1. Brisbane Broncos star Ezra Mam charged over head-on collision, allegedly failing second drug test  ABC News
2. Brisbane news live: Broncos’ Ezra Mam charged over drug test result after crash | Stab victim’s widower wants knife checks in schools | Dog rescued near abandoned boat  Brisbane Times
3. Broncos player charged after car crash: 9News Latest Stories Season 2024, Short Video  9Now
4. Ezra Mam issued court notice after allegedly failing secondary drug test  Fox Sports
5. Club Statement: Ezra Mam  Broncos

1. All-time reaction to coaching ‘disaster’; Steph’s stunning clutch moment: NBA Wrap  Fox Sports
2. Bike rides and Balkan music: Klay Thompson is embracing a fresh start with the Mavericks  ESPN Australia
3. 10 unforgettable Klay Thompson moments with Warriors ahead of return  NBA.com
4. Dub Hub: Warriors players share ‘welcome back’ messages for Klay Thompson’s return  Golden State of Mind

1. Kate Middleton sparks doubts whether she even had cancer?  Geo News
2. ‘Played us all’: Vicious Kate theory takes hold  news.com.au
3. Kate Middleton Yet Again Trapped In Conspiracy Theories While Battling Cancer? Find Out As Royal Reporter Questions Princess’ Diagnosis  PINKVILLA

1. Trailer: "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"  Dark Horizons
2. Trailer for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy released  The Guardian
3. ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ Trailer: Renée Zellweger Falls for Leo Woodall in Final Installment of Rom-Com Franchise  Variety
4. What's happening in entertainment news today  TODAY Show
5. ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’ Trailer Released By Peacock  Forbes

1. Second Nine news executive leaves in wake of cultural review  Sydney Morning Herald
2. Nine executive quits embattled network  news.com.au
3. Another executive departs beleaguered Nine Network  Daily Telegraph

1. Dr Chris Brown’s shock career move  news.com.au
2. Fears for Dr Chris Brown's career as rumours emerge his Channel Seven show has been axed after he jumped ship  Daily Mail
3. Is this the beginning of the end of his career? Dr Chris Brown's new surprise show on Channel Seven announced  Daily Mail

McLaren 750S 2025 track review  Chasing Cars

1. Monster Hunter Outlanders Brings Big Beast Hunting to Mobile Gaming  CNET
2. Monster Hunter is going mobile with new ‘fully featured game’ Outlanders  Polygon
3. Monster Hunter is getting an open-world RPG spinoff for mobile  The Verge
4. TiMi Studio Group and Capcom announce Monster Hunter Outlanders for iOS, Android  Gematsu
5. How to join the Monster Hunter Outlanders playtest  ONE Esports

1. Apple reportedly releasing a wall-mounted smart home tablet in 2025 - and yes, it does AI  Yahoo Finance Australia
2. Apple’s next device might make your home a lot smarter  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Apple's Next Big Move Could Be Home Security Cameras  PCMag AU

1. ASX falls as banks drop; MinRes sinks, James Hardie rallies  The Australian Financial Review
2. Wages growth slows, CBA logs flat first-quarter profit, ASX falls — as it happened  ABC News
3. Markets today: ASX slides as ‘Trump trade’ peters out on Wall Street; miners, banks fall  Sydney Morning Herald

1. Corporate regulator sues Cbus over unresolved insurance claims  Sydney Morning Herald
2. VIDEO Cbus taken to court accused of failing to pay thousands of claims  ABC News
3. Super fund in strife over $20m in delayed payments  The Canberra Times

1. Cop 29: Leaders to address summit after report finds climate pledges not kept – live updates  The Guardian
2. Live Briefing: Greta Thunberg calls site of COP29 climate summit ‘beyond absurd’  The Washington Post
3. COP29 gets underway in Azerbaijan  ABC News
4. Oil and gas are ‘a gift of God’: COP29 leader  The Australian Financial Review

1. Volcanic eruption grounds Bali flights, leaving travellers stranded  Sydney Morning Herald
2. Bali flight cancellations continue due to dangerous volcanic ash clouds  SBS News
3. Bali flight cancellations continue as volcano spews ash  9News
4. Aussies stranded in Bali volcano nightmare  Daily Telegraph

1. Germany to hold snap election in February after government's coalition collapse  ABC News
2. The briefcase, the Porsche and the collapse of the German government – podcast  The Guardian
3. Germany set for snap election following collapse of Olaf Scholz’s coalition  The Conversation
4. President calls German early election plan 'realistic'  DW (English)

1. Cindy Crossthwaite's estranged husband faces Supreme Court murder trial over mother of three's death  ABC News
2. 'Deep-seated hatred' for estranged wife led to killing, jury told  9News
3. 'Deep-seated hatred' for estranged wife led to killing, court hears  9News

John Pesutto chalks up a first-time victory over Jacinta Allan in latest Resolve poll  The AgeView Full coverage on Google News

1. NSW nurses strike heaps wage pressure on Minns government  The Australian Financial Review
2. Hundreds of elective surgeries cancelled as 10,000 nurses and midwives walk off job in NSW  ABC News
3. Nurses took to the streets after ‘insulting’ pay offer. Next stop, court  Sydney Morning Herald
4. Almost 700 surgeries cancelled as 12,000 NSW nurses strike for better pay  9News

1. As it happened: Donald Trump ally taunts Kevin Rudd; WiseTech shareholders launch class action  Sydney Morning Herald
2. Ditching Rudd over Trump insults would be ‘worst possible signal’: Turnbull  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Senior Liberal calls for Rudd to be sacked after Trump advisor suggests US ambassador is on thin ice  9News

1. Murder charge after beloved Elvis impersonator found dead after karaoke night  9News
2. Beloved Elvis impersonator allegedly murdered after karaoke night  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Love Island winner's best mate is accused of killing beloved grandad - after the Good Samaritan had tried to h  Daily Mail
4. Video: Elvis impersonator named as alleged murder victim  WAtoday

