2019.10.9青柳にとっては結構おおきな出来事ドラえもんが金曜日の夜から土曜日の夕方になった。時代の流れオープンニングもまた変わってた、なんかまぁそうか、とりあえず何事も新続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

2019.12.15うす塁斗この感じクリスマス年末年越しでたよ師走だよあっという間にきたよ毎年くるよそうだよこの時期にブログだよ毎年毎年はえーよだいぶ寒くなってきたでもダウンを着るタイミング相変わらずわからんまだまだ、薄着なんだよな青柳は、、服がわからんのよなだからTシャツに厚手のもの羽織るとかまぁ、楽なんだよな脱げるしなセットアップ着たいのにこの時期のインナーが、厚手に、なると大変なんだよなどうも。もっぱら続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

rickowensonline:

LAS PALMAS AVE, HOLLYWOOD, 2002

Glimpses through Ginny Weasley's mind during the last months of her fifth years at Hogwarts. Missing scenes from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Just a short note that the memorial article “Analysis and applications: The mathematical work of Elias Stein” has just been published in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society.  This article was a collective effort led by Charlie Fefferman, Alex Ionescu, Steve Wainger and myself to describe the various mathematical contributions of Elias Stein, who […]

Next quarter, starting March 30, I will be teaching “Math 247B: Classical Fourier Analysis” here at UCLA.  (The course should more accurately be named “Modern real-variable harmonic analysis”, but we have not gotten around to implementing such a name change.) This class (a continuation of Math 247A from previous quarter, taught by my colleague, Monica […]

Just a short post to note that this year’s Abel prize has been awarded jointly to Hillel Furstenberg and Grigory Margulis for “for pioneering the use of methods from probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory and combinatorics”.  I was not involved in the decision making process of the Abel committee this year, but […]

At the most recent MSRI board of trustees meeting on Mar 7 (conducted online, naturally), Nicolas Jewell (a Professor of Biostatistics and Statistics at Berkeley, also affiliated with the Berkeley School of Public Health and the London School of Health and Tropical Disease), gave a presentation on the current coronavirus epidemic entitled “2019-2020 Novel Coronavirus […]

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

My student, Jaume de Dios, has set up a web site to collect upcoming mathematics seminars from any institution that are open online.  (For instance, it has a talk that I will be giving in an hour.)   There is a form for adding further talks to the site; please feel free to contribute (or make […]

I want to write this, but I don't want anyone to feel compelled to read it, so here, have some cut tags!

( Work stress )

( MtY stress )

( MtE stress )

( Mom stress )

I'm thinking of getting therapy just to have someone to talk to about all the stress. The good thing (honest, I see it as a good thing) is that most of the stress is basically external to me -- my days are generally easy and pleasant, and everyone who's not me may be melting down, but all my stress is in the way of a contact low, as it were. Other than being in a sandwich-generation holding pattern (when will the next phase of my life begin? no one knows), things are pretty good. I'm making more money than I ever have, I love my work, I get lots of downtime to read and hang out with James and mom, and my health is better than it's been in years. So yeah, if the universe could just leave my loved ones in peace, that'd be great.

comments

I just closed a half-dozen tabs that were old posts from y'all that I keep meaning to respond to. Apologies, but I have limited oomph this week, as a lot of us do.

But hey, surveys are easy.

Quarantine meme (quaranteme? quaranmeme?) picked up from julian who got it from crystalpyramid.


( My answers )

( And the blank questions if you want to do this )

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Co-founder and designer Erik Haldi discusses the company's first Star Wars enamel pin: Luke Skywalker on his tauntaun.

The actor behind Luke Skywalker takes StarWars.com on a journey through filming the Star Wars sequel in time for the 40th anniversary of its release.

Get behind-the-scenes peeks from the production of The Mandalorian with personal photos from Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and many more.

Machi Koro  was one of the first games my husband Chris and I played together. It was released in 2012 and when we started gaming together in 2013, it was still a popular game on reviewer blogs and videos as we sought guidance in what to play and what to buy. Once Machi Koro  was in our collection, I spent every game trying my best to outthink Chris and acquire the best combination of establishment types to ensure victory. As we were enticed by other new games coming out and were drawn deeper into heavy Euros, we left Machi Koro on the shelf more frequently, with an occasional wistful comment about how we should play again.

