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trauma [o] Who: Nic + You! What: Stalking and being stalked When: Late aftern
Posted 25 February 2012 - 03:11 PM
It was a mouthful and a chore to say but sleepless nights and idle moments had taught Nicolay to memorize it and soon, he spoke it as if it was his name. Often, he referred to it as the Nyad Siblinghood or as Darrell Thornestone said it, the Siblinghood.
Darrell Thornestone was the kelpie wolf he'd attacked and caught in the market and he came to know about him in the months he was confined in the cell until an embittered Azul sent him out to slave labor. Having done that, it seemed to the rest of Alexandria that the case was over and done with -- but not to Nicolay. The two other nyads were still at large and as far as he was concerned, no one was doing anything about it. No one but the Guard who'd helped them, that is. And for that, Nicolay admired him.
But it just wasn't enough. Months had passed and no one had gotten anywhere and to say that it was frustrating was an understatement. It would seem as though the Siblinghood had stopped but Nicolay knew it was only because they had ceased to do any large-scale activities such as what they had attempted the previous year. Azul still received threats and Nicolay often felt some eyes following him from behind and who knew what they were doing elsewhere? And it was exactly because of this that he had decided to do something stupid: launch his own private investigation.
He was on one that quiet afternoon in New Alexandria. He had better things to do, that much was certain, like go to work or drop by Lazuli's place or shop but he had asked for a day off and it wasn't like Lazuli was home yet, anyway...or at least he didn't bother to check. The last time she was away for something epic, it took her about two months and though he had been worried sick, he found that he had been most productive on his investigation during her absence to a point where sometimes, he wished she wouldn't be back yet.
Which meant that no, he never told of his personal adventure to her yet. He hadn't even talked to her about the second star necklace he'd found since...the day he found it. It just didn't seem like something he could talk to her about, he felt.
But those were things of the past. Right now, Nicolay -- in full human form, never mind how dumb that is but he knew he couldn't possibly botch this by turning into a cat and then acting like a dog -- was watching someone from behind a tall fence leave the office of what he knew was the Purifiers' Guild. It made sense that he should work there -- if he was a nyad. If Nicolay was going to be honest, he really had no idea who the other two were but that wouldn't stop him.
When some distance had been placed between them, he began to follow. There was absolutely no one around which made him conscious about his own movements but he did his best to ignore his discomfort and focused instead on pretending that he had a spine. Many times, as they turned in corners or crossed streets, Nicolay was almost sure he had been spotted but he persisted on hiding behind walls should the male nyad glance over his shoulder. At the back of his mind, he found that he was actually wishing that he had not decided on this idiotic move.
But not fifteen minutes later, he found himself led to the private sector of New Alexandria and it was there that he found the nyad descending into the dark cavity that marked an entrance into the sewers. It made sense that he should go there, Nicolay thought, but suddenly, he wondered if he should follow. He considered his options as he gazed around.
The fact that he was alone in the surface of the city had convinced him that yes, it wasn't a bad idea to follow the nyad down.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the shadows but he was walking before he even managed to understand how the light worked. In the emptiness, his feet cracked loudly and he worried that the nyad would catch him before he was ready.
Except the nyad...was gone.
Nicolay cursed under his breath. The moment of hesitation must have cost him his lead. That, or there must be some hidden passage of sorts. Stubborn, he pursued his invisible subject further but ten steps and a hallway into his blind chase, he stopped and turned back.
An afternoon wasted, it was a great disappointment. He had a tight frown on his face as he whipped out his COM to check for a text but a tap said no, and he stopped in his steps.
It skittered...and scratched.
His blood freezing, Nicolay lost his heart as he held his breath. The sound wasn't stopping as it drew closer and it was a sound that was all too familiar to him. In and out of his mind, it was dark, he was alone and not even his cellphone could help him, almost exactly like the first time it happened.
Oh God...Oh God...!
His COM must have slipped off his hand as he whirled towards the dark tunnel and in the shadows, he saw it: a pair of menacing emeralds the way he had seen them almost two years past.
Not again... he choked as he pressed himself against the wall, Not again...!!
Caught by the horror, Nicolay could not do anything but scream.
Posted 13 March 2012 - 10:41 AM
It was still dangerous for Maaike to be in Alexandria, but she had things to do. With one eye and ear on the lookout so she could avoid the guards and her orange-tipped hair hidden under a hood, she swanned through New Alexandria on her way to the portal but was drawn up short by something most everyone else either ignored or didn't even notice: A would-be thief following his victim into the sewers.
She followed, quick and quiet, but the only signs of their passing into the tunnels were ripples in the dirty water. Had she been mistaken? But no, she definitely saw them descend into the tunnels, and she hadn't been too far behind them.
A scream had her darting toward the source of the echoes without a thought for her own safety, her boots splashing as she turned a corner to come face to face with a spindle-legged monster. She didn't have time to assess the situation, to determine which man she'd be saving if she intervened. She didn't have any gear to combat a kumo, either, and daren't risk being caught in its sticky webs. Lifting her hand, she aimed Finnbar and let fly with a whoosh of flame that singed the enormous spider's hairy body and sent it screaming into the depths.
The smell of roasted flesh was becoming all too familiar to Maaike's nostrils, but she still felt like throwing up. She didn't have time to wallow in the nausea, though; that kumo wouldn't stay scared for long and Finnbar was a one-use defense. "Let's go!" Grabbing the guy by the arm, she hauled him back the way she'd come, her plan to bring back help to look for the other guy in case the kumo had already got him.
Posted 19 March 2012 - 04:20 AM
But he didn't. Whimpering helplessly on, Nicolay tore his eyes open and scratched his sleeve up so that he could see the wound he had just been dealt with-- but there was none.
All there was was the old scar from years back -- and it was dry and healed, there was no blood or sting.
"Oh God," he said in his own language as he grabbed his hair and curled forward, as though he was going to attempt to shift into a hedgehog, his body shaking from the recent scare he'd had.
Posted 21 March 2012 - 01:39 PM
"Wha-" Maaike stared, dumbfounded, as the Therian collapsed in on himself. Even without her wolf nose, she could scent his fear and stress, and anything she'd been about to say evaporated on her tongue. He really didn't deserve it — he was a thief, a mugger, someone who preyed on others — but his meltdown pulled on emotions normally reserved for Sammy.
Dropping to her haunches beside him, Maaike kept her hands to herself and fixated on a cobble next to his head, scouring through the words in her brain for something appropriate. She didn't recognise his mumblings; maybe he was Dardanian, his accent too thick in his fear to make sense?
"Yeah. Scary, those kumo." Maybe she'd become desensitised to that sort of emotion. She threw herself into danger every time she stepped out the door, and there were moments that made her question her sanity in doing so. Times when she realised she was probably going to die, and that it should matter. She rarely felt actual fear, though, not since Ashton took his last swing. "You're okay, kid." He didn't look much younger than her. A decade, maybe — she felt momentarily ancient at the thought — and well into adulthood by Therian standards. His defensive posture and the stink of fear made him seem another decade younger, though — closer to Sammy's age than her own — so the "kid" seemed completely natural.
And then the bounty hunter in her twitched, and said something he probably wouldn't want to hear right now. "I won't take you in for the attempted mugging." Coming face-to-face with a kumo was probably enough punishment already. Besides, his would-be victim was probably kumo food by now, anyway. She planned to go back in there and track the cocoon, but she wasn't about to leave a kid like this, vulnerable now himself to being robbed.
Posted 25 March 2012 - 03:32 AM
He choked, as if fresh from a sob but his eyes were dry as he crossed his legs on the dirt and hid his clammy hands by the folds of his arms and the side of his ribs. He still rocked back and forth, still a bit of a mess, but one deep breath later, as he listened on to the stranger who was suddenly there (she must have saved him but he didn't have a really solid recollection of it) talk to him, he suddenly found his form stopping and he looked up to the other Therian with arched brows and parted lips. What...
What did she say?
