leave it behind, though, nearly all Loofravans (with those born abroad constituting most of the exceptions) retain a strong, patriotic identification with their homeworld's unique culture and natural conditions that produced them, and they are thusly seen as prominent ambassadors of the Royskanbluish planetary identity, especially the few who go the extra (many thousands of) mile(s) in this regard by venturing beyond the Delta and Beta Octants to explore even more distant worlds. A related tradition, ironically engrained in galactic popular consciousness more prominently than in actual Royskanbluish culture, is for the first Loofravan to reach a planet previously unvisited by their kind to symbolically plant their world's flag at some important location with permission from the natives after successfully meeting with them on amicable terms. Today, the Royskanbluish flag exists in this form on just about every planet with non-hostile humanoid inhabitants, in many cases without any actual Loofravan migrant populations having been established there following the initial visits wherein the banners were planted.
In spite of the Loofravan form leaving a lot to be desired physique-wise and being unable to truly overcome its limitations (at least directly), the humanoids are almost as self-disciplining physically as they are mentally, and have developed their own unique system of martial arts, designed specifically to accommodate their particular physical attributes and heavily-utilizing the principle of mind-body synchronization through focus and meditation, which their culture expects (and severely pressures) all of its members to at least semi-regularly dabble in. As a result of this practice and its widespreadness, the average Loofravan, compared to a typical Konvadist, is weaker by a universal standard, but "stronger"/more-adept relative to his/her kind's capacity to grow in strength and skill through training, etc. Overall, 500 is considered a low-end durability value for a Loofravan, and 800 a high-end one.
• Konvadist: The most numerous of Royskanblu's peoples, outnumbering the Loofravans by a margin amounting to about 5% of their shared world's total humanoid population, Konvadists are yellowish-skinned beings identifiable by their massive, frequently bearded (even for females) chins while having an otherwise very standard build in terms of both shape and size, as well as in durability value (~800-900). By virtue of the particular format in which their metabolisms are structured and the slow yet efficient rate at which they function, they are also the longest-lived Royskanbluish organisms, humanoid or otherwise, being capable of living for up to a full century and with the very oldest Konvadists ever having died as super-centenarians.
Often stereotyped by others in the broader galaxy as the dumbest and most brutish/violent of their world's three prime races, Konvadists are innately warrior-like in their nature, but should in no way be dismissed as violent barbarians, possessing great honor, civility with allies and, most importantly, an aptitude as a people for applying their inherent strengths - ones that various other, genuinely barbaric races would and do use as excuses and means for destructive and cruel behaviors - to constructive ends as an importantly-contributing part of an advanced, enlightened larger society. Indeed, Konvadists form the backbone of Royskanbluish civilization's manual workforce, being responsible for the majority of construction work on the world's cities and other key institutions, of which more new ones continue to be actively, ambitiously built to this day, much more-so than in most other sufficiently-advanced civilizations. Konvadist hands are also the instruments by which most Loofravan-designed equipment is physically assembled, and in many cases, especially where putting a device into mass-production is concerned, this requires a fair bit of intelligent decision-making - specifically in the engineering field - on the parts of the entrusted manual workers. Unfortunately, many tend to overlook this vital role of Konvadist intuition in bringing to fruition that which Loofravans, conversely, are popularly given unduly singular credit for. All in all, the Konvadists serve as the "brawn" to the Loofravans' "brains", with this terminology being meant in the most positive way possible here, where either "component" of the figurative Royskanbluish "equation" of productiveness is equally-important to, co-dependent upon and effectively-cooperative with the other.