At GenCon earlier this year, Machi Koro Legacy  was the talk of the town. Designed by Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, and Masao Suganuma (Masao is the original designer of Machi Koro), it promised to breathe new life into Machi Koro through a campaign style series of ten games, revealing new aspects of gameplay in each session at the table. We love legacy games, so we were sold on the idea right away.

The artwork for Machi Koro Legacy  features two of the principal artists from Machi Koro , Noboru Hotta and Jason D. Kingsley, and the signature cutesy cartoonish illustrations from the original are dominant in this legacy edition as well.

In Machi Koro Legacy, players take on the role of mayors competing to build the most attractive town on the Island of Machi Koro. During each game, every mayor is vying for the title of Best Mayor and must also work with the other mayors to build a landmark on the island. Players are given a starting assortment of establishment cards to select from for their town, and on each turn the following steps are taken:

(1) The active player rolls a die or a pair of dice, depending on the phase in the campaign.

(2) All players activate the establishment cards in their towns that match the sum of the die/dice roll and are applicable. Activating an establishment card means gaining the benefit listed on the card (usually collecting income). 

(3) The active player takes one action. Actions to select from vary widely depending on the phase of the campaign but always include purchasing new establishments from the market to add to one’s town, building a landmark in one’s town (landmarks are special buildings that change one aspect of the rules for the owning player), or contributing toward the community landmark. 

When one player has built all of their landmarks and contributed to the community landmark, they are declared the best mayor and win the game. As the legacy campaign progresses two main effects are felt. First, an overarching narrative slowly reveals itself. Second, as new legacy components are unboxed, the complexity of the game grows. The gameplay never grows in difficulty beyond a lightweight strategy game, but the new components present additional factors to consider when making decisions and also introduce more variability in the marketplace.

We decided to play through our review copy with our ten year old son, Max. We thought it would be a good fit because he’s quite adept at board games and loves Space Base, which features a similar mechanism (drafting cards+rolling dice to collect benefits based on the card numbers that match the dice rolls).  He also understands the concept of legacy games as Chris is playing through another legacy game, Zombie Kids, with him and our other children.

As we settled into our first game, I got a good look at the components. The coins are plastic, which I’ve never seen before. It’s a good middle ground between cost saving cardboard coin tokens and the more luxurious clay or metal coins some games includes. Besides the coins, the starting components include cardboard tokens for player flags and town boards, two standard d6 dice, a sticker sheet, 65 plastic coated cards, a legacy deck of plastic coated cards (which must be opened  and worked through in sequence when instructed), and six “mystery” boxes to be opened as instructed during the course of the campaign. All the components are sturdy enough to hold up to repeated play.

My son Max was enthusiastic about Machi Koro Legacy from the first turn and his enthusiasm continued to blossom as he won game after game. He quickly capitalized on the obvious strategies – buy up establishments that are statistically more likely to be activated during dice rolls, then push toward dice (vs die) rolls as soon as possible. This meant collecting a lot of establishments that activate when 7 or 8 are rolled.  My husband followed the same strategy but didn’t always remember to build his town landmarks in a timely fashion, so he only won a few games. Me, I was a tragic tale of bad strategy. I opted to corner the market on single die roll establishments during my first few games, which didn’t work out well at all. Even in future games when I shifted to a 2 dice strategy, I was unable to gain any ground as some of the legacy components unboxed that Max and Chris had quickly scooped up gave a strong advantage over the rest of the campaign. At times, I felt it was impossible for me to win and I felt frustrated that Machi Koro Legacy  doesn’t provide a good catch up mechanism or some way to balance out the power of the more powerful legacy components. Without giving away any spoilers, I want to offer this essential tip: when components are unboxed that you have to prioritize taking specific actions to earn, TAKE THOSE ACTIONS AND EARN THOSE COMPONENTS. Some of the components won’t prove to be game changers, but some will and if you let your opponents take all of them you will be at a serious disadvantage the rest of the campaign with no way to rebalance the game.

Max loved Machi Koro Legacy so much that we agreed to binge play. We ran through the entire campaign of 10 games in just one week. We didn’t face any serious analysis paralysis during gameplay, so each game took no more than 45 minutes. In the end, Max won six games, Chris won four, and I didn’t win any. The game offers a great amount of replayability - when the legacy campaign is over, players can continue to play the game using a modified set of rules and a subset of the components. Chris feels that the permanent game we are left with is a bit more interesting than the original Machi Koro  edition, so would be purchasers should consider Machi Koro Legacy  an investment in not only ten distinct game session experiences, but also a fun, kid-friendly, permanent, upgraded edition of the original game. I have to agree that Machi Koro Legacy  is one of the most kid-friendly legacy games in the board game marketplace. You absolutely want to add this to the Christmas present pile for your under 18 set, where the gift becomes not only the game, but the time you’ll spend playing it with them. And while hard core Euro gamers will likely skip over the game in pursuit of heavier strategy picks, gamers who enjoy lightweight strategy games will enjoy the easy-to-learn, quick-to-play experience that Machi Koro Legacy  offers. 

