Edit: Oops I didn't paste it all.
I think that I have finally found it. Finally, finally teased it out from the jumbled mess that is human philosophy, history, and religion. After years—actual spirit’s haunted fucking years—of research, hundreds if not thousands of interviews, and no less than seventeen different research teams… it finally hit me! The defining feature of humanity! That which at their most basic, primal state drives them as a race… or at least one such feature.
That’s right, I’ve finally achieved that which two dozen races have failed to do even after all these years: The ‘boiling down’ of the galaxy’s newest race. It wasn’t easy, it isn’t perfect… but it’s—at the very least—not wrong!
At every twist and turn throughout their myriad years, every ancient conquest, every brutal revolution… humanity chose knowledge. It is their… unquenchable lust for knowledge that has driven them from the shelter of the caves and forests that their ancestors inhabited, to the cold dark black alongside the rest of us!
You only need to look at their dominant language to catch a glimpse at this. Many of my fellow researchers—and indeed probably many of you_—have heard the old German proverb “curiosity killed the cat.” At first glance, this is a proverb warning against the dangers of curiosity… and it is. But ask yourselves for one moment: _why in all the hells would any sapient race need a proverb warning them against being curious?
This… that question right there is the beginning. The starting point, the place that humanity diverges from the rest of us. Every single other species in the galaxy has no less than half a dozen proverbs extolling the values of being more curious, several from my own species fairly nearly outright beg you to be curious. But with humans it’s the exact opposite, instead of drilling curiosity into their spawn’s heads they drill instead restraint, moderation, and other such synonyms. Because for them… curiosity is dangerous.
But we’ll get back to that, for now let us return to that old German proverb. While for many humans curiosity may have figuratively—and in a few tragic cases quite literally_—‘killed the cat,’ for just as many it is the _single most rewarding experience that they have ever had. Throughout my countless interviews with humans of all ages and sizes, nearly every one had both a time where their curiosity was a great achievement for them and a time where they deeply regret it. This dichotomy is illustrated perfectly in an English proverb based off of the German one: “Curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought it back, that’s why the cat has nine lives.”
Humans find the act of learning or doing something new to be pleasurable. And they especially love to be right! For many humans, being a person who knows things that not many do or who has experienced things that not many have is a point of pride. That’s why you see so many humans racing to be first! It’s in their blood, they love the feeling of knowing that they were the first of their kind, or hells even the first among their peers to do something!
And here my friends is where things get dangerous for them. They will strive and strive to be the first one among their ranks to complete some task or uncover some bit of obscure knowledge that they turn a bind eye—or in some cases are willfully ignorant—to the dangers. Take their nuclear development program—the now galaxy infamous “Manhattan Project”—as a wonderful example of this. And no, I’m not referring to the urban legend—that the humans working on the project thought that the bomb might ignite their atmosphere—that gave it its infamy. No, I’m instead referring to the legitimately insane speed at which the humans completed this project.
In just over ten years they had gone from knowing literally nothing about nuclear fission to blowing each other up with it. It’s… it’s maddening to think about! The previous record—set by the Haaa—was fourty-eight years! They developed nuclear weaponry five times faster than the single most aggressive and warlike race the galaxy has ever seen…
Dear reader, do you know how many races have had major nuclear disasters? Less than a human has fingers. And out of that depressing pantheon of races, humanity’s disasters were by far the worst. And if their most popular religions are to be believed… they have always been this curious.
Humanity’s largest religious family—the Abrahamic religions—teach that humanity started in a bountiful garden. Picture if you will the idyllic forests of Vavrin VI. Lush, bountiful, full of life and beauty. The humans were told that everything in this garden was theirs, from the smallest of insects to the largest of trees, and that they could do with it whatever they wished. The only one rule was that they were not to eat the fruit of one specific tree, for their god had reserved that tree for himself.
Seems an easy enough rule to follow right? A paradise all to themselves wherein they are second only to their god… except, I have until this point neglected to mention the name of that one tree. The single tree that humanity was forbidden to partake from, was the tree of knowledge. Knowledge of what you ask? Knowledge of good and of evil.
I think that you can guess what happened next, but I’m going to say it anyways. They ate the damned fruit. They gave up paradise like no other, immortality, and a whole host of other things… for simple knowledge.
Now to give them some credit, their god’s instructions basically boiled down to ‘don’t do this because I said so.’ It’s not as though they knew that they were going to be thrown out, and to this day if you tell a human not to do something you sure as all the hells better tell them why they shouldn’t do it too.
Don’t believe me? Well I’ve done the experiments to prove it. I brought in hundreds of humans for “one-on-one interviews,” told them not to do something mundane and innocuous, and then left the room. The results were astounding, over 70% of humans would, after a few minutes, do exactly what they were told not to do. Furthermore, roughly half of the humans that didn’t were very clearly fighting the urge to do so!
This ever-present lust for knowledge explains so much about them. Their fervor for exploration and discovery? They want to be the first ones to know, the first ones to experience everything that this galaxy has to offer. ‘What does this taste like,’ ‘how does that feel,’ ‘can I go there,’ ‘can I do this.’
Their uncannily swift technological progress? Knowledge above all else and a curiosity that surpasses their common sense. Plus, the fact that they’re willing to trade actual resources for technology that they can’t figure out on their own doesn’t hurt. After all, how could a human put a price on knowledge.
The reason that “stage magic” is so boring to the rest of us? We aren’t constantly wondering how the magician is doing his tricks like they are. We aren’t constantly amazed and curious about the fact that the human on stage has knowledge and skills that we can’t even begin to comprehend.
Their truly ridiculous martial prowess? They’re constantly thinking dozens of steps ahead. Constantly wondering: “what would happen if we X?” or “could we survive if the enemy did Y?”
Everything that humanity has done is doing is because above all else, whenever they were presented with the choice, humanity chose knowledge. And I’d be willing to bet my left grasping appendage that in the future, they’re going to choose knowledge too.
So a bit of a shorter story, but I wanted to get something out since I’ve been dormant for the past few weeks. The fact that I’m honestly really proud with how this story turned out doesn’t hurt either, despite its shortness.
As I said before, my goal is to get out at least one story a week so with any luck you guys will see me again next Sunday!