It must have been the recent fright, Nicolay's Elysian must have garbled itself again. For all the years he'd lived in this place, one snap of something terrible was still enough to send his vocabulary a-scattering. "P, pardone...I'm sorry?" he said instead.
Posted 26 March 2012 - 08:59 AM
Maaike forced herself to stay in "mama" mode, imagining that this was Sammy so her patience wouldn't run out. She encountered few Elysians like this guy, though, and definitely fewer Therians. "You should be sorry, kid. What makes you think it's okay to rob a guy? You can't be that hard up." She raked him head to foot with a pinched stare, noting that — sewer aside — his clothes were not rags. He was on the skinny side but he didn't look malnourished. All that meant he was thieving for thieving's sake, and she had much less sympathy for a guy like that.
She began to regret offering him the stay of execution, as it were, but he was still in a sorry enough state that she didn't change her mind. Instead, she stood and glanced around for someone she could trust to run off to the guard to fetch help. She had to go back in there and at least try to rescue the kumo's victim.
Posted 26 March 2012 - 01:41 PM
There was a battalion of words, of thoughts that threatened to spill out of his mouth but of them all, what he did spit out was an indignant, "You know nothing about my business!" Mug? What was she talking about?!
To say that Nicolay was placed in an awkward situation was not even enough to begin describing his circumstances. The water's perfume was fast reaching his nose but he knew he could be human and he forced it off his mind as he pushed himself off the ground and glared at the female Therian. "Y, you should watch the words that comes out of your mouth before you even spit them out! How dare you accuse me as a mugger just because you saw me...creeping around the sewers?! How--" he would have gone on.
Except the kumo's emerald gaze flashed at him from the depths of his memory, and he shuddered where he stood, as if a sudden wintry chill had blown through his figure.
Nicolay was quiet for a moment, breathing as he chased his heartbeat. He frowned at his savior...but the angle was in a way that directed the frown at him and not the woman.
"I apologize," he muttered in the formal dialect. "I didn't mean to be rude after you just saved my hide," he added in the normal Therian context.
Posted 26 March 2012 - 02:46 PM
"Too late, then, kid." Maaike huffed at him, her arms crossed under her breasts and her lips pursed. Honestly, do a guy a favour... Two, in fact! He had apologised, she supposed, but Maaike didn't appreciate being railed at just because she'd caught him in the act. Although, to be fair, he might have had a point if she hadn't also seen him following his prey to the sewers in the first place.
"Look." She thumbed the skin between her eyes. "If I were anything but a bounty hunter, I might give you some tips on how to stalk people properly. Being Therian and all that. But." Pinning him with a frank stare, she let her lips curl in a sardonic twist. "I am a bounty hunter, so it's probably not the best idea to piss me off." Clapping her hands to her hips and holding her arms akimbo, Maaike got on with the real issue.
"Since you're here, though, you can tell me what you saw before the kumo attacked." He looked faint again, but Maaike's patience, and time, had run out. "Which way did the guy go? I don't have my azani and my wolf nose isn't sensitive enough to filter through all that sh...tuff, so anything you give me will help. And who knows, you do this for him, maybe Xanth won't smite you where you stand." Maaike didn't actually think Xanth gave a damn about a petty would-be thief or a mass murderer, for that matter but it might scare something useful out of him.
Posted 26 March 2012 - 03:47 PM
He let a breath through his nose as he turned and looked again at the entrance to the sewers. "If I knew where he went, I wouldn't be standing out here alone with you." He'd have dragged the nyad out in the open and demanded the truth from him and if he was one of the guilty party, he'd haul him all the way to the Guard on all fours if he'd had to. "You won't find any help from me looking for that man. And it's probably just fair to leave him in mortal danger there..."
Posted 26 March 2012 - 04:48 PM
Maaike's eyebrows shot right past her scalp and took off for a flight to Neme. For long moments, all she could do was gawp at him, and then words shrieked out of her mouth like wraithsong. "Are you serious?"
She wasn't startled by his callousness. She'd had the misfortune of encountering many people like him, and most of them had a bounty on their heads already. (The rest soon found one tacked between their metaphorical shoulder blades if she "discovered" enough evidence to turn in.) She probably would have just glared at him if she hadn't spent the past ten minutes faking a maternal instinct, but the fact that she had likened him to Sammy... The thought that her son could ever be this cold...
But then his actual words sank in beyond her prejudice of them. She stepped back, her eyes narrowing as she considered. "How exactly does he deserve a kumo to the face?"
Posted 28 March 2012 - 01:38 PM
He breathed through his nose. At the back of his head, he wondered if it would have been much wiser to have just...postponed the chase until the next day or even the next week. But then Lazuli would have already been around -- maybe...well, the chance was bigger -- and he wouldn't have this much time in his hands to stalk people with again anymore. Nicolay wondered where to begin.
"I owe him a piece of vengeance," was what he said and it stunned him how hateful that sounded. Nicolay wouldn't be caught admitting that he wasn't even sure that the nyad was one of the nyads who attacked him, though. Shaking his head, he said, "He and his friends...wronged me and mine. I, it's the one that happened in the glass shop. Gabel Glasses." He really wasn't sure he wanted to talk about it all over again.
Posted 29 March 2012 - 08:59 AM
"Wronged you, huh?" Maaike couldn't answer to that, not with the way she'd dealt with her own wrongs. Still, she couldn't take him at his word. But then he mentioned Gabel Glasses. Of course she'd heard of the attack: She kept her ear to the ground even in Alexandria with an eye for new jobs, and there were wanted posters all over the place for information about the Siblinghood. That didn't mean he was telling the truth, only that he'd also heard the stories, but she was more inclined to believe him now. One of the victims had purportedly been Therian, but some of the rumours had suggested he wasn't local which might explain the strange accent and linguistic slips.
"Trust me, kid, revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be." She hadn't killed Ashton out of vengeance but a driving need to protect her son. That didn't stop his death mask from haunting her nightmares, though. "But what do you say I help you out? I can't just leave him down there, anyway. Let's get him away from the kumo, and then you can decide what you want to do with him." She hoped, for his sake, that he decided to turn the guy in.
Posted 30 March 2012 - 01:09 PM
"No!!" Nicolay couldn't have stressed that enough. He took a clear step back away from the Therian as if a river of lava had just appeared right in-between them and he stared at her as if she'd just come crawling out of it. "No!" he said again with a shake of his head just in case she was deaf. "I'm not going back down there! Not with the kumo! I don't want the guy to live, I don't even care about him! I am not going back down there, no!" She can go back down for all that matters to him and as for him, well.
He knew a number of ways to disappear.
Posted 02 April 2012 - 12:09 PM
"..." Eyeing the kid with a single arched eyebrow and her lips pulled back in a sneer, Maaike nevertheless took a solitary step back to let him know she wouldn't push it, and snarled. "Fine." She said nothing else, but turned away, not far enough for him to get out her line of sight but enough to give her some semblance of privacy, to draw out her COM. It was one she only ever carried while on the job and it had no personal information in it whatsoever so nothing could ever tie her back to Sammy or Graeme.
It did, however, have Aiden Roy's number in it, the only man in Alexandria she could trust to help her with a kumo in spite of the trouble. If anything, they both had stayed in town too long, but she couldn't turn her back on this, and she wasn't in a position to hand the problem over to someone else.
"Sweetcheeks, hi! Didja miss me?" She found herself smirking at the guard's predictable response, and her eyebrows twitched when she realised it. She glared at Nicolay as if it was his fault.
"No, nothing about that." Of course he'd assume that would be the only reason she'd call him, and she put on her most saccharine voice for what came next. "You like helping little ol' damsels in distress, right? Well, I found an enormous spider in my room at the inn and I'm afraid I was so scared that I panicked and flushed it down the loo." Her smile widened considerably. If Aiden Roy thought she was afraid of spiders (or that she'd been slacking off in some inn), he'd believe anything. "So now, I'm so worried that it's going to cover everything in webs. You want to come help me kill it, right?"