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Publisher: Pandasaurus Games
Players: 2-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 30-45 min
Game type: card drafting, dice rolling
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

I don't keep my finger on the pulse of all the independent Kickstarter campaigns running at any given time. There's just too much unique content being produced month after month for me to sift through everything. I leave that to those who write previews and reviews for a living (I am an IT Consultant for a living; I write reviews as a hobby because I'm passionate about board gaming). The only way an independent Kickstarter campaign is going to be on my radar is if the designer/publisher reaches out to me to let me know the campaign is running or if it's created a bit of buzz already in the key circles that I frequent. I definitely wasn't closely monitoring Kickstarter campaigns four years ago when the original edition of Middara  was initially funded. It was an adventurous dungeon crawl that promised to be so much more than an ordinary dungeon crawl. With options to run in campaign mode for an ongoing narrative or crawl mode for one off gameplay, it could work as a long term project for committed game groups as well as a fun game for casual players. It was a long road from its 2015 campaign to its 2019 fulfillment with a lot of unhappy backers along the way who voiced frustration at the late fulfillment of the game. In early summer 2019, a few months after delivery of the original Middara  game was completed, Succubus Publishing launched their Middara: Unintentional Malum Triology  Kickstarter campaign. This offered a reprint of the original game (retitled Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1), expanding it to over 80 hours of content, as well as two new adventure expansions (Acts 2 and 3) and a host of other Kickstarter exclusive add-on and stretch goal content. It also promised a faster turnaround on delivery to backers. Suddenly Middara  and its designers (Clayton Helme, Brooklynn Lundberg, Brenna Moncur, and Ian Tate) were the talk of the town and my husband Chris and I had an intense discussion about backing the second campaign. We were torn - yes the game sounded really cool, but we already own one behemoth campaign dungeon crawl (I’m looking at you Gloomhaven). Did we really need another? We hemmed and hawed and let the decision hang in the air. And then then publisher decided for us, by sending us a review copy of Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1 (M:UMA1).

As soon as the box arrived at the end of June, I poured over all the components. So much stuff! Such a huge box! The artwork (conceived and illustrated by Stephanie Gustafsson, Alex Hansen, Hector Sevilla Lujan, Rhett Mason, and Jon Troy Nickel) is absolutely beautiful. The illustrations are well drawn, well detailed, and bursting with color.
The game could have an audience in the tween set if the drawings were a little less risqué, but as marketed to older teens and adults, everything is within decency standards.

The minis are of good quality; well sculpted. I do wish that at least the starting adventurer minis came pre-painted (I always wish that because I have no painting skills or supplies) especially when M:UMA1 is priced at $150. The components are sturdy and should hold up to regular usage. We haven’t sleeved our cards yet and because of the sheer quantity of them (hundreds) they’ll likely remain unsleeved. I especially enjoy the custom dice, separated by color to indicate which dice should be used during dice rolls.

After examining all the game contents, my interest was definitely on the upswing and Chris and I  set about assembling a crew to play the game in adventure mode. It’s daunting to find others willing to commit to 80+ hours of gameplay, but soon enough we had a happy foursome. One of the players, Craig, actually owned the original edition of Middara but hadn’t found the time to assemble a group and get it on the table. Our other player was his coworker and friend Matt.
Craig showed up for our first night of gameplay with a sweet surprise – he had ordered the fancy game mats and was happy to share them with us for our adventure.