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2. Trump’s picks the clearest path yet to power consolidation  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Donald Trump announces key figures for 2025 administration after election victory  ABC News
4. Trump’s Cabinet: Here Are His Picks And Finalists For Key Roles—Mike Huckabee, Kristi Noem And More  Forbes
5. Trump rolls out his most MAGA picks for new White House term  CNN

1. Legitimacy of two Victorian local government elections in question after duplicate votes detected  ABC News
2. Victorian council election results 2024 LIVE updates: Suspected postal vote tampering in council elections  Sydney Morning Herald
3. VEC investigates potential vote tampering in two Melbourne councils  The Age

1. Elon Musk’s job as Trump’s bureaucracy buster could be just the start  The Australian Financial Review
2. Elon Musk tapped for ‘government efficiency’ role by Donald Trump  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Evening News Bulletin 13 November 2024  SBS News
4. Donald Trump wants Elon Musk to slash regulations as he reveals his role  ABC News

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3. Elderly woman 'unable to comply' before cop Tasered her, court hears  9News

More to come later....

Philanthropy online has recently published an article on the initial charitable response to the cyclone disaster in Burma. unfortunately bureaucratic red tape has slowed the initial response some; numerous organizations are preparing a herculean response that will save lives, and perhaps improve the domestic situation in Myanmar over the long term.

Events like these confirm the importance of fund-raising in general and telephone fund-raising specifically. Its one thing to hear about a tragedy on television and remind oneself to try and make a donation. Its quite another to receive a phone call as a situation is unfolding and have an opportunity to directly influence the outcome of that situation.

I participated in campaigns after hurricanes Rita and Katrina. I also worked on the campaign to provide relief to the victims of the Asian Tsunami, and issue of personal significance to me as I lived for many years in Indonesia. It is in times like this when innovative fund raising strategies can truly make a significant difference by fully funding humanitarian emergency relief efforts before a crisis can intensify.

There is nothing like a call to action.

Fund raisers working in outsourced call centers, or directly for just one non-profit, face many of the same problems. While non-profit fund raising can be a very rewarding career choice, it can also be very stressful at times.

Donors who support a given charity don't always feel that being contacted by their non profit whether by phone or by means of a direct mail campaign, is something that they want to have any part of.

Often times, a fundraiser will feel that the campaign they're currently raising contributions for is a perfect and fool proof campaign. Donors have other ideas. At times it seems that donors who give to groups like The Humane Society Of The United States or PETA are far more receptive to a general appeal for animal welfare than those donors who support Oxfam International, or Habitat or Habitat For Humanity, when considering helping out on an emergency appeal.

Why should this be so? A quick answer to this question is that those fund raisers who are less emotionally invested in a campaign are better able to communicate the wishes and needs of an organization. Quite frankly, believing that one particular type of campaign is less important than another, will limit your ability to do well on either type of campaign in the long run.

After a year or so of professional, fundraising I had an epiphany; it doesn't really matter so much what you say on the phone to a donor. What matters is how you say it. My attitude changed at that point. I became less concerned with asking and more concerned with communicating. My performance improved, I felt far less burned out at the end of the day, and I began to raise more money.


There are certain truths that are universal to all campaigns. Mastery of these axioms of fund raising can only bring about better performance from fund raisers, and better results for the non profits we work for. Scientists who look deeply into the universe become mystics, fund raisers who strive to perfect their craft do as well. This is the first in a more abstract series of posts known as Fund Raising:102

The first is: Always regulate your mood.

No matter how enthusiastic a fund raiser is about a charity, or a campaign, being in control of ones emotions at all times will provide the best results. Donors can hear our emotions on the phone. Most people would rather hear a calm and compelling fund raiser map out the key strategies of a fund raising campaign than unbridled enthusiasm that borders on mania.

There is perhaps no better skill a fund fund raiser can have than the ability to match their tone, their emotional state, with that of the donor's.

Be enthusiastic, but remember that you are a complete stranger to your donor. You've interrupted their life and what always seems to be a critical time, and you want them to give you money!

So build your enthusiasm during the course of the call. Allow the donor to catch up to you rather than bowling them over. A single moment in a good fund raising call is like an eternity. Donors are compelled to listen the the truth of a good pitch.


Fund raisers who speak slowly and clearly, with a mastery of their fund raising campaign, are far less likely to be hung up on at all. Knowledge of the subject matter of a campaign, confidence in the virtue of the cause you are fund raising for, and empathy with the donor with whom you speak, create instant gravitas.

Instead of a rambling mendicant, a skilled fund raiser personifies the true meaning of the word solicitor; An authoritative figure who by virtue of the truth of their cause, and the strength of their argument, compels those who hear to listen, and those who listen to act.

This brings us to the second rule; focus on listening at all times, even while speaking.

If a donor shows a high level of enthusiasm for your campaign then by all means match that enthusiasm. Always strive to be listening to the donor listening to your voice. This concept surpasses what can be taught about fund raising, it must be experienced first hand; an experienced professional fund raiser can measure the attitude and attentiveness of a donor.

Listening to a donor while speaking at the same time is done by knowing, and believing in your campaign enough to stop listening to yourself say the words, and focus solely on the fact that you are speaking with another human being. Not a name, or a telephone number on a screen, not a statistic in a database, a person. The donors can hear this in your voice.

This strategy can change the outcome of virtually any fundraising call in a positive way. If a random donor plucked out of a database somewhere in an autodialer in the belly of your call center can tell what kind of mood you're in, how much better at doing the same thing should a fundraiser who makes 500 to 1000 calls each week?

Anyone who's had even limited success at fund raising through telephone campaigns has had life changing and inspiring conversations with people from all walks of life. Great fund raisers enjoy these moment several times per day.

BethDunn just wrote a great post about mail fundraisng appeals and two schools of thought that are applied to them throughout the industry.