Posted 09 April 2012 - 09:07 AM
He'd wanted to hear her voice for a while, actually, but he wasn't going to let her know it, especially not after that nickname. "Like a common cold," he responded, though his tone was affectionate. Sandwiching the COM between his shoulder and ear, Aiden handed xanthos to the vendor at the docks and accepted a stick of fried squids. "How've you been? Any news on the Hesia thing?" It had been a few weeks since their trip up north, so it was reasonable to assume that she had intel to share. Just like how he'd done his homework in studying the texts they'd brought back.
When it became clear that the call was for something else entirely, Aiden paused mid-bite. Out in the marina, it was almost tedious to hear Maaike's voice over the din of the crowd, but he managed to catch most of it as he wandered toward a quieter area. "Flushed it down the loo."
Gulping the rest of his bite, Aiden tossed the remaining squid into a nearby trashbin. He'd gotten used to Maaike's riddles by now, and it didn't take long for him to realize and mutter flatly, "It's in the sewers?" Hel, and he couldn't call the Guard for backup. He sought the West Road and burst into a run. Maaike stayed on the COM for only a while longer to give directions, and then the call ended. A kumo, dammit. The fight would be tricky in the tunnels' closed walls and wet ground. What was Maaike doing in the sewers, anyway? As he zipped up the intersection that went every-which-way, he worried briefly for Maaike's sake. What if she'd given up on waiting and gone ahead to save the guy the kumo caught. Then again, she was a seasoned hunter and would know what to do with the kumo.
As he neared the alley beyond the Le Bon Cafe, Aiden glimpsed a familiar figure standing next to a stranger. "Hey. What's happening?" And upon realizing that the stranger wasn't really a stranger, Aiden's eyes widened with surprise. "Nicolay!?"
((Not sure what might have happened between Maaike's call and Aiden's arrival, so I purposely kept it vague. Feel free to GM Aiden if you guys have started the fight. ))
Posted 10 April 2012 - 02:29 PM
But then he pieced the story together when he glanced at Maaike, and then at Aiden, and then, "You know each other."
His mind was running wild with ideas.
Posted 10 April 2012 - 06:50 PM
Taroch crap. Maaike realised it was a bad idea to call Aiden as soon as she saw his face and felt her heart skip a beat, but it was the kid's reaction that really made her regret it. "You know each other?"
Her gaze shot to Aiden's and she wished briefly that they were telepathic so she could have the conversation her face was trying to tell him. I'm sorry, I didn't know he knew you. I didn't mean to put you in this position. Does the kid know you're a guard? Can we get away with this? Pretend you don't know me. But it was already too late for that. She couldn't take back the "sweetcheeks" without looking even more suspicious.
Might as well run with it.
"Babycakes, you made it!" She threw her arms around Aiden's torso and rubbed her cheek affectionately against his pecs. When she pulled back, she offered him an impish grin. "I knew you couldn't resist the damsel-in-distress thing." She'd given him an out if he wanted it. Let the kid think she was just using him. It wouldn't be too far from the truth, anyway. "And here I thought I was going to have go back in there alone. Even Finnbar's abandoned me." He might not get what she meant, and she wasn't sure she wanted him to. She usually did a pretty good job of looking like she could handle anything, but she didn't normally take on stuff like this without at least Cailean or Magda along for support. The sewers compromised her sense of smell, stealing away her one advantage over a creature adapted for the dark, and only her naga form would stand a chance down there. She wasn't the type to go it alone if she could get the muscle.
"You still staying out here, kid?" She thought him a coward, but better he stay out of her way than have to be rescued again at a critical moment. Turning another mischievous smirk on Aiden, she held out her hands and gave a little bow. "After you, kind sir."
Posted 11 April 2012 - 09:20 AM
His worries seemed to melt away just then. With a laugh, he tightly hugged her back before letting go. She was playing up the cheesiness, so Aiden matched it evenly with a grin. "Well, I've always wanted to be somebody's knight." The part about Finnbar bothered Aiden though. Who was this Finnbar guy, and how could he have ditched Maaike to the kumo?
Also, Maaike's job took her into all sorts of places, but why would Nicolay, who worked in a glass shop--Ah. The Siblinghood. It was a strong hunch, so as he paused at the opening of the tunnel to look into it, Aiden asked, "So who's the victim? Do we have anything to use against the kumo?" It was always best to go in with some sort of plan. However, the kumo had taken somebody so they really didn't have time to sit and talk. As Aiden decended the first few steps into the sewers, he lowered his voice. "Last time you saw, was the guy still alive?"
Posted 11 April 2012 - 09:46 AM
It took great effort for him to tear his eyes away from it and place them on Aiden because a friendly face was definitely better than a lair of a monster. "O," he began, although the tension in his voice was brought about by the need to get things out quickly, "Of course. How could I follow him if he was dead?"
He took a deep breath. Ignoring Maaike, pretending she was a statue, was surprisingly easy. He didn't care what they had, he didn't care if they were husband and wife, what mattered was Aiden was there. "I followed him from the Purifier's office. I, if I'm not mistaken, he's a nyad..." his voice turned a little quieter. He didn't want his uncertainty to be heard or shown, "I think he's a part of the Siblinghood...of the group that attacked me, with Thornestone..." Nicolay almost looked at the guard expectantly.
Posted 11 April 2012 - 11:04 AM
"I hear Hesia's hiring. Their armour's so shiny." She tried not to show that the hug had affected her. She honestly had expected him to shove her away and rail at her under the pretense of not being friendly with her, to suggest to Nicolay that she was a nuisance or even a stalker. Hadn't she left him an opening to do just that? Instead, he'd joined in and painted a big red "I might not be on the up-and-up because I hang with the WANTED" on his chest. She wanted to beat him and grin at him all at the same time.
Damn him.
She was quiet for a while and let Nicolay explain himself. He was more open with Aiden than he had been with her; perhaps the shock was finally wearing off, or maybe she just had that effect on people. At least if he told Aiden the same story, it was a safer bet that it was the truth.
When Aiden asked if they had anything to use against the kumo, she lifted both shoulders in a shrug. "Don't look at me. I already used Finnbar once today." She held up a hand and thumbed the silver ring on her wedding finger. She didn't elaborate on the details of Finnbar: partly, it was a trust issue, but mostly she just liked to tease him. With any luck, his head would explode from all the curiosity: Was she married? Why was she flirting with him if she was married? Who under Hel would want to marry her?
"But I can take naga form. It's stronger than me, so that should give us a bit of an advantage, at least. The stink down here messes with my wolf's nose and no way I'm putting an archon or a falcon against a giant spider." It was probably a good thing that she'd left Magda at home. "I don't want to be breakfast."
In a softer tone, leaning up to blow in Aiden's ear quite deliberately with her hands resting on his arm for balance, she asked, "Is your buddy there up for this? He was falling apart on me a few minutes ago."


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Two New Jersey men face charges in federal court in Pittsburgh after, law enforcement say they stole tractors, utility terrain vehicles and enclosed trailers from stores across Pennsylvania and Maryland, including two instances in Butler County.
Herbert Lee White, 48, of Jamesburg, N.J., faces three counts of interstate transportation of stolen vehicles and an additional count of conspiracy, while Orford "June" Freeman, 50, of Elizabeth, N.J., is charged with one count of interstate transportation of stolen vehicles and conspiracy in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
According to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, an investigation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pennsylvania State Police Western Regional Auto Theft Task Force led prosecutors to believe the two trafficked vehicles between Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey across a two-year span from January 2016 to December 2018.
Law enforcement say White pulled into M&R Equipment on Route 68 in Butler Township at around midnight Dec. 8, 2018, and stole two Kubota compact tractors — one with a backhoe and front loader bucket, and another with only the front loader — by starting the vehicles and loading them onto a white trailer attached to a pickup truck. He headed southwest on Route 68 at 1 a.m.
The affidavit states the two tractors were worth a combined $46,500.
White returned to Butler County 10 days later, according to law enforcement, this time to Penn Township. There, the affidavit states, White hauled away a 24-foot-long enclosed trailer from Viking Spirit Trailers with an estimated value of $6,500.