Konvadists are widely known to be the least-outgoing of their homeworld's races as far as direct galactic interaction goes; the vast majority of them never leave Royskanblu to travel anywhere else at any point in their whole natural lives, and although the same also technically holds true for their Bidempair brethren, remote communication with other world's peoples by Royskanbluish leaders belonging to the latter species still gives galactic society a strong, largely positive hands-on impression of them that the former kind lacks altogether. However, Konvadists generally do not mind their people's lack of galactic exposure, and are almost-uniformly content with their living arrangements and productive, domestically well-appreciated roles within Royskanbluish civilization, which ultimately - albeit inadvertently - ends up contributing to the issue of demeaning-and-worse stereotypical perceptions about them, in that they don't really see a need to do anything about this reputation. The biggest historical exception to the Konvadists' tendencies of shying from foreign interaction arose as a result of the Vision Wars, where numerous members of their race participating, to great effect, in various battles against invading Cosmo'rath forces throughout the Delta Octant; the initially-limited numbers doing so drastically increased starting in the Fourth Cycle of Age 567, following Cosmo'rath's sole major terror attack against Royskanblu during the war which served as an effective provocation for its people to heighten their contributions to the resisting war effort. Today, roughly three out of every five Konvadists still living on any planet besides Royskanblu are descended from those who traveled to said worlds for the war and decided to continue living there after its conclusion, leading to a popular, half-joking "theory" that surmises the humanoids to simply be very reluctant to engage in interplanetary travel.
• Bidempair: The least-populous of the Royskanbluish racial triumvirate, comprising one quarter of its citizenry at most (and oftentimes slightly less, depending on fluctuating demographics), Bidempairs are a very physically well-endowed and consequently intimidating people, ranking just below Barserinv's Kierraplips as far as the Prime Galaxy's largest-bodied extant races go; adults generally measure between seven or eight feet - usually closer to the latter threshold - in height. This massiveness, which brings with it proportionally greater-than-average energy intake requirements for each Bidempair, is a major contributing factor to the species' limited numbers in the natural status quo, as are their reproductive limitations, with pregnancy terms lasting significantly longer than for most other humanoid beings and multiple births being nigh-unheard of. Bidempair flesh, predominantly orangish in pigment, is rough and leathery, and as one would be stupid not to expect given their size, they are both the strongest Royskanbluish beings and the most resilient, with the average well-developed adults of their race boasting durability values between 1,100 and 1,300 and individuals of exceptionally dedicated physical self-discipline being able to achieve even greater levels of toughness - the all-time record stands at just below 1,800 - via heavy personal training over the course of several or more years.
The Bidempair sub-culture within the greater Royskanbluish civilization is the most relatively-independent from those of the other two races, though just as they bear somewhat more physical resemblance to their Konvadist cousins compared to the Loofravan form, the equivalent can also be said in respects to the races' societal relations. Bidempairs are the most naturalistic and least-technologically-dependent of Royskanblu's peoples, and furthermore are (pretty much rightly) regarded as the most philosophically-wise, practical, responsible and innately leader-like citizens of their world in spite of their comparably primitive, often tribal-like lifestyle tendencies and lacking anything resembling the sheer book-and-tech-smarts of their Loofravan brethren. As a result of these positive stereotypes and their widespread recognition within Royskanbluish culture itself, Bidempairs have long-occupied the majority of leadership positions in their global society's government - which can best be described as a constitutional, departmentalized oligarchy - and are traditionally perceived to be pre-inclined as the best fits for these roles by nature, destiny or both. While some might (and, indeed, frequently do) decry this tradition as system-embedded racial favoritism, very few of the complaints brought up about this over the years (primarily the more recent ones) have actually come from Royskanbluish citizens, most of whom have no qualms with how their (historically very internally-stable) civilization is organized. Also note that there is nothing officially stopping Loofravans and Konvadists from gaining these positions, at least strictly (de facto hurdles from public bias may be a very different story), and that either way, very few of them ever express any interest in doing so, let alone make serious bids for office.