On the one hand there is the practical appeal to a donor's sense of logic and decency. On the other hand, there are the emotional appeals dripping with manipulation sent out to shock or shame a donor into action.

While On Fundraising's primary focus is telephone fundraising, this subject matter is relevant to On Fundraising for two reasons.

Mail appeals and phone appeals are generally part of the same campaign. Sometimes a donor is called first, other times they'll get a mailer and then a follow up call.

Increasingly donors are savvy enough and self-aware enough to take strong offense at the manipulative tone of fundraising letters. We live in an age where almost any information is available to those who want to find it. Todays activist donors do just that.

Donor's often know more about a subject than the front line people raising money for it. As well they should. So sending out these mail broadsides is certainly no good way to show respect for a donor's intellect or for their prior support.

The second reason this issue applies to On Fundraising, is that many telefundraisers mirror or amplify the sentiments expressed by these letters in a misguided attempt to manipulate donors into reactionary giving based solely on emotion. This works for now, however donors are self-aware and savvy enough to know when they're being manipulated. Surprisingly enough, they don't like it.

Todays donors aren't simply tithing blindly in the hopes that some good will come of it. More and more, donors support organizations as active participants in an effort to improve our world. How does a person like this feel when they receive a dunning letter dripping with sensationalized woe? Like a patsy.

All in all, these medieval scare tactics don't belong in modern fundraising. Yes psychology has its place in fundraising, but too often psychology is a euphemism for manipulation. Fundraisers who are good at their jobs are masters of speech, language, and persuasion. Its better to convince someone to give than to trick them into it .

http://smalldots.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/the-model-of-a-modern-major-fundraising-letter/

Good fundraisers typically stick with what works in a fund raising campaign choosing not to ask to many questions about why it works. While intuitively, many fundraisers know that women tend to make more donations in a given campaign or series of campaigns and perhaps if the fundraiser is intuitive enough, that men who give, generally tend to give higher amounts overall.

It’s not always easy to understand why this is so, and therefore for a fundraiser to take full advantage of this information.

Many studies have been done on philanthropy; fewer have been done on telephone fund raising, however the research on this subject is not insignificant. Two studies that we will highlight here at onfundraising are one commissioned by the Share Group Inc on fund raising and direct mail campaigns, and the other is “The Effects of Race, Gender, and Marital Status on Giving and Volunteering in Indiana” as published in the Nonprofit and voluntary Sector Quartley, in 2006 while report focuses on Indiana, much of the reporting is general in nature and therefore suitable for this post. The study’s main purpose was to examine whether factors like race, age, education or marital status make a difference to philanthropy of volunteering.

Both studies are available on line, and are linked to at the bottom of this article.

In 2006, Share Group. Inc, of Massachusetts participated in a comprehensive study on donor characteristics .Among other things this study quantifies some of the major difference between male and female donors; something that many people knew intuitively but lacked the hard data to validate. The study also measured donor contributions by age, and gave some general insights into what age group is the most supportive of charitable organizations.

According to the study, when contacted, women are more likely to support a charity campaign than men.

This data corresponds with past studies on philanthropic giving, but is limited to telephone fund raising The data indicates the women generally are more likely to donate to fund raising efforts and are also more likely to leave bequests to charitable organizations. The research indicates that woman as a whole are more likely to donate than men are.

However, the study found that based on the statistical evidence, men who do give to a campaign are likely to make larger contributions than female donors. This information as well is corroborated by independent research.

The study observes that the optimal donor age is fifty years old. Contributions tend to dwindle as donors reach retirement age. Donors ages sixty five to seventy five were most receptive to and renewal of support campaigns.

Interestingly for fund raisers, the study found that female callers secure pledges less often than male callers, but the average size of the pledges female fundraisers secure is larger than their male counterparts.

In general, women according to the research in both studies, are more likely give a larger contribution than they have previously given (upgrade). Men who could be convinced to upgrade generally upgraded at higher percentage versus female donors.

Breaking down the data further showed that when it comes to the actual giving of money, single women give twice as much as single men. These results are consistent with what has been published in the past. Furthermore, single women are more likely than men to give to a variety of charities and philanthropic efforts. A not so surprising finding was that married men also were 2-3 times more likely to give as much as single men or single women. However, the amount of money donated by single men was found to be far greater than that of married couples.

When the race factor is assessed for donation, there is little or no difference. Whites, Blacks and other minorities are no more or less likely to give relative to each other. The one obvious finding is that donations are significantly increased when the donor is educated, earns a higher income, and is older. This finding was again observed in all ethnic groups.

The Indiana study also looked at another aspect of giving-volunteering. The results are not much different to the philanthropic study. Again, single females are more likely to volunteer their time when compared to single men. Infact single females are more likely to volunteer for many more hours (>146 per year) than single men. The one surprising finding is that there is no difference in volunteering between married couples and single individuals when it comes to volunteering. It would be expected that married couples would have less time due to their familial obligations but this is not so.

Race did not reveal any differences in volunteering- Blacks, Whites and other minorities were just as likely to volunteer.

Volunteering was found to decrease when the levels of income and education were low. In fact, there was a sharp drop in volunteering levels for those with less than a high school education relative to the general population, and this was seen across all age groups.

However, increased income did not correlate with the numbers of hours volunteered. Individuals with low income were just as likely to volunteer for longer durations of time and vice versa.

The one curious observation from the study is that when individuals were asked if they had volunteered in the past, women were more likely to recall this act. Minorities could not recall if they had volunteered. Why someone can’t remember a dignified act like volunteering is a mystery- perhaps an error in how the questionnaire was set up or comprehension difficulty. The writers of the Indiana study surmised that often minorities do volunteer work without formally characterizing it as such.

Most of the results of these studies are also supported by many previous national surveys which have also found that education and higher income are the strongest and most consistent predictors of philanthropic activity.