According to the affidavit, Freeman told FBI agents that he would arrange sales for the stolen vehicles, and White would bring them to the customer.
In addition to the about $300 to $500 Freeman allegedly received for facilitating the transactions, he would also receive around $1,000 to help White steal vehicles from Erie and Lewistown, in Mifflin County, the affidavit states.
Law enforcement says White stole from 14 different stores on 15 occasions, criss-crossing from areas near Philadelphia and Hagerstown, Md., to Butler and Erie.
Charges against White were filed under seal in April, and White is currently awaiting trial under supervised release. Freeman was charged under seal in September and similarly is on supervised release.
Interstate transportation of stolen vehicles is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and conspiracy by up to five.

subset: commoncrawl


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This is a past event, which occurred on October 24, 2019 at 6:00 PM
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Tracing back their roots to the 1980s, lo fi hip hop beats correspond to a "do it yourself" esthetic, the opposite of "high fidelity" and polished sounds. Over the years, lo fi music has become intermingled with various music genres. However, in reality, lo fi hip hop in itself is more an esthetic than a full-fledged musical genre. The purpose of this craft relies essentially on a desire to make music raw by deliberately distorting sounds and using samples (vinyl crackle, tape hisses etc.) in an unusual way.
In the 1990s, there were no DAWs or accessible audio technologies. Any type of music would be made in a rather unprofessional way by today's standards. It is exactly at this time that producers such as Nujabes and J Dilla would set the stepping stones of a new music genre, lo fi hip hop. Today, lo fi artists such as Bsd.u, Eevee, Jinsang or Nohidea are following in the footsteps of their predecessors and are part of the revival of the genre. In this article, we will analyze the simplicity of lo fi hip hop beats, the reasons for their emergence in recent years and focus on the elements and the technique behind their making.
- What is lo-fi hip-hop?
- How to make lo-fi hip-hop?
Cozy, chill & relaxing music | Minimalism as a motto
If we want to use words to describe lo fi hip hop, these would be sundry. Some will categorize this type of music as cozy, chill or relaxing. Others will prefer to use the words mellow, nostalgic or sad. Others will rather identify cheerful or happy emotions when listening to lo-fi hip-hop. Surely, it all depends on your musical taste and approach to the genre. However, everyone will agree with the fact that lo-fi hip hop relies on a minimalist approach.
Well-known tracks in the sub-genre will often make use of one sampled part of a song or track which is repeated. In turn, the producer will apply various effects. The goal will be to achieve a catchy groove, to trigger the listener's interest. The initial sample is often accompanied by a simple hip-hop beat and some white noise or vinyl cracks.
A hip-hop beat in itself may sometimes be the initial sample. What makes this type of music addictive is that you doesn't have to overanalyze the track due to the song's few elements. Sit back and relax! Whilst the producer's community criticizes the genre for how "lazy" it is, lo fi hip hop can be an extremely powerful genre that entertains the human mind in many ways.
"What makes this type of music addictive is that you don't have to overanalyze the track because of its few elements."
Furthermore, the act of finding the right sample, achieving the desired effect and associating these elements is an art in itself. When done so, the nostalgic feelings which the track produces are ethereal and one of the main reasons behind its popularity. Another element that makes for the appeal of the sound is its unfinished or raw character, translated through distortion/saturation effects. In a world which is obsessed with quality and perfection, some natural and organic sounds are more than welcome.
In a recent article, Vagueoo3, a lo-fi hip-hop artist who has been around for a while said that:"Lo fi is short for low fidelity and essentially means bad quality, but purposefully". According to Vagueoo3, it is precisely "this bad quality which makes it stand out, just like overblown bass and distorted vocals make 'SoundCloud rap' stand out." After all, the less is more, isn't it?
Lo fi hip hop beats | Understanding their reemergence
In fact, most of these channels are run by reckless anime fans. In addition to the "anime hype", it is self-explanatory why the music has reached such a wide acclaim. Indeed, its laidback sound characteristics make it the perfect companion for people who are just looking for a relaxing tune to listen to when doing domestic chores, studying for exams or chilling with friends. After all, find lo fi beats to study to is extremely easy on youtube..
Whilst the "live" feature of Youtube was introduced back in 2011, it is not until last year that lo fi hip-hop channels really started to take off. Chilled Cow's channel was one of the first 24/7 lo fi hip-hop stations on YouTube. Today, the latter remains the biggest lo fi hip hop live station with more than a million subscribers and thousands of live radio listeners. However, the movement has experienced a great development and there are more and more live channels that provide their listeners with the most soothing lo fi hip hop tunes.
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How To Make Lo Fi Hip Hop Beats: The Gear, Software & Samples You Need
For the creation of lo fi hip-hop, "the less is more" should be your number one rule. If we don't go as far as saying that anything can work, originality is a must. With an extensive amount of music-producers having opted for the "easy-genre" you will have to stand out of the crowd with sought-after sounds. Digging for unique sounds will be your main task. Therefore, as mentioned before, there is no real necessity to polish a sound. Because the charm of this genre resides precisely in its unfinished character. Nonetheless, some software, hardware and sample indications can give you a good head start for further explorations.
Here are some of the popular plugins which emulate old hardware or degrade audio:
- ToneBoosters' "Time Machine"
- iZotope's "Vinyl"
- U-He's "Satin"
- D16 Group's "Decimort"
- Tone Projects' "Sonitex STX-1260"
- Soundtoys' "Decapitator"
- Fabfilter's "Saturn"
- Reaktor's "VHS Audio Degradation Suite"
With hardware, you will have to look for any device capable to record or play audio through. As an example, cheap toys, VHS tapes, cassettes, or any other old media format make great options. The purpose of this apparatus is that they act as filters to degrade your sound and can be combined to manipulate the audio further. Some cassettes and tapes will already feature drums you will be able to sample. You will be able to use other sounds on vinyl or cassette players, and the advantage is that the sound you will get will already be lo-fi. With sound design, there are no true limits on how to make lo-fi. The strangest sounds you record in your house or you find can produce an unexpected and satisfying result.
If you want to achieve a higher quality sound that still sounds lo-fi you should consider investing in drum machines, samplers, synths, etc. Naturally, old or poor hardware gives a more degraded sound. Nonetheless, you can achieve the lo-fi effect with newer gear such as the plugins mentioned above.
If you still want to invest in hardware for making lo-fi hip-hop beats, there are a number of accessible options unless you want to buy a second-hand old-school synthesizer.
Here are some drum machines worth considering :
- Engineering PO-12 ($)
- Korg Volca Beats ($$)
- Roland TR-08 ($$$)
Recently, we also discovered Bastl's "Trinity", which is at the same time a musical instrument and original sounding modular groovebox.
Finding samples is easier than ever with blogs and streaming platforms playing old music. If sites like Samplephonics are great for regular samples, you should make sure that you process or tweak your sample enough to be certain that it doesn't sound like any other one (since these packs are heavily used). Moreover, don't forget that this is where you make the real difference. Your musical culture and effort to dig deep to find old tunes that are worth sampling will make all the difference when it comes to lo fi hip hop beats.
How To Make Lo Fi Hip Hop Beats: The Technique
While it may be true that this genre requires less effort than other electronic genres, it is still as hard to find a hook or memorable beat. And the effort to find original and uniques samples is not easy. If you still think it's simple and lazy then change it up and do something that makes you feel excited about the project again. Don't be part of the lazy lo fi producers. Instead, push the boundaries further..
That being said, the core technique of lo-fi hip hop includes certain unmistakable steps:
- Lower the bitrate
- Lower the sample rate
- Add distortion/saturation
- Emulate Tape, Vinyl, old hardware, etc…
You can go a step forward and buy any cheap hardware with recording capabilities like a cassette recorder, for example, record your samples to cassette then record back to your computer.
You may also like: What are the best cassette players?