In M:UMA1  adventure mode, players begin the first game by taking on the roles of young students preparing for their Magical Aptitude and Skill Test (MAST). We spent that first evening getting to know the four starting characters (called adventurers) and deciding who would role play each one. Every adventurer has their own unique backstory, motivations, starting equipment (armor, weapons, relics, consumables, etc.), and vivid personality.  I chose Nightingale because I saw myself in her and thought I would really enjoy playing her. Chris chose Rook, Craig took Remi, and Matt selected Zeke.
M:UMA1  adventure mode breaks down the overall campaign (called the adventure) into many sessions called encounters. We typically play one or two encounters each evening we get together, with each encounter lasting anywhere from one to two hours. To start an encounter, all players gather round the table and lay out their adventurer cards and equipment. The narrative is read from the Adventure book, or alternatively listened to on the Middara app. We all really love the app. It’s available on the Apple App store or Google Play store and allows players to hear the narrative bits of the story without requiring one of them to do the reading aloud. The voice actor Succubus Publishing hired is fantastic; she is an expressive reader who brings the characters alive. While the entire adventure in M:UMA1  is narrative driven and so every encounter advances the plot at least a little bit, there are some encounters that have several pages of story so using the app is really nice. After the narration is finished, the location boards are set up for the encounter, forming the terrain, similar to any other dungeon crawl. Directions for setup are given in the Adventure book with modifications in the Diagram book. Some elements of the terrain may have their details partially hidden, such as loot tokens (which hide the exact reward until a character performs an encounter adjacent to the token) and totem tokens (which hide what they represent until an adventurer comes within line of sight of the token). The starting spaces on the board for each adventurer and the monsters (called combatants) are specified in the Adventure book. Once everything is setup, the game begins; turn order for adventurers and monsters is driven by initiative cards that were shuffled and randomly laid out in a row during setup.
During the encounter, players spend their turns moving their adventurers around the terrain, following movement rules, as they work to complete the encounter goals. Usually this involves reaching the exit token, but other goals are possible. Since players typically get rewards (gold, equipment, experience points, etc.) each time their adventurer slays a monster, most will want to prioritize battling the monsters over making a quick run for the exit token. There isn’t a lot of analysis paralysis during game play as the best options for next steps on a player’s turn are usually fairly obvious. Combatants spend their turns completing actions as specified on their description cards. Those that are designated as adventurer opponents are called intelligent combatants and have intelligent combatant cards, while the ones that players control and that fight on behalf of adventurers are called command combatants. 

Exploring the terrain and battling intelligent combatants are governed by an extensive set of rules (60+ pages!) provided in the rulebook. It took us at least three encounters before we really understood most of the basic rules and even now, we find ourselves frequently checking the summary poster we printed out as a giant player aid. There’s just too much information to memorize it all, especially when the information is subject to change due to errata. Which brings me to one of the few complaints I have about this game -the large volume of errata. You either have to remember to frequently check the long list of corrections and changes (to the 1.0 rulebook and to the text printed on various components such as equipment cards, combatant cards, etc) and update gameplay as you go along,  or dedicate a session to reviewing all the changes and corrections and marking up the components with the correct text in one sitting. We started off trying to do the former but it was so frustrating that we switched to the latter and it took me at least an hour.  For the rulebook errata, you can take a shortcut to getting the updates in place (if you don’t mind the ink and paper expense) by printing out the updated 1.08 rulebook from the Succubus website. Another note on the rules- deciding which rule set to play under has become a complicated issue that players will need to come to agreement on as Succubus has compiled and released an entirely new version of the rules (v1.1) that changes several of the fundamental aspects of the game. This was done in response to the feedback from players who have extensively played through the game using the original 1.0 rulebook with errata corrections. The major overhaul is meant to strengthen aspects of the game that felt too weak and weaken aspects that seemed overpowered, but not all players agree on the changes. Also, the 1.1 changes are still in Beta release and so they are subject to change as they continue to be finalized. Our little group likes to keep things simple, so we opted to stick to the 1.08 rule set, at least for now.
Theme is really important to me, so I was very happy to discover that Middara’s theme is well implemented across all components and the gameplay thus far in M:UMA1 . This is where the game really shines over its competitors. Its narrative is extremely detailed and offers so much depth in the characters. More so than Gloomhaven. More so than any other board game I’ve played. An experienced  screenwriter could easily adapt the storyline into a fantastic adventure film for the big screen and I’d go see it. My two year stint playing through the Pathfinder Skull and Shackles Adventure Card Game is a distant second in plot development, and even then, that game only had such a rich narrative track because we employed a user written storyline that we found on BGG (the publisher offered little in the way of quality narrative for the game). I come back to the table each week to play M:UMA1 , not just for the fun of fighting monsters and gaining rewards, but also to find out what happens next in the story. Bonus: as the plot unfolds, adventurers grow in skill and discipline and new content becomes available.
At the time of this writing, we've played through all of Chapter 1 and are partway through Chapter 2 (about 10 distinct sessions). Once we are finished with M:UMA1  in adventure mode (we estimate it will take us over a year, meeting weekly) there are plenty of scenarios and special content for us to replay M:UMA1  in crawl mode.  In fact, a large portion of the Kickstarter promo box is content exclusively for use with crawl mode and I’m excited about eventually digging into that.
Based on my experience with M:UMA1  so far, I highly recommend the game. Not only is the game worthwhile on its own merits, but the friendship building that comes from playing a year+ long adventure with others is wonderful. You can make a full afternoon or evening out of each session, sharing a meal together before sitting down to play the game. Although I was given a review copy of Act 1, I like Middara so much that I’ll be purchasing Acts 2 and 3 myself (or putting them on my Christmas list). You can pre-order the entire trilogy or any part of it on the Succubus Publishing website once the publisher reopens wave 2 pre-orders.
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Publisher: Succubus Publishing
Players: 2-4 (We played with 4)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 1 - 3 hours per encounter
Game type: narrative driven, dungeon crawl, campaign, action points, role playing, cooperative, dice rolling, grid movement
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