The Three Facets of Being "Smart"

For some time, I have wanted to distill an abstract thought that's been churning in my head so that I can put it in front of an audience for critiques and/or concurrence. What follows is that attempt:
If you are reading this, there is a good chance that at some point in your life you have been told "You are really smart!" While that's always a nice thing to hear, it is quite a vague descriptor of a complex situation. For example, perhaps you heard this after solving a problem faster than anyone else, or maybe it was because you knew the answer to an obscure trivia question. Perhaps you've even heard it after a tough conversation with someone who was struggtling in which you gave them some solid advice.
In none of these scenarios is it objectively wrong to call a person "smart", but how is it that such a vast number of possible scenarios can be summed up by a singular word? Part of the answer of course lies in language itself and the accepted meanings of words, but I'd argue that something else is at play as well. We tend to identify and value the quality of "smart" in others, but if you asked 50 different people what the word "smart" means, you might get 50 different answers.
I would posit that the trait we refer to as "smart" is actually not a catch-all term for cleverness, intuition, or memorized facts. Instead, the quality we refer to as "smart" is an amalgamation of three distinct traits, present in all individuals in varying quantities. Some people exhibit more of one trait than another, whereas some strongly exhibit only one or two, and a rare group of "very smart" individuals exhibit all three to high degrees. These traits are:
Intelligence, which is almost totally inherent.
Knowledge, which is exclusively acquired.
Wisdom, which can only be earned.
Individuals can be intelligent without being knowledgeable or wise. They can be knowledgeable but not intelligent or wise, and so on. To elaborate:
Intelligence:
Intelligence in this context is defined as problem solving ability and the application of logic. There is a large amount of research into what makes some people more intelligent than others, and the current consensus is that it's a mix of nature and nurture in the formative years. Nutrition is vital to intelligence, as are genetics and proper sleep habits, but even if all non-genetic factors were controlled for, some people would still have a higher "ceiling" of intelligence than others. This is a fact of life - some people are gifted problem solvers and some are not. Luckily, intelligence alone does not define how "smart" a person is.
Knowledge:
Knowledge is the collective mass of information that a person has acquired over their lifetime. Inherent memory is a strong factor, but as with intelligence, all reasonable factors could be controlled for and some people would still be more knowledgable than others. I would argue that powers of observation and curiosity are vitally important to the development of knowledge, as curious people tend to seek out knowledge far more than people who are not curious. Observant people are capable of gleaning knowledge from the world around them without even asking questions or doing research - indeed the entire basis of science is that knowledge is gained through observation. Powers of memory vary in the same sense that intelligence varies, but a person with an average memory can still be as knowledgeable (or more so) than a person with a stronger memory who does not use it to its potential.
Wisdom:
Wisdom transcends knowledge alone, as it factors in experience. A person does not necessarily need to have personally experienced something to be wise about it, but wisdom relies on knowledge about a particular subject and repeated exposure to various outcomes within that subject. The stereotype of elderly people as "wise" holds up to this standard - they have lived a long life and seen a great many situations come to fruition with various outcomes. That said, a person does not need to be old to be wise. Imagine for example a skateboarder who watches a video on how to perform a trick. They have acquired knowledge, which they then head outside to put into practice. Perhaps the first several times they attempt the trick it goes poorly, but eventually they get it through practice. They are gaining