The process involves taking one sound, speeding it up or slowing it down, pitch shifting it, and adding some distortion. But the skill of learning how to create lo-fi beats comes in the order that you do these things, how you do them, and what your source material is. It is worth mentioning that as YouTuber Ryan Celsius ', whose lo-fi channel has more than 250,000 subscribers) says "the whole idea of lo fi hip hop is usually beat production that can sound under-mixed, containing intended or unintended imperfections with a heavy focus on creative sample use and authentic sounding drums kits. It's usually a tape hiss or some analog distortion set against a simple set of drum loops and an incredible sample selection".
We are not exactly sure what the future holds for lo fi hip hop. Could people become annoyed by the repetitiveness and simplicity of the sub-genre? Or, does the beauty and immortality of lo fi hip hop exactly reside in its never-ending sampling and creative possibilities? At the moment, there aren't any signs of slowing down for lo fi hip hop's growth. YouTube channels are multiplying every day and 24/7 live streams continue to attract the music genre's enthusiast, bewildered student or inseparable friend's group. Without any doubt, lo fi hip-hop can remain popular if the creativity of forward-thinking artists is paired with the efficiency of technology and the demand of listeners.
- Chillhop music (1.4 millions subscribers)
- The bootleg boy (640K subscribers)
- NEOTIC (559k subscribers)
- Nourish (290k subscribers)
- Ryan Celsius (260k subscribers)
- Mellowbeat Seeker (267k subscribers)
All of these channels feature unique still frames, rotating playlists, and unique uploads.
3 Comments
- Enio on November 30, 2018 at 7:14 pm
Thanks for the post! Very useful
- saaaz on April 17, 2019 at 1:33 pm
so cool! all these fab artists, such a sick community
- Lo FI Hip hop on July 26, 2019 at 3:55 pm
very good article, IMO lo-fi beats are great when you want to chill out after a hard day.


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Last time, in Series 14 of Back to Brexit Basics, we looked at the free trade agreement that was recently agreed between the EU and Canada to get an understanding of what is included in a free trade agreement. This week we look at the trade war involving the US and other countries and what it is all about.
The makings of a trade war
US President Donald Trump has long campaigned that he wants to make trade fairer. He wants customers in the US to buy US made goods. In an effort to encourage this, the US has imposed tariffs (or taxes) on imports from China, Mexico, Canada and the EU. China has retaliated by putting tariffs on imports from the US and Mexico, Canada and the EU have said that they will do the same; thus escalating a trade war.
What is a trade war?
A trade war occurs when countries try to attack each other's trade with tariffs and quotas. One country will generally increase its tariffs on imports from the other country and the other country will respond with similar efforts. The theory behind the trade war is that putting additional taxes and restrictions on imports, means consumers are less likely to buy the imported goods because they have become more expensive. Instead, they will buy local products as they are cheaper and this in turn boosts the home economy.
China v US trade war
The US President has campaigned heavily about cutting US trade deficits, which is the difference between how much the US buys from another country compared with how much the US sells to another country. The US has a huge trade deficit (reported to be $375 billion last year) with China. The US President has said for a long time that trade deficits hurt US manufacturing and to fix this he wants to increase tariffs on goods imported into the US.
The US has already imposed tariffs on steel (25 percent) and aluminium (10 percent) on imports from the EU, Canada and Mexico.
Last Friday, a 25 percent tariff was imposed on $34 billion of imports from China, which were largely manufacturing components. China retaliated with tariffs of its own on US agricultural products and medical products. And this week, the US President released a new list of $200 billion worth of goods from China that could attract a 10 percent tariff. Most of these goods are categorised as auto parts, construction materials and processed food. However these tariffs are subject to a consultation period that will complete at the end of August.
What is the effect of this trade war?
Some observers have said that the immediate effects of a trade war would be lower economic growth and increased inflation in both countries. It could also affect global supply chains. For example, many technological exports from China contain parts made by US companies. And US goods manufacturers rely on parts from China to sell their goods worldwide so consumers outside of the US and China could be affected. Companies may also have to relocate factories or distribution centres if imports become too expensive and this could affect employment and associated taxes.
If US imports become more expensive in China, traders in countries like Ireland and the UK could benefit from opportunities to expand into the Chinese markets and vice versa.
The US buys nearly four times as much goods from China as it sells to them so therefore China may be limited in how far it can 'war' using tariffs and quotas. Time will tell how this trade war will develop.
Read all of our Brexit updates and Back to Brexit Basics on the dedicated Brexit section of our website.
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Freesteel Blog » Sacrificing your salary for the rich
Sacrificing your salary for the rich
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Just before the summer Liverpool University staff got this brochure about their new Pensions Plus salary sacrifice scam. You could tell it was a scam by the number of stock photos of smiling models holding money out to the staff in question.
In essence, they have found a way of legally lying to the taxman about employees' pay in order to reduce tax receipts to the treasury. The deal is made very complex by the need to readjust a host of other entitlements that are pegged to the official salary rate. But here is how it's explained.
How does Pensions Plus work?
- You will stop making your employee pension contributions (6.35% USS, 6% ULPF)
- The University will increase its employer contributions (currently 14% USS and 13.4% ULPF) and pay an additional amount equivalent to your current employee pension contribution (6.35% or 6%) to make a total contribution of 20.35% and 19.4% directly into the respective pension scheme
- Your pre-swap salary, plus any other allowances and elements that are pensionable in accordance with scheme rules, will be reduced by the amount that you previously paid into the pension scheme
- Your take-home pay will increase because you are paying less National Insurance Contributions (NIC). This is because your postswap salary will be used to calculate NICs, whereas without Pensions Plus, NICs will be calculated on the basis of the pre-swap salary.
- The University will also see savings in the same way on the annual cost of the employer's NICs
- Any calculations that are normally based on basic salary such as annual pay awards, overtime, salary related allowances etc will not be affected, as these will continue to be based on the pre-swap salary
- We will quote both your pre and post-swap salary for all external purposes, for example, when quoting your pay for mortgage applications
- The overall level of contributions going into the pension scheme will remain unchanged
- Your pension benefits will continue to be based on your pre-swap salary
- Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) are not included in the Pensions Plus scheme, and you will therefore
The example above illustrates how the after-tax pay of a professor will be raised by a whole £31, equivalent to a 0.09% pay rise. All the professors were delighted because they could tell everyone it was a net benefit to them (however trivial), and that was the end of this wonderful story.
Except it's clearly a tax loop-hole. People who work for large enough institutions to pay for an accountant to shuffle around lots of paper can get it, while a lot of other honest working people who don't have the spare capacity to employ people to fiddle taxes will continue to pay.
And anyway, tax loop-holes that are available very widely (as opposed to just the rich and powerful) generally get closed… Either that or our general taxation must be raised to compensate for the loss of revenue, on top of the economic burden of employing accountants to perform this socially useless tax rearrangement activity.
But all these budgeoning nuances escape the attention and intellectual curiousity of our useless professorial class for want of being bought off with a whole £31 a year. No wonder the economy appears to be run by lizards.
I investigated:
Dear Sir or Madam,
According to the brochure, Liverpool University is introducing the Pensions Plus scheme "to make employer's NIC savings which will help to reduce costs".
The brochure, however, only reports on the employee's NIC savings, which is only one half the story.
Please may I be sent copies of documents containing:
* The full projected cost savings to Liverpool University from reduced NIC obligations and other benefits.
* The professional advice detailing the legality and long-term viability of what appears to be a newly discovered tax loop-hole.
* The full plan and cost-benefit analysis of the programme to implement this Pensions Plus scheme (including financial consulting fees, production of the above brochure, etc).
Yours faithfully,
Julian Todd
The answer came back:
With regard to the full projected cost savings to the University from reduced NIC obligations and other benefits, assuming 75% take-up of the scheme, annual savings are anticipated to be in the region of £575,000. However, this is difficult to predict as the amount will very much depend on initial take-up and ongoing recruitment.
Please refer to HMRC web pages at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/specialist/salary_sacrifice.htm in connection with your query on the professional advice and legality of the scheme.