Additionally, the bulk of the Bidempair population is not actively involved with pursuing appointment to leading posts either, with a majority of the race's citizenry maintaining fairly simple existences of caring for themselves, family, etc. throughout the entirety of adult life. It is only an ambitious minority of Bidempairs who devote years of their lives to preparing and proving themselves to be worthy of leading large sectors of their global civilization, a gruelingly mettle-testing process that constitutes almost as much of a "career" in and of itself as does actually serving in an office (to the point where providing personal training to the specific end of becoming "leader material" is its own viable business option). The pursuit of authority-qualification for a Bidempair aspirant invariably begins at a local level, with one's immediate peers collectively considering whether or not they should lend their vocal support to one's early efforts to gain sociopolitical traction through recognition. This is judged based on a few different key factors, including one's demonstrated decision-making skills and responsibility, their contributions to society on what is referred to as a "village" (local) scale, and various, sometimes gratuitous and/or savage-seeming feats of strength such as trophy-hunting of large animals; once a Bidempair has gained sufficient recognition beyond a local scope and effectively moves up to a more professional level of political pursuit, the last of these listed factors largely ceases to be relevant in favor of social responsibility becoming the solely primary trait being sought. In spite of its crudeness, this tradition-based system of peer-certification has proven a fairly reliable one for producing adequate selections of quality leadership candidates throughout Royskanbluish history, thanks in main part to the Bidempairs being a very honest people, innately and culturally; any and virtually all corrupt individuals seeking power for selfish-or-worse reasons are quickly weeded out by peers who will have no part of such manipulativeness, for which their culture's standard punishment is castration.
• Pilbitzor: Known as the most prominent of Royskanbluish non-humanoid life-forms, the Pilbitzor can be encountered as a common wildlife variety amid all regions of the world's geography, and is typically regarded as inconsequential - a mere nuisance, if anything - by its citizens, whose society has long-since developed past the point of the creature's edible, but hardly delectable, meat ceasing to be essential as a food source. As a result of ceasing to be hunted, Pilbitzors have become considerably more plentiful in their numbers over the past few centuries, and as of the matter's most recent study, conducted in Age 847, their total population stands poised to surpass that of the Konvadists within the next decade or so. Consequently, it has been repeatedly hypothesized and suggested by experts from abroad that some sort of measure ought to be taken against the animals' currently-unchecked continued proliferation, so as to prevent their abundance from becoming an adversity for other organisms on Royskanblu, sometime in the near future. The planet's peoples have yet to heed any of this advice, however, seeing little reason to be concerned by the issue, in large part due to the fact that continued population overgrowth by the Pilbitzors - hardly the most dangerous or aggressive of beasts - would not pose nearly so much a threat to them as it would to a number of smaller native organisms that might end up facing extinction from excessive predation and/or competition. Unlike, and in this case to the chagrin of, most of its neighboring/peer civilizations, Royskanbluish culture has never perceived much value in the cause of preserving animal biodiversity for its own sake if the at-risk life-forms in question aren't considered to serve any utilitarian purpose to humanoids.
Regarding the physical attributes of the Pilbitzor itself, it is a quadrupedal, amphibious (though seldom having the opportunity, much less the need, to make use of its swimming capacities) creature, usually classified as a mammal-reptile hybrid, whose bulbous, rotund lower body, to which its scaly legs connect in pairs at either opposite end, forms the base of an uprightly-oriented torso and overall upper half. A long tail, texturally continuous with the animal's color-striped underbelly, is often held up, visibly wagging, behind the Pilbitzor, and though this tail does bear a set of thorny projections at its end, these do not entail any special offensive capabilities - such as poison/venom, which is common in similar structures belonging to other animals - beyond that of simple puncturing. This plus the basic claws upon the beast's main hands together constitute the entirety of the Pilbitzor's set of built-in means for aggression, which is generally more-than-adequate to ensure its survival and thriving despite its modesty, with its natural place in its ecosystem being one without many actively-threatening predators to deal with, Secerpoyts being the one major exception. Conversely, Pilbitzors themselves, being omnivores, and far-from-picky ones at that, are prone to often-relentlessly hunting down and devouring most Royskanbluish fauna varieties of significantly lesser size than themselves, but pose no menace to any other major being of comparable, let alone greater, scale and complexity.
Just below the Pilbitzor's neckline resides a connected trio of gizzard-esque structures that do, in fact, serve and function as the mammaries of the creature, and per the norm for such are substantially larger in female specimens compared to males. Pilbitzor eyes are atypically-structured, lacking visible pupils, but ultimately are not any functionally different from standard eyes for this, while a set of lumpy, sack-like protrusions near the top of the beast's head are also visually prominent yet largely inconsequential, merely serving as some light additional cranial protection. Further regarding the subjects of protection and resilience in general: the Pilbitzor is quite sturdy for an organism of its size (that being less than four feet in height in most cases) on the whole, with its durability value frequently surpassing the 1,000 benchmark.