wisdom about the trick, and that wisdom may even be ineffable at this stage. Revisit that same skateboarder years later and not only have they mastered the trick, but odds are they've taken some bad spills as well. They've learned through experience that you cannot perform this trick under certain circumstances, or that it only works when the timing is perfect. They are now wise on the subject. Could they share their knowledge or even their "wisdom" with a student? Yes, but they cannot impart (and maybe not even put into words) everything that they've learned. The student will need to practice (and ultimately succeed/fail repeatedly) to obtain their own wisdom on the subject. This is why I feel it's safe to say that wisdom can only be earned, never simply absorbed like knowledge is.
A final demonstrative example:
To illustrate my points, I will use a professional athlete. I'm not a sports fan, but bear with me. Because the NFL is the major sports league to administer a sort of "IQ" test to its players (Wonderlic), we can use those results to discuss the three facets of being "smart".
My unsuspecting victim is a wide receiver named Kelvin Benjamin. The only thing I know about Kelvin Benjamin is his name, the breif summation I just read on Wikipedia, and the fact that he scored a 7 on the Wonderlic. That's a low score, and it correlates to a "low IQ".
Now, does this mean that Kelvin Benjamin is not intelligent? Maybe, but also maybe not. The Wonderlic test involves a small degree of knowledge-based questions (math, vocabulary, etc) and therefore if we are defining intelligence as problem-solving/logic ability then we cannot define Mr. Benjamin by his Wonderlic score alone. In fact, some might argue that playing any sport at the professional level involves a a demand for lightning-quick decision making such as when a defender reacts to a situation and therefore forces a reaction from the offensive player. I watched a YouTube compilation of Mr. Benjamin's plays and a great many of them clearly exhibit a form of intelligence specialized towards football. Do I want him on my chess team? Hell no, but to say he's "not intelligent" is minimizing the intelligence required to play any sport at the level he does.
Is he knowledgeable? About football, almost certainly. Again, his position on a professional team proves that he is capable of absorbing and regurgitating football-specific information. Is he knowledgeable compared to the average person? Probably not. The insufficiency in his Wonderlic score compared to his peers is very telling that he is either A.) Less intelligent, or B.) Less knowledgeable. There is also the possibility that he is a poor test-taker, which is a big reason why IQ tests are only positive tests, never negative tests for intelligence. But watching some interviews on YouTube he does not exhibit a large vocabulary and seems unaware of certain things he should probably know (subjectively). With this complete body of evidence, I think we can say that Mr. Benjamin is probably "not knowledgeable" in general despite his propensity towards football.
His wisdom is up for debate. He's no longer in the league, and Wikipedia states that his effort in his final seasons was called into question by teammates and fans alike. A wise person likely would not fail to even try at their job, although again we must consider that perhaps he was simply "over it", which happens.
The primary goal of analyzing Mr. Benjamin was to show that arguments can be made for his intelligence despite apparent shortcomings in the other two facets of "smart". Kelvin Benjamin does not appear on any lists of "smartest NFL players" that I could find, and I found evidence of grade troubles during his time at FSU. We can conclude that based on the narrow range of his intelligence, Kelvin Benjamin might not quite rise to the level of "smart" by most people's standards. So if that's the case, then what does qualify as "smart"?
Conlusions:
Despite the prevalence of the word, I would argue that most people do not simply throw around the term "smart". Perhaps in a moment of jest or "You're a genius!" after an annoying problem has been solved, but when asked by a neutral third party to define a person, most people only use the word "smart" if the person in question meets one the following criteria:

High ability in at least two facets of "smart". The person is either intelligent and knowledgeable, or knowledgeable and wise, and so on.
Medium ability in all three facets. Most people defined as "very smart" would have high scores in all three facets, but someone with even only slightly above-average intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom still might rise to the level of "smart" if they put their abilities into practice well.

The Holy Grail
When we think about "very smart" people, often names like Einstein, Hawking, Newton, and so on come up. Big names in science, tech, medicine, and business often top the "smartest people" charts, and certainly many of them exhibit high scores in all three facets.
But think for a moment about the smartest person you personally know. How do they score in the three facets? What are their strengths, their weaknesses? I'm willing to bet that the following is true:

The most capable people, often synonymous with "smartest", do not necessarily all have high scores in all three facets. FAR more valuable is the ability to amalgamate all three facets effectively, even if one falls short of the others.

It is not enough to simply be knowledgeable, or to simply be intelligent. Intelligence is of little use without knowledge, and one cannot earn wisdom without experience earned in the pursuit (intentional or otherwise) of knowledge. Problem solving ability is a good portion of intelligence, but it is most effective when coupled with a reasonable amount of knowledge in a way that exhibits both.
It is absolutely useless and foolish to approach a stranger and declare that the capital of Missouri is Jefferson City. That is "not smart". But answering that question correctly at a trivia night that you have intentionally placed yourself at to take advantage of that knowledge is "very smart".
It is rude and stupid to walk up to a friend and say "I think you should stop dating your toxic boyfriend". But to start a casual conversation and steer things towards relationships slyly so you can socratically get them to realize their partner is toxic is "very smart".
Perhaps there's some useful knowledge/wisdom within this post that you can couple with your own inherent intelligence and put to use. I'm open to any and all comments, questions, and critiques.

Navigating Heteroromantic Bisexuality

If you make it to the end, thank you.
I'm a bisexual man but only have romantic feelings and interest towards women. Sometimes I think a guy is cute but only in an aesthetic way, or the most might be a momentary, fleeting crush. I've never felt toward a man the intensity of attraction in a romantic sense as I have with a woman. Can't see myself with a boyfriend, for instance, just doesn't work for me. I've had sex with men and enjoyed it, but no more than I've enjoyed sex with women. Sex with women is also a different sort of experience in terms of closeness and emotional connection, than sex with men. Lots of people experience this and call this heteroromantic bisexuality (or homoromantic bisexuality for the reverse, 'monoromantic bisexuality' more generally), and I think that description fits me fairly well. Some say that internalized homophobia may be the reason that some bisexuals don't identify as biromantic, that really they are biromantic but don't want to accept it. I think if we're being honest, surely that must be the case for some people who haven't yet realized they are biromantic. But most monoromantic people I've talked to or heard from are not confused, that's just the way they are.
The issues I bring up in this post are my approach to navigating being this way as a heteroromantic cis man, but I think if you swap some words and pronouns around the same dilemma applies to many monoromantic bisexuals of any gender. I haven't combed this to be sure but I think that's roughly right.
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I'm 28 and I've known I've wanted to get married and have children since I was 17. I've thought about it deeply ever since it became clear to me that that's something I want in life. So I'm very serious about finding a partner for whom that's also deeply important, and obviously for me this has to be a woman, given my orientation.
Given the state of many women's attitudes towards dating or marrying bisexual men (sometimes biphobic outright, sometimes simply uninformed through no fault of their own, and sometimes explicitly supportive while implicitly uneasy) what are the ways some of you have coped or managed this issue in your lives? I ask because I'm wondering how to navigate this problem when I eventually get back into the dating scene. I'm mainly talking about online dating as a way to meet, but also in-person once that's possible.
For context, I'm not totally out but I'm out to friends and I don't hide it when it comes up. I don't call myself straight when questions of orientation come up. I'm not out to family, but may be in the future. But before I was as comfortable with it as I am now, years ago, I would hide it and call myself straight or leave out my orientation on my online dating profile. When I date again, this would be the first time I'm considering being out on my profile.
Path 1: Openly identify as bisexual on online dating profiles (or for eventual in-person interactions, bring it up without prompting during the first interaction) and let that marker be a filter that will naturally filter out the women for whom that is a problem. I'd probably make a distinction between bisexual generally and heteroromantically bisexual.