Finally, the overall budget for the scheme including cost-benefit analysis of the programme to fees and production of the brochure was approximately £75,000.
So that's half a million quid they don't deserve and which the rest of us who are outside the institution without our own tax
fiddlersadvisers are going to have to pay.
I speculated that this was a new loop-hole that was going to get closed shortly, but in the meantime teams of sham accountants were going round to gullible bosses of venerable universities and ripping them off for fees to arrange these doomed schemes.
That page on the HMRC website is quite interesting.
According to the overview document:
A salary sacrifice happens when an employee gives up the right to receive part of the cash pay due under his or her contract of employment. Usually the sacrifice is made in return for the employer's agreement to provide the employee with some form of non-cash benefit. The 'sacrifice' is achieved by varying the employee's terms and conditions of employment relating to pay.
Salary sacrifice is a matter of employment law, not tax law. Where an employee agrees to a salary sacrifice in return for a non-cash benefit, they give up their contractual right to future cash remuneration. Employers and employees who are thinking of entering into such arrangements would be well advised to obtain legal advice on whether their proposed arrangements achieve their desired result.
The FAQ says:
If the terms and conditions provide the right to revert to cash within the period of time they are set to cover, any tax exemption may be lost. In the case of Heaton v Bell (1969), the House of Lords decided that the benefit of a company car provided through a salary sacrifice arrangement was chargeable to income tax as earnings instead of by reason of the benefits code. The key feature of the arrangement was the ease with which the employee could give up the car and revert to the higher cash salary.
Special legislation has been enacted to prevent this happening for the following exempt benefits:
* Employer provided childcare
* Workplace parking
* Employer provided cycles and cycle safety equipment
So we have a loop-hole that is held open for some stuff we want people to have, but at least the company car scam has been closed. I remember this one being offered to some of the staff years ago where I worked at NC Graphics. However it only applied to new cars, which are no good for my lifestyle. Shiny paintwork is a cost, not a benefit.
What do the unions say?
The big public sector union Unison states on an undated page:
We have seen a number of examples in recent months of employers looking to introduce salary sacrifice arrangements in relation to their pension schemes. In a universal sense, salary sacrifice is a practice that is expanding rapidly with Sainsbury's and BT being two of many relatively high profile examples of organisations that currently adopt salary sacrifice schemes.
Another union, Unite, with almost the same name, states as of June 2005:
When the concept first emerged it was thought that it was tax loophole, which the Government would soon move to close. But there is no sign of this happening.
And internet trawling for this post brought up these committee minutes from Nottingham University May 2006:
Salary Sacrifice Scheme – the committee questioned whether this loop hole was something that the government would be likely to pick up on in the future. David Beeby advised that there is always that risk, but at the moment there were no signs of that happening and therefore we should consider taking advantage of the opportunity now.
The adviser is explaining that whether or not it is closed is a political risk, and nothing more. Proper advice would consider whether or not it should be closed in the interests of justice, and what kinds of people and institutions are profiting from it not being closed.
The calculation of risk would then depend on whether the political system is capable of making just decisions on matters that effect the income of certain classes of rich individuals and institutions.
But we don't want to go there, because we don't want people to be thinking about the tax system in terms of principles of justice. You never know where that would lead.
So back to my FOI request:
Thank you for the reply on 7 July to my FOI request for copies of documents relating to the Pension Plus scheme in which the annual anticipated savings and budget for the cost-benefit analysis were disclosed to me. I was also referred to the HMRC web-pages in answer to my query about the legality of the scheme.
Unfortunately, I can find no mention about the application of a salary sacrifice scheme to pension contributions on the HMRC web page. However, the overview document by HMRC does state that "Employers and employees who are thinking of entering into such arrangements would be well advised to obtain legal advice on whether their proposed arrangements achieve their desired result."
Please consider this letter as a clarification of my original request. I am requesting copies of the documents, not merely some information contained within documents.
I would like the documents containing:
* A copy of the first official letter where this scheme was raised, either by an outside agency, or an officer of the university.
* Copies of documents wherein "the full projected cost savings to the University from reduced NIC obligations and other benefits, assuming 75% take-up of the scheme, annual savings are anticipated to be in the region of £575,000" are stated and justified.
* A copy of the written cost-benefit analysis of the programme, which combined with the "fees and production of the brochure was approximately £75,000".
* A copy of the invoice from the body to whom the above "fees" were paid
* A copy of the legal advice regarding the proposed arrangements, as advised by HMRC.
FOI requires that the University confirms whether or not documents as described exist, and then discloses their contents, subject to the statutory exemptions.
And the reply:
For your information, these types of schemes exist in a wide variety of public and private sector organisations and as long as they are approved by the HMRC there is no legal bar to such schemes.
With regard to your specific request for documentation, we do not have an official letter where this type of scheme was first raised. Rather, our awareness of these schemes occurred around 6 or 7 years ago when the concept was relatively new. At that time the University did not want to implement the scheme, but now feel that the time is right to offer additional benefit options to employees .
As requested please see the attached report produced for the benefit of the University's Senior Management Team setting out the projected cost savings. This report also satisfies your request for a copy of the written cost–benefit analysis above the scheme.
With regard to your request for a copy of the invoice relating to the fees paid in connection with the scheme, you will appreciate that these costs relate to consultancy fees charged by PricewaterhouseCoopers to support the University in implementing the scheme. These rates were provided in confidence and are commercially sensitive and revealing these details could damage the relationship between the University and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Accordingly, these fees are exempt from disclosure under Sections 41 and 43 of the Freedom of Information Act.
Finally, with regard to your request for a copy of the legal advice on the arrangements, no such specific legal advice exists. The scheme is based largely on the schemes that have already been approved by HMRC and it was not considered essential to add to the costs by securing specific legal advice on this matter.
So it would appear that I've drawn a blank, and wealthy institutions with money to spend on socially useless tax fiddling are free to rip off the public funds that the rest of us can only afford to contribute to at the face-value rate.
But the story doesn't quite end.
An article on the front page of the Guardian today:
Gordon Brown warned: axing childcare vouchers will cost Labour seats
Nine former ministers today rounded on Gordon Brown's plans to cut childcare, warning the prime minister that he is threatening marginal Labour seats in the runup to the election by axing popular support for hard-working parents.
The warning came from normally loyal former ministers – including Patricia Hewitt, Estelle Morris, Hilary Armstrong, Beverley Hughes and Caroline Flint – who say the plans to cut childcare vouchers for more than 340,000 parents are "greatly unfair" and "mark the undoing of one of Labour's landmark achievements".
Brown announced he was removing tax relief for employer-based childcare vouchers, arguing that too much of the money was going to the middle classes. He has outlined plans to switch the money to provide 10 hours of free childcare for 250,000 two-year-olds by 2015. But removing vouchers, which are thought to save parents up to £2,400 a year on the cost of nurseries, nannies or childminders, would strip "effective and popular childcare support from hard-working parents", the former ministers said.
More than 70,000 people have signed a petition on the Downing Street website criticising Brown's decision and urging him to reconsider. Some of the signatories to the letter have likened the revolt to the way the government was caught on the hop over opposition to the abolition of the 10p tax band.
Of course, being written by the proper journalist Patrick Wintour, there are no citation links in his article, like you get from a blogger.
The Number 10 petition to keep vouchers is here, which includes the Prime Minister's answer:
We are making these changes because we feel that the tax relief is currently badly targeted. Around a third of the benefit for ESC goes to the 6% of parents who pay tax at the higher rate. But more importantly, we want to use the money to extend free nursery places to many thousands more 2 year olds. These nursery places are really popular with parents and they give children the very best start in life – helping to achieve a fairer society in which everyone can thrive."
Nor can Patrick Wintour be bothered to give a link to Gordon Brown's announcement. I can't find it either, but I can see that the Daily Mail is on the warpath over this one:
Gordon Brown was accused yesterday of 'mugging' the middle classes by increasing free childcare for the poor at the expense of better-off families…
Aides of the Prime Minister said that a third of the tax relief – about £200million – goes to higher-rate taxpayers earning more than £43,000.