Why single women volunteer more is not fully understood but it is speculated that because single women have less social and financial means, they compensate this by giving more of their time as volunteers while at the same time establishing their social networks.

These studies provide some insight into differences in donors by sex, marital status, race and income. Both men and women are motivated to give to charity for different reasons therefore when communicating with donors, fundraisers are advised to take this into effect and structure their solicitations accordingly.

We can take from these studies the fact that most Americans do give to charity in one way or another. Fund raisers can best serve the causes they work for buy understanding the broad characteristics of donors and structuring their donation requests accordingly.

Some call centers are very strict about fundraisers reading directly from a script. Other call centers advise fundraisers to stick to the script, but add additional details when the call requires these extras. Still other fundraising call centers allow fundraisers a great deal of freedom as long as the fundraiser stays within the general parameters of the fundraising campaign. Each strategy has its own merits, however there are some common elements that should be included in all fundraising calls.

Getting a foot in the door.

The first step in most calls is the greeting. Usually the fundraiser identifies their self and the group which they are calling on behalf of. This step should be gotten through quickly but not rushed. The realities of the campaign will dictate how the fundraiser proceeds with the introduction. In some cases the introduction can be delayed until after the a basic description of the organization and its funding need is made. Promise to be brief with your call and stick to this promise./

Expressing gratitude.

The next step is to thank the donor. Whether its a simple thank you for taking the call or a more elaborate thank you for past contributions and supporting the cause, this is an important step. Sincere and elaborate thank yous let the donor know that their help is appreciated. Thank yous also tend to extend the call; people rarely hang up on callers while the caller is praising their support and reaffirming their decision to support the cause. Additionally, the longer a donor stays on the phone, the more likely they are to make a contribution.

The reason for the call.

Next, quickly go into some of the current issues faced by the organization and what is being done about these issues. Don't skimp on the details but don't speak in a monotonous way either. Express some real interest in the cause. Listen for cues from the donor during this and all stages. If they agree with something you're saying; elaborate on the subject. Build rapport. Remember; men and women process information differently. Read other posts on this site to find out which language to use for each kind of donor. Alternatively, if the donor indicates that they're busy; acknowledge that. Repeat that you'll be brief or just get right into your first donation request.

Going for the donation.

The first ask. Given the reasons stated above make a solid ask for a minimum of 3 times highest past gift. Be assertive and let the donor respond. Don't laugh, don't whine. If the need is real, the request should be real as well. Defend your request if required to; don't just lower it. Defending the amount of the first ask gives instant credibility to the importance of the issue, In fact, state that the reason you're requesting a large donation is because of the serious nature of the issue, Only then begin to lower the amount that your'e requesting.

A second attempt.

The second ask. Quickly elaborate on the need. Acknowledge that the donor isn't able to give 3 times their highest past donation. Considering the need, ask for 2 times the past donation. Again defend your request. The more legitimate you sound, the more likely the donor is to give you money. For many fundraisers lowering ask amounts deteriorates into desperation. Although this is a negotiation the need is legitimates and as a fundraiser you want to get the highest possible donation,

One more try.

The third and, not necessarily, final ask, This is where the fundraiser asks the donor to meet the level of their last contribution. This is obviously the level that the donor has been comfortable giving at in the past. Again stress the need and elaborate on the potential consequences of not reaching an adequate level of funding for the campaign in question.

Taking no for an answer.

If stopping here, without securing a donation, take the time to sincerely thank the donor once more. This establishes that you, the fundraiser and the organization, respect the donor no matter what they can or cannot give at the moment. This also helps to reinforce an attitude of respect and gratitude which should be extended to all donors at all times.

The forth ask and so on.

Many times a donor who can't match a previous donation will express regret that they simply cant afford the same amount. If applicable, ask for an even lower amount down to the minimum level of donation that can be taken on a specific campaign. Remind the donor and yourself that every donation, no matter what size, counts. After all in most fundraising campaigns, the many small donations greatly out number the amount of money which is generated by the larger ones.

Get it on a credit card.

The credit card ask. Credit card donations fulfill instantly. There are no pledge cards to send out. Obviously securing a donation on a credit card is favorable to a mailed in pledge card. Credit cards on the phone are favorable to online donations as well; donors can easily be distracted and forget to make their donation.

Ease their mind.

Security is the main concern with credit card donations, Donors are rightfully fearful of identity theft. Every call center has methods in place to protect the credit card information of donors. Patiently explain these procedures as well as why credit card gifts are the best gifts that donors can make.

Be prepared to further explain  the value of credit card donations and their secure nature. Many donors will give by credit card once they have been properly assured of security measures. If not, follow your organization's standard pledge card procedure.

Wrapping up the call.

Again, take the time to sincerely thank the donor for their help. Answer any additional questions and then politely end the call. Following this method on every call improves dollars raised as well as the quality of each outbound call.

The short answer to this question is, yes. While the rules have changed a bit since the early days of raising money online, the necessary elements all still exist in great supply. These are; a large and motivated donor pool, innovative organizations and fundraisers and the technology that brings it all together. This post will cover this complex topic with updates to come. In the mean time, voice your opinion on the relevancy of online fundraising in the comments section below.

The first step to success in online fundraising is the cause. While its possible to raise money for just about anything, what really promotes success is having a well defined mission statement. This is something that resonates with donors quickly. The shorter it takes to express your mission statement, the more likely it is that donors will stick around to learn more about your organization and its needs. This does not necessarily mean that they'll make a contribution, but donors who leave your site out of boredom, frustration or confusion certainly wont be making any.

After a well defined cause, presentation is the next most important element of online fundraising. Donors are quick to leave sites that are'nt easy to navigate. Ideally donors should be able to make an online gift in just one or two steps, the more complicated a donation system is, the less likely donations are to be made. Simple. modern interfaces are the key to increasing online donations.