I will meet you there this weekend!

I'll be at TABLE F2 with the lovely keshii! There's going to be a lot of amazing and beautiful people there!

I will have Starfighter: Chapter 01, t-shirts, hot shorts, AND ALSO, some sweet extras. This will be my first con with a table.. and it is all because of you guys! Thank you so, so much! I can only hope I can meet you guys so I can thank you in person; you have my humble love and affection.

I'll see you there, sweethearts! -HamletMachine

TCAF site!

If you're attending, stop by and say hello!

(I don't have a table number yet but I'll be sure to announce this as soon as I know! If not, I'm sure you can find where my table is in the directory!)

EDIT: OH MAN! I almost forgot— At last Yaoi-con, there was a sweet person who had lost her voice from a cold (ah, I'm not sure if I got your name) and had printed out some TCAF info so I could attend— SWEETHEART, IF YOU READ THIS, THANK YOU! I hope to see you there!) -Hamlet

We'll be at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda Maryland!

This is our first time at SPX! If you're there, feel free to stop by and see us in the Artist Alley – we'll be at table W49!

See you there! <3 -Hamlet

Mary Pratt, believed to be the last surviving member of the Rockford Peaches, has died at age 101.

Prostřednictvím amerického Programu ochrany mezd pro malé podniky získal uhelný průmysl v USA více než 31 milionů dolarů. Ozývají se rozhořčené hlasy z řad environmentalistů. Administrativa Donalda Trumpa podle nich využívá finanční pomoc na záchranu odvětví, které mělo potíže již před krizí.

Dopravní podniky i soukromí dopravci obnovují běžné jízdní řády. Přestože stále hromadnou dopravu využívá zlomek lidí než před zahájením karanténních opaření, poklesy o 80 nebo 90 procent proti běžnému stavu už jsou minulostí.

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

Česká národní banka čeká propad české ekonomiky o 8 procent. Na předkrizovou úroveň se nedostane ani v příštím roce. Restart bude záviset i na tom, jak rychle lidé začnou utrácet. Napovědí příští měsíce, kdy se víc lidí bude hlásit na úřady práce.

It used to be that people who owned a lot of things could protect themselves and their things by...

The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One is Talking About

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

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

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

We can address both crises by doing four things:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vroom.

Apologies if this is baffling to non-Brits. But count yourselves lucky.

In the latest episode of their starry starry podcast, Ken and Robin talk alternate reality tech levels, Sarah Saltiel, emergent continuity and Belle Epoque astrologer Ely Star.

In the latest episode of their multi-layered podcast, Ken and Robin talk narrative voices in RPG play, Whitey Bulger & MK-ULTRA, curse tablets, and Oswald Wirth & Stanislas de Guaita.

Какая офигительнейшая еботня
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf8N_LERyTU&list=PLaxF0X40F65ipw3lCBWAVo3K4xXmys77D
Lucifer ?- Marginia

http://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/10/lucifers-marginia-recorded-1989-1993.html
https://centraldoprog.blogspot.com/2020/04/lucifer-marginia-1993-cd-japan.html
https://www.proggnosis.com/Release/15009
https://www.up-4ever.org/rh2ohju0lqv7

японский прог-рок, звучащий как прог-обработки
к музыке из популярных аниме (в централпроге поминают
Олдфилда и Ренессанс, спорить не буду)

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