But they risked infuriating thousands of senior teachers, nurses or policemen by saying anyone earning more than £43,000 was not classed as a 'middle-income' earner…
It is not fair that around a third of tax relief for childcare goes to the six per cent of parents who pay tax at the higher rate.'
My friends…, tax policy is one of the worst, most maliciously misreported issues of public policy out there.
It is a subject that also has proven capacity for the conversion of blatant lies into votes.
If this country were a democracy, then the rich — who are in a tiny minority — would get taxed properly.
And if they weren't taxed properly, they would have to come up with some damn good explanation for why they shouldn't be.
But they don't.
Instead they print lies and distractions in the newspapers they own, and persuade ordinary people who believe they care about money to be in favour of things that are against their own economic interests.
All they have to do is buy off the public with a stated tiny numerical amount, and the rich can walk off with the loot. And none of the university economics professors look at any part of the story — even when aspects of it touch their own pay and institutions.
Believe it or not, there are still people who believe that the pensions and stock market crisis was caused by Gordon Brown's 1997 £5billion raid on the pensions tax relief.
Except it's not true, as Evan Davis explains:
What Gordon Brown wanted to do was raise about five billion pounds. And his idea was to reform the particular way that corporation tax and income tax overlapped, in their treatment of company dividends…
There is a long history to this, and of awkward interactions between the two tax systems… In practice, this system was implemented in a complicated way with implications beyond the remit of this article….
However, in our progression from the classical to partial imputation systems, the most striking fact now was that some shareholders were in effect paying no tax on dividends, even though retained earnings were taxed. In particular, concern grew that this gave too much of an incentive for those shareholders to seek dividend pay-outs….
So what does this whole story of the chancellor's first, big tax reform tell us? It doesn't allow us to say he destroyed the pension system, for two reasons. Firstly there were enough other, bigger things going on that did more damage.
And secondly, it was open to us to keep our pensions alive, by investing more in them if we wanted to fill the hole he had left. The chancellor may have put an obstruction in the pensions road, but he wasn't driving the car that crashed into it. That was in the hands of employers who were free to increase contributions but chose instead to accelerate the closure of final salary schemes.
Seems reasonable. So it's probably not true that — as the Torygraph says — Brown's raid on pensions costs Britain £100 billion. A lot of the money came from rich people who had been paying no tax on dividends. The pension system, such as it was, could have easily dealt with it. This was not the "crisis" that ruined the system. Unfortunately it is in a lot of people's interest the spread the lie that it was.
Massive funds do in fact need to be raised from the economy to bail out the banking system that the rich have also ruined. Where are we supposed to get the money for that?
But the mishandling of the story, a media news system that is largely owned by the rich, useless university professors who can be bought off for £31 per year, and a supine misinformed public — results in a tax system that is deliberately be left in a broken state for the rich to send over their tax accountants to fetch the loot.
Our society is currently structured around short-term, trivial, marginal money. It no longer operates on duty, patriotism, justice, or intelligent informed foresight. That's why wars are fought with mercenaries, rather than drafted volunteers. That's why private interests fund and control our political parties. As we count our pennies and believe it is enough.


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The search found 295 results in 0.01 seconds.
Encouraging adversaries to have more interpersonal contact to find common ground may work on occasion, but not necessarily in the U.S. Senate, according to new research.
Skin color is a significant factor in the probability of employment for male immigrants to the United States, according to a new study by two University of Kansas (KU) researchers.
Subsidized campus childcare was hard-won and remains very effective, while budget cuts and the privatization of childcare threaten centers across the country.
Rebellious collective action is rare, but it can occur when subordinates are severely discontented and other circumstances are favorable. The possibility of rebellion is a check—sometimes the only check—on authoritarian rule. Although mutinies in which crews seized control of their vessels were rare events, they occurred throughout the Age of Sail. To explain the occurrence of this form of high-risk collective action, this article holds that shipboard grievances were the principal cause of mutiny. However, not all grievances are equal in this respect.
Do police treat religious-based protest events differently than secular ones? Drawing on data from more than 15,000 protest events in the United States (1960 to 1995) and using quantitative methods, we find that law enforcement agents were less likely to show up at protests when general religious actors, actions, or organizations were present. Rather than reflecting privileged legitimacy, we find that this protective effect is explained by religious protesters' use of less threatening tactics at events.
Research documents that lenders discriminate between loan applicants in traditional and peer-to-peer lending markets, yet we lack knowledge about the mechanisms driving lenders' behavior. I offer one possible mechanism: When lenders assess borrowers, they are implicitly guided by cultural stereotypes about the borrowers' status. This systematically steers lenders toward funding higher status groups even when applicants have the same financial histories.
We argue that the mismatch between data and analytical methods, along with common practices for dealing with "messy" data, can lead to inaccurate conclusions. Specifically, using previously published data on racial bias and culture of honor, we show that manifest effects, and therefore theoretical conclusions, are highly dependent on how researchers decide to handle extreme scores and nonlinearities when data are analyzed with traditional approaches.
While secrecy enables policy makers to escape public scrutiny, leaks of classified information reveal the social construction of reality by the state. I develop a theory that explains how leaks shape the discursive frames states create to communicate the causes of social problems to the public and corresponding solutions to redress them. Synthesizing cultural sociology, symbolic interactionism, and ethnomethodology, I argue that leaks enable non–state actors to amplify contradictions between the public and secret behavior of the state.
This article contests the contention that sociology lacks a sound theoretical approach to the study of race and racism, instead arguing that a comprehensive and critical sociological theory of race and racism exists. This article outlines this theory of race and racism, drawing from the work of key scholars in and around the field.
American Indians experience forms of domination and resist them through a wide range of decolonizing processes that are commonly overlooked, misidentified, or minimally analyzed by American sociology. This inattention reflects the naturalizing use of minoritizing frameworks regarding tribal members and ethnic rather than political conceptions of American Indian nationhood, membership, and identity.


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Atletico Madrid have stepped in to refund 290 Spanish fans who did not travel to Anfield due to coronavirus fears after Liverpool rejected a request to return their money.
Diario AS report that Liverpool refused to refund the Atletico fans to the value of €17 000, after they refused to travel to Merseyside, advised by the Spanish government.
The Champions League last-16, second leg was held at Anfield on March 11 and was one of the last games to take place in Europe, with the lockdown ensuing soon after.
There were 3,000 Atleti fans who travelled to Merseyside for the game, but a minority chose not to travel upon government advice and the health authorities.
Liverpool council's director of public health Matthew Ashton has since stated that the game, in front of 54,000 fans, should not have taken place.
Ashton, in place to coordinate Liverpool's response to the pandemic, said in The Guardian: "It was not the right decision to stage the match."
There were just 14 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Liverpool on Friday, March 20, but that number has swelled to 309 less than two weeks later.
It was announced on the day of the game by the World Health Organisation that the situation was officially a pandemic, while Madrid announced that all its schools and colleges would shut due to the virus the previous day.
The report claims that 782 confirmed coronavirus cases had been declared in Madrid by that date – just short of half of the Spanish total – while 35 Spaniards had died ahead of the game.
The day before the match, which Atletico won 3-2 after extra-time to prevail 4-2 on aggregate, La Liga had announced all fixtures in its top two divisions would have to be played behind closed doors.
Days later football in Spain was suspended indefinitely, while the Premier League soon followed suit.
- TEAMtalk media


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THIS IS US -- "Strangers: Part Two" Episode 418 -- Pictured: (l-r) Justin Hartley as Kevin, Sterling K. Brown as Randall -- (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC) So many chills! All the chills, really. Not enough sweaters in the world for these chills. The show truly built up a good head of steam going … [Read more...]
This Is Us RECAP: What Would Have Happened if Jack Hadn't Died?
Credit Ron Batzdorf, NBC What could have been ... I don't know about you, but this episode had me on the edge of my seat, especially during the sequence where Randall imagined his worst fears if Jack had lived. In this Randall-focused episode, we do a deep dive into his soul and discover … [Read more...]