• Secerpoyt: A functionally-winged, serpentine reptile inclined to dwelling in and around mountainous areas, most notable of which on Royskanblu - and thus serving as the biggest population center for the beast - is the Raker Range occupying a sizable portion of the planetary map's Northeastern corner, the Secerpoyt is domestically infamous as the most hostile and effectively threatening Royskanbluish organism as far as its humanoid populations are concerned. Long-tailed and legless (unless one counts its lone pair of conventional limbs which would normally fall under the "arm" category as "legs"), it is able to fly freely and nimbly throughout the skies immediately above Royskanblu's surface, but not at advanced altitudes, due to the air thinning rather rapidly as one progresses upward through the planet's particular atmosphere and Secerpoyt wings possessing poor adaptability/climate-versatility despite their great effectiveness within a basic environment. In terms of their very tall overall heads and likewise-proportioned necks and faces, Secerpoyts lack any sort of lips, and therefore give off the appearance of "smiling" at all times, with their naturally-yellow teeth and a greenish, extremely thick surrounding set of gums on full display. Also highly noticeable is a forward-jutting structure, located just under the creature's nose, consisting of a tiny hole through which pokes out a largely useless and utterly superfluous miniature "tongue" resembling those of many a small serpent and lizard.
The Secerpoyt is the single-most-innately-aggressive, not to mention voracious, creature among all native Royskanbluish organisms, and one of the very few mortal beasts throughout the whole of the Prime Galaxy to harbor a particular taste for humanoid flesh; indeed, while both able and willing to prey upon and consume other animals, it is, in fact, significantly more tenacious in doing so to - more inclined to specifically seek out - Royskanblu's intelligent citizens, Loofravan, Konvadist and Bidempair alike, making it a true man-eater. Although not all potential targets are susceptible to it, namely with Bidempairs being far too massive and heavy, by far the Secerpoyt's most commonly-favored predation tactic consists of swooping down upon a target, lifting them up within both of its large hands and carrying them off to a nest, roost or other (usually high-up) location where it can take its time in devouring them at its own pace. This strategy is frequently employed in a "hit-and-run"-type manner, with the attacking Secerpoyt taking a single victim while many other bystanders are present, and doing so with such swiftness that it is difficult to stop the abduction process even with several people trying. Furthermore, it is far-from-unheard of for multiple Secerpoyts to raid together in a groups, collectively targeting a number of people at once and going about it with much more bold aggressiveness compared to when only one of them is striking. Even when a Secerpoyt is slain or otherwise stopped from successfully making off with a victim, the latter's is usually spared only from the indignity of being slowly eaten, as opposed to escaping death altogether, for as soon as it gets a hold of someone, the beast will almost invariably skewer its prey - generally near the neck or shoulder area(s) - with long, extremely sharp and nigh-unbreakably hard singular spikes that extend from either of its wrist and exist specifically for this very purpose. Needless to say, this is more-often-than-not fatal in and of itself, and the matter of being dropped from what usually amounts to a considerable height as part of the process of being "saved" makes actually surviving being grabbed by a Secerpoyt an even rarer feat still. With all this in mind, the people of Royskanblu have come to outfit most of their settlements - especially those located nearer to major Secerpoyt lairs, i.e. mountain ranges - with roofing and/or walling to make reaching their residents as inconvenient as possible for the monstrous animals.
From the topmost point of its head down to the far-tip of its tail, the average Secerpoyt measures approximately five meters in total body length, but one should not be (too) intimidated based on this statistic alone, for the creature itself is, necessarily-so for it to be able to fly with its wings being of the caliber they are, very leanly-built relative to it, low in body density and lacking a strong center of mass. Hence, it is less massive in practice than it might outwardly appear to be, and correspondingly easier to bring down in regards to the quantity of force required to do so; no Secerpoyt's durability value ever exceeds 1,000.