Upside: Simple and direct. For the rest of the time there's nothing being hidden and I don't have to worry about it being a problem for her because I've already made it known and she can take it or leave it. If she's dating me, she knows she is dating a bisexual man.

Downside: This definitely reduces the pool of women in my dating pool, potentially by a large fraction or even a majority (I don't know what the latest polling says about male-attracted women's attitudes towards dating bi men). If the original pool I'd be compatible with or would consider asking out would be X large, then the compatibility pool would definitely be less than X, call it Y. So instead of dating within X, the larger pool, I'm reducing my chances of finding partner that's the right fit down to the size of the Y pool. Might work out fine, but the chances are worse. And by worse, I mean it would take me longer to find someone right for me, or the best person I could have found might not be in that pool, since Y is necessarily a subset of X.
Path 2: Don't specify my orientation at the outset, and just let women assume what they will given the fact that I'm female-attracted and present unambiguously as a cis man and am looking for a long-term relationship with a woman. That would be dealing with dating pool X directly, the larger pool.

Upside: The pool of women to date and start a relationship with is larger, meaning it could take less time to find the right match, or the realistic best possible match in less time.
Downside: Obviously, my orientation will have to come up at some point, and waiting to do this at any time other than right away carries with it some risks. Whether it's later into the first date or a few dates in, it has to come out at some point. The exact timing would obviously be specific to each case, but the general timing (first date, later conversation, few dates in, etc) would generally be controlled by two factors:

Desire to minimize the woman's and my own lost/wasted time if my orientation isn't acceptable to her. That pushes the timing of the disclosure to be as early as possible (in the limit, it's just Path 1).
Desire to give the budding relationship enough time to grow into something with promise, enough to show her I'm worthy of her time regardless of what misunderstandings she may have about my orientation once I disclose it.