This Is Us RECAP: We Are Starting To Understand What Goes Wrong With Kevin and Randall
Credit Ron Batzdorff, NBC Oh, Randall ... With two episodes to go, I am starting to see why Kevin is not speaking to Randall by September. I love Randall, and usually, he is my favorite character. But lately, he's been pretty disagreeable all around. I mean, I get it. His personality covers … [Read more...]
This Is Us RECAP: Randall Finally Sees a Therapist and It Ain't Pretty
Credit Ron Batzdorff NBC Last week I was traveling and couldn't do my recap, but HELP ME, RHONDA, that was a humdinger of an episode. Kate being locked out by Marc! Marc getting thrown out on his scrawny white patootie by a livid Rebecca! Aged Kevin, walking into the house he built for his … [Read more...]
This is Us RECAP: We Are All Appalled by Kate's Skeevy Boyfriend
THIS IS US -- "A Hell of a Week: Part Three" Episode 413 -- Pictured: (l-r) Austin Abrams as Marc, Hannah Zeile as Kate -- (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC) As Jack tells his little girl, every good story has a he or a she who really wants something. But what does our Kate want? And can she ever find … [Read more...]


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Lunchclub Firesides
Virtual panel discussions with domain experts
Would you recommend this product?
37 Reviews
We are excited to announce Firesides on Lunchclub! With Firesides, you can learn from domain experts in a virtual session — think of it as an interactive Reddit AMA or Quora Session. Based on your Lunchclub profile and question for the host, you may get selected to join the panel discussion, or can watch along. The next Fireside is with none other than @rrhoover this upcoming Friday! Sign up to ask Ryan your product questions here: https://lunchclub.ai/fireside-ryan
Upvote (11)Share
👏🏾 Well done, team LC! I've attended three firesides so far and can attest they really provide an intimate and honest conversation with great guests. Excited for Ryan's this week!
Upvote (3)Share
@devansood I concur.
@vnovakovski I was also wondering, since I've been on a few, it'd be amazing to get the replays of the ones attended. Are you guys posting them anywhere? Or even having transcripts would be amazing.
Awesome!! I love Lunchclub, and Firesides is an excellent addition. Great job Vlad and team.
A few things to add @vnovakovski, in the UI of Firesides: 1. A sentence about what to expect next. For example: an email will be sent to you with the link to the livestream one day before the event. 2. Add to calendar feature. Both should be super easy and fast to implement ;)
@helenaronis great feedback! On the calendar side, we do already do this, wonder why it didn't work? cc @jacob_willemsma2
@jacob_willemsma2 @vnovakovski I guess I didn't add to my calendar in the registration/confirmation page, so I went to the Lunchclub web app to find the event so I can add to calendar and the button doesn't exist there?


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What is wrong with you boys
48 weeks ago by ctrlfn · 781 Likes · 4 comments · Popular
funkmasterrex · 48 weeks ago · FIRST
smitty · 48 weeks ago
Witness me brother!1
eupheme · 48 weeks ago
Boi, the girls in my class were fcking pumped for dodgeball, the boys always wanted to play football or something else and would loudly protest when we managed to convince our PE teacher to let us play dodgeball. I love the boys vs girls meme but in some cases it's just the complete opposite.5
marcus5 · 48 weeks ago
I have never heard a single male complain about dodgeball. not saying that it never happens but still.3


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Back in April Chris Eboch did a guest post about "Suspense Versus Surprise." This Sunday morning she is back and offering her thoughts on the "Three Act Structure for Novelists."
Three Act Structure for Novelists
by Chris Eboch
To celebrate the release of my new book, You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers, I'm sharing an excerpt from a chapter on Three Act Structure.
There's no magic formula for writing a fabulous book. But there are formulas that offer guidelines for constructing a satisfying plot. Scriptwriters have long used the three act structure handed down from theater, with additional "turning points" as guidelines for when high and low moments and surprises should hit. Various resources identify and name turning points differently, but here's a basic list of the most important ones:
- Act 1 (the first 25%): Introduction of the character and situation.
- The Inciting Incident/Catalyst (in the opening pages): Something that introduces a problem or goal for the main character.
- Plot Point One/Act 1 Break (about 25% of the way in): The point of no return, when the character embarks on the journey (physical, mental, or emotional).
- Act 2 (the middle, from the 25% point to the 75% mark): The character tries to solve the problem but faces escalating obstacles and rising stakes.
- Midpoint (in the middle of Act 2, at about the 50% mark): A moment of seeming success, but it may twist the story in a new direction or raise the stakes.
- Plot Point Two/Act 2 Break (at the 75% mark): The moment when failure seems inevitable.
- Act 3 (the final 25%): Wrapping up the story. Things may continue going downhill, and/or the hero(es) may develop a new plan, leading to the ...
- Climax/Resolution: The big final scene where the character ultimately succeeds or fails.
My brother Doug Eboch, writer of the movie Sweet Home Alabama and a scriptwriting teacher, says, "These ideas date back to Aristotle; they're not some new Hollywood formula. Three Act Structure is really just a way to talk about literary concepts. So, for example, the first act is the section where we set up the character, their dilemma and the stakes; the second act is where the character faces increasing obstacles to that dilemma; and the third act is where we get the resolution."
Following this format doesn't mean the result will be perfect, but, "If you understand the concepts, they can help identify and solve problems in your story, or even prevent problems from occurring in the first place," Doug says. "Think about acts and turning points as a way to organize your story and make sure you stay on track."
Many authors find three act structure helpful when writing books, although they may not focus on structure at the beginning of a new project. Some wait until the revision stage and use three act structure to make sure they have a solid, well-paced plot. Personally, I like to thoroughly brainstorm and outline before starting a novel. Matching scenes on the outline to traditional turning points is a way to identify weak spots or to discover when important plot points are happening too late in the story. This allows me to add complications or shift scenes around before I start writing.
Tools, Not Rules
Whether you start with plot structure or consider it only after a couple of drafts, checking your work for turning points can help ensure the story feels well-plotted and satisfying. But that doesn't mean you have to force a story to fit the "rules" precisely.
"It's more important to understand the concepts behind the structure than to take a fill-in-the-blank type of approach," Doug says. "Sometimes people focus on the idea that the act one turning point should happen on page 28 [in a screenplay, which is typically 110 pages]. But the reason we bother identifying an act one turning point at all is that it's the place where the hero takes on the problem and gets locked into the story. Without that, there's no tension because the hero could just walk away at any time. It's far more important that the act one turning point fulfill those requirements than that it fall on a certain page.
As a scriptwriting teacher, Doug has many chances to see what works and what doesn't. "Many beginning writers get into their story too late. Often, they don't introduce the problem until the act one turning point and don't trap their character in the story until the midpoint. Again, this comes from not understanding the purpose of the beats." Those students are satisfied to find a big event at the appropriate place – even if it's not the right kind of event.
It's not enough to have something happen, just because you need a turning point. "Many beginning writers have major events happen at the turning points that are unrelated to each other or even the main character," Doug notes. "[Turning points] are not simply twists for the sake of having a twist; they serve a bigger structural purpose. All the turning points should be related to your main character and main story line and to each other. And each should be the result of the main character's actions and choices. So even if the second act turning point involves the villain getting the best of the hero, the villain should be taking that action in response to what the hero's done before. The turning points should grow out of what the character wants in the story and what obstacles stand in the way of that goal, including internal obstacles."
This article was adapted from a chapter in my new book You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers. Check out the book for more advice, much of which works for authors writing for an adult audience as well!
Let's Schmooze is Doug Eboch's blog on Screenwriting.
Chris Eboch/Kris Bock ©2015
Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.
As Kris Bock, Chris writes novels of suspense and romance involving outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. In Counterfeits, stolen Rembrandt paintings bring danger to a small New Mexico town. Whispers in the Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest ruins. The Mad Monk's Treasure follows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico desert. Read excerpts at www.krisbock.com, sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter, or visit her Amazon page.