Excellent fundraisers, as well as average ones often find themselves reaching a plateau when it comes to their fundraising abilities and the dollar amounts that they raise.  On a plateau, it is just as easy to move upward as it is to slip backwards; losing progress. Fundraisers are only interested in moving in one direction; upward.

pla•teau (plæˈtoʊ; esp. Brit. ˈplæt oʊ) 
n., pl. -teaus, -teaux (-ˈtoʊz, -toʊz) 
v. -teaued, -teau•ing. n.1. a land area having a relatively level surface considerably raised above adjoining land on at least one side.
2. a period or state of little or no growth or decline, esp. one in which increase or progress ceases: to reach a plateau in one's career.v.i.3. to reach a state or level of little or no growth or decline; stabilize

Definitions #2 and #3 have the most significance in fundraising, but definition #1 can be a useful visualization tool.

So how do we get beyond the fundraising plateau?

1. Go back to basics. Find something in your fundraising routine that can be improved and work on it. Can your greeting be made more friendly? Can your donation requests be tightened up? What ever it is, work on it. Working on any one issue has the added benefit of providing new perspectives on other issues.
2. Ask the donor. Ask donors, whether, they give or not, what they thought of your performance. Most will provide at least one useful bit of information. Some donors will provide so much valuable criticism that you may find yourself reexamining your entire fundraising strategy.
3. Ask another fundraiser. Sometimes we let shyness, pride or professional competition get in the way of improving our skills. Every fundraiser, at every stage, goes through the plateau problem. Reach out to your fellow fundraisers and get their advice.
4. Become an expert. Often after fundraising for a certain cause for a long time, fundraisers began to feel like experts on the issue. There is always more to learn. Find books magazine articles and any other materials that you can. The more you know about your issue, the better you can fund raise for it.
5. Remember, Plateaus aren't permanent. Keep slugging away, doing the best job that you possibly can. Eventually, you will begin to see some progress.

"To what extent is science a strong-link problem?", Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week, 10/30/2024 [emphasis added]: Here’s a fascinating and worrying news story in Science: a top US researcher apparently falsified a lot of images (at least) in papers that helped get experimental drugs on the market — papers that were published in top […]

That's all I've got, so far, for linguistic commentary on the U.S. election results. According to the OED, the etymology of ballot is < (i) Middle French ballotte (French †ballotte) small ball (beginning of the 15th cent. as †balote), small coloured ball placed in a container to register a secret vote (1498) or its etymon […]

Below are two lists of nominations for Japanese buzzword of the year.  Each has 30 entries, and from each list one will be chosen as the respective winner.  Since the two lists are already quite long and rich, I will keep my own comments (mostly at the bottom and focusing on phoneticization) to a minimum. […]

[This is a guest post by Michael Witzel] A few months ago you published a discussion of whimsical surnames. Since then I have paid attention and have found new ones in  almost every news broadcast. It is said that there are 1 million (!) surnames in the German speaking area of some 95 million people […]

In recent weeks and months, we've been having many posts and comments about Taiwanese language.  Today's post is quite different:  it's all about the difference between Mandarin as spoken on the mainland and as spoken on Taiwan. "Words of Influence: PRC terms and Taiwanese identity", by Karen Huang, Taiwan Insight (8 November 2024) What is […]

An interesting recent review article (Wooster et al., "Animal cognition and culture mediate predator–prey interactions", Trends in Ecology & Evolution 2024) argues for bridging the academic silos of "predator-prey ecology" and "animal cognition and culture": Abstract: Predator–prey ecology and the study of animal cognition and culture have emerged as independent disciplines. Research combining these disciplines […]

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "There's a maximum likelihood that I'm doing phylogenetics wrong." It's not that Randall is "doing phylogenetics wrong", but rather than he's applying it to an inappropriate problem. The OED's etymology for phylogeny is < German Phylogenie (E. Haeckel Gen. Morphol. der Organismen (1866) I. iii. 57) < Phylum phylum n. + […]

The Autumn 2022 issue of Agapé, the official journal of U.S. Grand Lodge O.T.O., is now available. This and all previous issues can be found here.

The Summer 2023 issue of Agapé, the official journal of U.S. Grand Lodge O.T.O., is now available. This and all previous issues can be found here.

Terrible! I was thinking all day about how I needed to write a blog-post and how I'd surely have time after such-and-such meeting or after the 6:00pm concert, but I didn't get back home until after midnight. So this post is backdated in the most embarrassing of traditions. -1,000 points

Tonight we saw two great tastes that go great together: Alex G and Alvvays. I think both of these bands are great. Alvvays has been on my radar for many years, but they didn't quite click for me until their most recent album Blue Rev, which is probably my favorite disc this year (although it came out in 2022). It's definitely one of those albums that I like to listen end-to-end, but it also stars on the 5 minute playlist that I am using for my aforementioned project to run a 5m00s treadmill mile, so I listen to two tracks from it (Pharmacist and Velveteen) many times a week, often in pain. Alex G I discovered from the soundtrack to the indie film We're all Going to the World's Fair. I also think his music is great, and weird, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how many people were at this pretty big concert venue enraptured by this kinda weird band. I think the simplest explanation is that "the kids are alright."

Anyway, now it is quite late and I am quite tired. I am still working on this math project and still "making progress" but wary that it's been in that state for quite a while now. But I do basically know how to finish projects or move onto other things!

Hello and howdy. I usually describe myself as turning the "ripe old age of so-and-so" on my birthday posts, but I may need a new adjective as I'm solidly in my mid-40s, now (44). Perhaps "fermented." The birthday's come and gone without incident, although there were minor contemporaneous incidents:

Still in the math hole. It might be an infinite hole. Trying to get out. But I have improved my console fonts and ANSI color libraries and GPU programming skills, at least. I was very pleased that a recent release of NVIDIA drivers came with a brand new updated OpenCL, which I previously assumed had been abandoned like so many computer things that I become fond of. Kudos to whoever at NVIDIA pushed on this. I am making myself laugh privately to myself (well, no longer private now) by imagining someone who spells it out like an acronym, N-V-I D-I-A.