• Unischerk: Being the largest native Royskanbluish organisms, albeit by a small margin compared to the Bidempairs, Unischerks are chitinous-bodied, heavy-built and muscular, upright-standing and considerably fearsome-looking predatory animals found more-or-less consistently, but generally in low population density, all throughout the planet's mainland surface regions. Despite their startling appearance and at-times-particularly-ruthless aggressiveness towards all of the smaller local life-forms designated as their natural prey, with the latter attribute seeming only befitting of the former, Unischerks' inclinations to hostility do not extend to Royskanblu's humanoid citizens, none of whom fall under said prey category in the creatures' eyes (not even the extra ones). So long as it is not provoked, a wild, free-roaming Unischerk will largely ignore any humanoids, whether they be native to or visiting the planet, and even when feeling threatened by any such unfamiliar beings, it will not always immediately attack outright, often acting with confusion and appearing to be almost as frightened by them as vice-versa. Resultantly, it is possible, though very difficult and risky, to train and semi-domesticate a Unischerk, a feat that is only attempted with any regularity by Bidempairs; once having secured the loyalty of one of the beasts as a "pet", they will use its presence as such as a display of their own disciplinary skillfulness, so as to demonstrate and legitimize their self-purported suitability for whatever position(s) of authority they may be in the process of coveting. This practice, while still existing today, peaked during the Sixth Century Relative, over the course of which it came into play abroad during the Vision Wars, where a number of trained Unischerks - having initially been tamed simply to make a vain point - were deployed into action on other planets, serving as fairly useful war-beasts against Cosmo'rath forces. As a notable and inadvertent consequence of this particular wartime contribution by the humanoid-inhabited Delta Octant world least-affected by the Vision Wars, a small, but undetermined in its exact number, population of Unischerks, whose lineage has since reverted to the animal's default, wild state, continue to freely roam Yominasst to this day, having proven surprisingly adaptable to that planet's environment in spite of never having been intended to live there.
As for the physical characteristics of the animal itself, the Unischerk's most prominent nonstandard feature is the presence of paired, scythe-like claws attached to semi-segmented and tentacle-esque retractable appendages upon/within what most would call its "shoulders". The long reach of these structures, used for violent aggression, as well as the arced angles at which they extend and retract, has led to certain comparisons being drawn between the Unischerk and the demonic Tredewraif, although the latter's analogous mechanism is near-exponentially deadlier. The creature's main pair of arms, meanwhile, reside not immediately below its "shoulders", but significantly lower-down: barely above the midpoint of the main body, which is a necessarily peculiar placement given what the Unischerk's upper-chest-and-back area needs to be able not only to carry, but to actively fit and hold within its space. Like the "clawed tentacles", these arms are similarly-rooted, such that their lengths may be retracted into their owner's torso at will, but this is almost never practical for a Unischerk to do and thus is very rarely demonstrated as an ability. Additionally, their hands lack claws or other offensively-oriented features of their own, and hence cannot be effectively used in combat, where the Unischerk's special appendages serve as its singularly primary means for inflicting damage.
The beast's legs, and its feet especially, are intensely heavy-set, even compared to the rest of its body, as is its large tail, which bears a functionally club-like end-piece which can be swung around as a secondary, generally inferior attack mechanism. As alluded to above, Unischerks have five eyes, the unpaired one of which resides upon the forehead. Their durability values range from 1,200 to 1,600, depending on size and muscular development, factors which tend to vary quite a bit from specimen to specimen.
• ROYSKANBLUISH WEAPONS:
- Psy-Kin WaveWand
- Ocular Blastscoper
- Omnioriental Scissorer
- Powder-Power Pulverizer
- Sureitkan LaunchSaber
- Fan-O-War
"Just move to the Internet, its great here. We get to live inside where the weather is always awesome."
-- John Green
Initial draft of a diagram depicting the essential elements of a socially constructed learning environment. Rationale for the matrix is available at www.idolresources.com/?p=486
I actually took some time today to do some new SPs. These aren't them. I'm still deciding if I like any of them. We shall see. It didn't go as well as planned. :)
I'm continuing my week of self portraits. You get parts of me today.