Also, like usual, I ran the Pittsburgh Great Race, a mostly-downhill 10k. No encumbrances this time. I've been in good shape this summer, but I got sick last month and it set me back a bit, so this wasn't a star performance. Still 43m22s is not too bad and I didn't push myself all that hard. Fewer minutes than years old.

The new GPU is mostly for math, but I wanted to try it out for its Intended Purpose, (N)Video Games. So I played through Far Cry 6, which was okay. I liked it better than 5, which among other things had a bunch of technical problems (this one was much smoother and more stable), but I probably should have read my review of that game before downloading, as I say something like "I should probably stop playing this series." Still slowly savoring Tears of The Kingdom, which remains great. I also started Return To Monkey Island. I loved the first two in this series, but couldn't get into the later sequels; of course I'm interested in giving this one a shot since it's made by the original designers (and I did like Thimbleweed Park). Too early to render a verdict, but I did like how they deftly handled the canonicity of the end of 2.

Then there's this: I think this is Taylor Swift wearing a homemade t-shirt of her "Pegicorn" (sometimes "Pegacorn"), a Unicorn-Pegasus hybrid. The text is in my font Action Jackson:

Taylor Swift Pegicorn (Action Jackson font)

You can also see this drawing/font at the beginning of the "Making of" video for You Belong With Me". I think she posted this to twitter in May 2009, but somehow I'm unable to find an archive of her tweets from this time (inconceivable??).

Wow, this month sure went by fast. I'm sure I say that every October, as this is the busiest time of year at work, and stuff like football and Maybe The Last Nice Day This Year keep me busy.

I've been plugging away at this math/programming project, currently porting some numerical code that I don't fully understand and finding bugs in it and improving its performance. It's relaxing, at least, but there's nothing good to share here yet and I'm not sure it'll ever make an interesting story. I did make some version-2 circuit boards for a project I've been working on in parallel, too, but the next step in that one is going to be annoying ("Why won't it boot?") so I've been putting it off.

They brought the small neighborhood race called "Run Shadyside" back this year. This is a 5k course that I can easily walk to the start of, and Shadyside is about as flat as it gets in Pittsburgh, so it's a nice race to try to PR in. I've been keeping in pretty good shape (despite the setback due to illness mentioned previously), but that morning I was having some burning lungs so I didn't push myself too hard. (Could have been mold? Bad air quality? Slightly sick?) I finished in 20m19s, which is probably my third best official 5K time, although a bit disappointing since I ran several unofficial treadmill 5Ks under 19 minutes this summer. I finished 3rd in my age group. The results feature a new capitalization of my name, the elusive Stegosaurus CasE: "Tom Murphy ViI"

Craving a game that would make proper use of the GeForce 4090, I installed Call Of Duty: Cold War. Actually this game is a couple years old, and graphically it's not anything particularly special. I am liking the single-player campaign more than usual for these kinds of games, and avoiding getting sucked into multiplayer. I gave the "zombies" mode a shot and I think I finally understand it, like playing a roguelike on a single seed. I think I'm at the point where I need to set myself some kind of challenge and complete it and retire to more artful things, though.

Hello again,

This month I've been plugging away on the project I mentioned in the previous post which involves among other things a PDF generator and now an implementation of ML (as in Standard ML, but also the other one). This is probably the 10th "compiler" I've written in my life, and it's kind of fun to revisit these problems that you've done many times and try out different approaches, although this time one of the approaches is "Use C++" (for reasons of making good on a joke, but also for reasons of mlton doesn't work on my computer any more). And although C++ is a fine tool for many applications, it does have some deficiencies for the task of writing a compiler (one of the most irritating: a very modest limit on the stack depth? Like my computer has 256 Gigabytes of RAM and 2^64 virtual addresses and somehow it can only manage 1 megabyte for the stack and there's no standard way to increase it? Get off my lawn). But then you can also experience new ways of struggling with C++, like: A middle of the night power failure wrecked my computer's GPT (as in GUID Partition Table, but also the other one) and I was deep in the depths of taking the computer apart to reset its parts, its BIOS (its Basic In/Out System, which is where it stores its biography) and its hard drives were everywhere on the floor, and it could not be saved, and this after I already broke my computer this year by trying to put the world's biggest video card in it, too hard. And I could not merely perform recovery because of Unknown Error, so I had to begin anew again and restore from backups. But when you restore from backup and you're in the mood of "why is this so complicated and I don't understand how computers work any more?" it occurs to you (me) to also change your underlying development environment instead of reinstalling the devil you know. So I ended my friendship with Cygwin64 and switched to new best friend MSYS2. Both of these things are different ways of wishing that you were using Linux while you're using Windows. The main reason I tried this new way of struggling is that Cygwin is very behind on its version of x86_64 clang (C++ compiler), which I wanted to try because it supports AddressSanitizer and clangd on Windows, and I wanted to give LSP in emacs a shot (it's finally good!). There were a few growing pains, but I think MSYS2 is what I would recommend now. One of the nice things they did was create multiple different environments depending on what you want to do (e.g. "I want to use clang to compile x86_64 code" or "I want to do 32-bit cross compilation for ARM") and in that environment, you just say "g++" and it invokes the compiler you want, instead of the weird contortions I've been doing for years with manually invoking x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++. I was also able to get clblast working before being too filled with rage to continue, so that is nice for the ML inference on the world's biggest graphics card. I made these graphics to help me tune the correct settings of GPU layers (y axis) and number of threads (x axis):

tune-single
tune-batch

In some sense the results are obvious (more threads and more layers is faster) but it was interesting to me how the cliff of performance drops off at a different number of layers for single and batch mode (I guess because the batch needs some memory itself?) and how it's clearly better to use fewer threads than cores for batch as well. I was not surprised to see performance drop off for >32 threads (everybody knows that hyper-threads kinda suck) but I was very surprised to see performance pick up again when it gets back up to 64? And only for single mode? I wish I understood that better. But mostly I'm a sucker for the custom visualizations.

Right but when writing this compiler I realized that I wanted to use some Greek letters, and I can't handle it when some characters are in a different font in my source code, so I finally made some space for those in my programming font FixederSys. These certainly still need some tweaks, but it's already better than just being in some other weird font:


{{{caption}}}

You can also see that I have been adding some "useful" emoji at the top. It is an interesting puzzle to try to make these things recognizable (especially for the 1x version, whose charboxes are 8x16 pixels). I am pretty sure I will not try to do all of the emoji (like, the flags are totally hopeless at 8x16), but it is tempting to round out the Unicode support somewhat. Like I was trying to make a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ today and had to settle for ~\_( :) )_/~ which is pretty much (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻.

Also: Adam revived our old game jam game Headcat, which I described in post 927, now over 16 years ago. You can play it online at Headcat.org. It is harder than I remember, perhaps explaining why it did not reach #1 on the One Appstore Per Child charts.

Also: I started and finished (true ending, but just with one character) Slay the Spire. Good game, but you don't need me to tell you that. Same for Alwa's Legacy, which is the sequel to Alwa's Awakening. Both of these are very true-to-form "8-bit" and "16-bit" platformers that I enjoyed and would recommend for genre fans, though I did not try to 100% them. The graphics are the highlight and I thought it was very cute how these could easily have been a pair of games from the NES and SNES. The good old days. And speaking of good-old days, I am now playing Katamari Damacy, which I had played at a friend's house many years ago, and always wanted to spend more time with. It totally holds up (aside from stuff like: You have to play through the tutorial and first level before you can access the menus at all, like to make the game fullscreen?) and it's honestly inspiring how unhinged the game design and writing are, and how fun it manages to be. What an accomplishment!

In a fashion that's thematically appropriate for the project, I'm "taking my time" with this video (e.g. I am still writing new code for it today??). It mostly means that I feel behind a lot. But I think I am truly close now to being done. I got all my new gear working together, 3D-printing rig pieces and so on. This has been generally fun. I'm also enjoying the occasion to experiment with new approaches and video editing techniques. I even cleaned out a significant section of my basement for a temporary studio:

Green scream

I think I have about 120 seconds of finished video here, which is far worse than my usual bad pace of about an hour a minute. Fortunately the rest should be much more straightforward, and I hope to just record the audio and be done with it this weekend. Pro tip, though: Don't install the new version of Adobe Premiere Pro while you're knee-deep in a complicated edit. Why would you press that button?

My procrastination: I fully beat Teardown and all the stakes in Balatro (but I may try to finish the last few challenges). Both good games, recommended. For light procrastination I have been playing Grapple Dog which has cute graphics and writing and is getting better as the levels get more challenging, but I probably wouldn't fully recommend. It's a stage-by-stage linear platformer with three irritations: The controls are a little too "snap-to-nearest" (like you will often initiate an unwelcome wall jump just because you jump near a wall) for me, the music is annoying, and I really want to get all the purple gems, but I can never tell whether I'm going the "right" way or the "wrong" way, and so I will often miss them just because of that. But I do basically like the game. I also started, for procrastination purposes, Humanity, which was recommended to me a while ago. It is good. The Steam videos do not do justice to how slick the game's graphics are (especially the UI has all these fluid little touches and impressive continuity as you transition between levels); I think it needs to run on a big monitor with a high frame rate. At its core it's mostly a puzzle game, with many things you have seen before, but also some new clever stuff (and I am only on the 2nd world, so I presume they have more surprises in store for me).

I believe this is all.

I’m traveling for the long weekend. Either I’m having bad luck with the epic heat waves or there have been a lot of epic heat waves, because again the short road trip threatens to be tyrannized by the hot air. It did at least touch 100°F this time, so at least it is a proper respectable heat wave. We are in a place called Hocking Hills, whose AirBnB has these OBX-style stickers that say “HHO”, which could either be confusingly “Hills, HOcking,” or perhaps “Hocking Hills, Ohio”, but not “Hocking hills OHio” as one might expect. I plan to stick the sticker upside-down for “OHH”, as in “Ohh yeah, I need to write a post on Tom 7 Radar for the month of August, and I need to do it on this mediocre wi-fi which Google Internet Speed Test describes as ‘fine’ while everyone else drinks beers outside.” Fair enough: This is a self-imposed curse and one that’s easily tended to at any time during the month.

During the month: I worked again on making my own video codec, which is a very bad way to spend one’s time, but I don’t think there are any modern lossless codecs that would be suitable for my use case. And I do like a data compression project because of the inherent benchmarkability. The use case is for the increasingly common situation where I have a program generating a series of video frames (e.g. BoVeX is making an animation), which I usually do by writing a sequence of PNG files to disk. I’m way ahead of PNG files so far even without doing any inter-frame stuff, which is not impressive, but does make me feel like it’s at least not totally pointless. (Still, it’s quite pointless: Sure I can make these files smaller at significant cost of complexity and encoding times, but these animations typically use space similar to like one second of 4K 60fps XF-AVC footage.)

Sometimes programming your own lossless video codec is a bit too fast-paced so you need to write a Wikipedia article from scratch about Clairton Coke Works by digging through newspaper archives. I haven't even gotten to the last 30 years of its history yet! I also rounded out the Cyrillic in FixederSys though I don't think I've uploaded a new version of that yet. As usual I did some hacking on secret projects.

UHH, elsewise, I did finish off Animal Well which I liked very much. My spoilerless advice to you is: Don't try to 100% this game without at least looking at a spoiler-controlled guide! But I did have fun once I felt like I was stuck-ish finishing the remaining postgame puzzles. I have also been playing Chippy, a bullet-hell twin-stick shooter that is quite hard (I usually feel good at this genre) and has several new good ideas in it. It's essentially all boss fights, and the chief innovation is that you fight the giant bosses by disconnecting pieces of them. I'm on the last boss so I will probably finish that one soon. As I have confessed many times, I like dumb first-person shooter games, and I played through Trepang 2 this month as well. It does have a few moments, but it was mostly pretty dumb, like I wanted. And then I started Touhou Luna Nights, which is a "Metroidvania" fan-game with great pixel art and music.

OK, I should get back to this vacation!

Hello team!

I turned 45! It happens every year (not the same age, but the same feeling, of time marching forward, with me along with it) so no big surprise. This weekend was the Great Race, also every year, but I unsubscribed from their e-mail list at some point months ago because they seem to operate this list under the misconception that subscribers want to think about Great Race 24/7 all year round. I thought: It should be easy to just remember when the Great Race is, as it always falls on the weekend near my birthday, and I do not need a list constantly mailing me reminders. Easy. But then I forgot about the Great Race, so I didn't run it.

I did take the day off for my birthday despite this being the busy time of year at work, which was worth it: I made some good progress on some projects that had been backed up in my anxiety-brain for some time. Of course they are confidential, but here is a graphic of some significant progress:

Minusweeper

I forgot to mention this one when I did it, but did you know that you can "buy" a Unicode codepoint, by making a donation to the Unicode consortium? So of course I bought ASCII 0x37, which is the digit 7.

True story: I did a lot of film photography when I was younger, and although I do miss film, I'll admit that the saddest thing I feel about its obsolescence is actually that those little black plastic film canisters are no longer all over the place to be repurposed to hold little objects. I found them very satisfying and useful! Fortunately now that I'm old I found another similar ubiquitous shape, which is these orange prescription medicine bottles. I've been using those for a while to "organize" small parts like screws (e.g. when I take something apart that I might want to put back together, I put the screws in the medicine bottle and label it) but then they just roll around in the drawer of crap. So this:


RxBox, Unpopulated
RxBox, Populated

A very simple part, of course, but what could be more satisfying than 3d printing your own holder for canisters for fasteners that goes in a drawer in a cabinet?

And speaking of satisfying, I finally finished Chippy (regular difficulty) which was really quite hard. Several of the last bosses I had to practice over several evenings before I beat them! It was a good and creative game, though. I'm mid-way through Solar Ash, which is good (but it's no Hyper Light Drifter IMO!) and just started playing Satisfactory, since they finally put out a 1.0 version of that. It's quite well done, but I'm not sure if I actually like it (seems a bit heavy on the cookie crafting; in fact I'm letting it craft in the background as I write this). I am getting a kick out of allowing thinking about my messy design as the "saddest factory," a joke which I'm sure occurs to everyone, but that's Game Design!

OMG. I can't believe October is over already. I blame Satisfactory which, okay, I do get it now, and it did destroy my body and mind. I am inches from being done now; I just want to make sure that I finish it with enough force that I do actually put it away, as I could imagine tinkering with my saddest factory forever.

The game isn't without flaw, but I think most of those flaws are not interesting to talk about. I do have one petty but important criticism, which is mildly spoilerful and anyway will only be interesting if you played the game. There is an object called the Somersloop ("cool S") which allows you to double the output of a machine. Canonically this item is some kind of "loop" and the flavor text talks about how it is able to create more energy than you put into it. So when I'm out hunting for Korok seeds I have this thought that maybe I could create a loop of factories whereby it would create infinite resources by repeatedly doubling. And I'm thinking about it but the crafting tree doesn't have any notable loops in it, but I remember the "packager" which allows you to put a fluid in a container or the converse, and I'm like: Yes, that's great! So I get back to base and I am doing this, just for fun to create an infinite fuel factory or whatever, and I realize that the packager just doesn't have a slot for a Somersloop. They must just hate fun, elegant twists. It would not break the game to allow this (you can always get infinite resources lots of other ways) or cause any other problem I can think of. Hmph!

The thing about constructing a factory and watching it churn is that it's basically the same thing as a programming project that you invented for yourself, and it's probably better to do the programming project. Here's progress on my mysterious rectangle:

Minusweeper 2

It's good progress if I do say so myself! Anything but black here is a Satisfactory result, which is 90.55% of them at this point. I may need heavy machinery for the remaining 9.45%, but that is part of the fun.

I think that's really it for this month! Please vote in the US Elections if you can (but I guess also vote in any important elections. And obviously, vote for the good guys???). And happy Halloween!

The Eerie Brothers and the Witches of Autumn Sheldon Higdon Scary Dairy Press LLC (September 4, 2023) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy The Eerie Brothers and the Witches of Autumn finds Horace and Edgar, the twin Eerie brothers, battling monsters to stop Hex from collecting one of the four globes to absorb the abilities of […]

The post Book Review: THE EERIE BROTHERS AND THE WITCHES OF AUTUMN first appeared on Hellnotes.

A judge who was verbally abused by a defendant reciprocated at a court hearing where he was being sentenced for breaching an antisocial behaviour order.

John Hennigan, 50, who had breached the order by using racist language towards a black woman and her two children told Chelmsford crown court judge Patricia Lynch QC that she was “a bit of a cunt”. And Judge Lynch replied: “You are a bit of a cunt yourself.”

When Hennigan screamed back “Go fuck yourself”, the judge replied: “You too.” He reportedly also shouted “Sieg Heil” – a pro-Hitler chant used in Nazi Germany – and banged the glass panel of the dock as he was jailed for 18 months.

Hennigan, from Harlow, Essex, has dozens of previous convictions for offences including drug and firearm possession and common assault.

An asbo was previously imposed on him in 2005 when a swastika was discovered daubed on the front door of his council house.

I can understand the Judge's  reaction, but I have never used that word in court, other than in direct quotation from the evidence.


Perhaps a quiet word from the circuit presider might be in order here.