Now before I continue with my approach to navigating this problem, some of you may be wondering "Why is this even a question? Obviously Path 1, both because it's the path of most openness and honesty and because you don't want to be dating any women who won't accept you for who you are anyway". Well, allow me to state some personal views non-normatively that are true for me but are not true for everyone. Go to 'RESUME' if you don't care and want to skip this part.
Having the right opinions about the specific specific sexual minority I'm a part of before I know anything else about a person is not by itself an important enough criteria to rule out people that would otherwise be great for me to be with. People don't like to hear this, particularly very-online bisexuals, but casual biphobic views are rooted in understandable gut-reaction concerns, whether or not those concerns ultimately logically make sense to apply indiscriminately to all bisexuals (they don't). Someone being biphobic is, in my view, not typically the result of hate, it's typically the result of fear and ignorance. That's a conversation for another time. The point here is, I'm simply not going to hold a huge fraction of male-attracted women responsible for simply not having thought through the moral implications of some of their automatic assumptions of bisexuals. For some people, their sexual or gender characteristics are an important enough part of their identity that anything other than totally aligned opinions on that matter from a prospective partner warrant immediate dismissal. I don't share that view. People are complicated and everyone is mixed bag of good and shitty opinions of all kinds. Being biphobic alone is not enough for me to dismiss everything else wonderful that that person might be. That doesn't have to be your answer for how you live your life, but it's mine.
And regarding the obviousness of Path 1 being the right choice because it's the path of most openness and honesty, read ahead and hopefully you'll see why it's a bit more complicated than that.
'RESUME'
There are multiple scenarios that could arise from taking Path 2:
Result 2A) She tolerates, accepts, or enjoys my orientation without needing to really talk about it, and understands why I felt the need to hide it upfront and only felt safe bringing it up after she got to know me (best case scenario).
Result 2B) She tolerates, accepts, or enjoys my orientation without needing to really talk about it, but she is upset why I wasn't open about it from the outset, and this lowers her trust in me because the relationship isn't starting in a totally open way. This takes some explanation of my rationale, and she eventually comes around (roughly equivalent to the best case scenario in the end).
Result 2C) She tolerates, accepts, or enjoys my orientation without needing to really talk about it, but she is upset why I wasn't open about it from the outset, and this lowers her trust in me because the relationship isn't starting in a totally open way. This lowers her trust enough that it ends or otherwise disrupts the flow of the relationship and now it's jeopardized.
Result 2D) She has a stigma against my orientation and right away isn't sure if she can continue seeing me, but doesn't end it on the spot. I do my best to explain the usual things bi people have to explain to their partners (we're not any more or less likely to cheat compared to if we were heterosexual or homosexual because two times infinity is still infinity, it still comes down to individual behavior; it doesn't affect my masculinity or my behavior with my female partner, it still comes down to individual behavior; etc, etc, the usual stuff you may be familiar with) and she eventually comes around, and also accepts my rational for hiding it instead of being open about it, which her reaction would provide direct evidence in support for.
Result 2E) She has a stigma against my orientation and right away isn't sure if she can continue seeing me, but doesn't end it on the spot. I do my best to explain the usual things bi people have to explain to their partners and she eventually comes around, but does not accept my rational for hiding it instead of being open about it, which damages trust.
Result 2F) She has a stigma against my orientation that can't be reasoned with and she ends it on the spot. (worst case scenario).
For a random woman without a stigma, the only problem I have to deal with is to explain why I waited to disclose my orientation, not the stigma. And for a random woman with a stigma, I have to deal with both problems, the delayed disclosure and the stigma.
Already, what's clear is that 2F is a 'doomed from the start' scenario out of anyone's hands, so I'm not going to worry about it and accept it as just the cost of doing business when choosing Path 2 (2F scenario women are just women in the world of Path 1 that I never would have met). What's also clear is that for women without a stigma, having to explain the delayed disclosure is a solvable problem and a cost I personally consider acceptable. If the relationship is promising, there will be time to earn back that compromised trust. 2C is the worst of that group of results, but I find it much less likely than 2B since it's unlikely that a random woman will be both accepting of my orientation and strongly unaccepting of my rationale for delaying its disclosure.
So, the tricky situations to deal with are the ones with women with stigmas but for whom my orientation is not an immediate deal-breaker (results 2D and 2E). I can't control whether or not my hypothetical life partner will be in this group or not, assuming I take Path 2. The problem I have to solve, then, is how to ensure the best outcomes for dating women with soft stigmas that can be reasoned with, if I find them attractive/promising enough to be worth the effort.
The crucial question: What effect does the duration of delayed disclosure of my bisexuality have on the reaction of a random woman with a negotiable stigma against bisexual men once the disclosure is made? It seems there are two conflicting forces that need to be balanced to obtain the best outcome:
On the one hand, the later I bring it up, the more time we have both gotten to know each other and become closer. This will give her more upfront evidence that I'm a trustworthy guy and worth her time. When the disclosure comes, she will be less likely to have a strong negative reaction, because I've already earned some of her trust and shown her I'm a normal person worth hearing out, so maybe she will be more receptive to giving me a chance to explain why I believe her stigma is unwarranted and why I waited to tell her. The risk of that is that she becomes upset or angry that I waited to tell her, which could derail my attempt to explain myself. That's the difference between a 2D and a 2E scenario.
On the other hand, the sooner I bring it up, the less time we have both invested in each other, which might mean she cares to listen to me less and will be less receptive to my explanations. But also, she might be less aggravated at the delay of my explanation, because the delay was shorter and the investment of time was smaller, so the cost to her is smaller, which might cause less of a negative reaction.
It seems to come down to which negative effect would dominate (ladies, this one's for you!): For women with the stigma, which would be more upsetting, the revelation of the stigma or the delay of the disclosure? If the delay is much worse, that would mean I should disclose earlier. If the stigma is much worse (hard to mind read that one unless it's a stigma you share, I know), that would mean I should disclose later.
It seems like there could be an ideal trade-off point where I've earned a certain amount of her good graces and without asking for so much of her time that I upset her with the duration of the delay. Of course it will vary person to person, but I'm talking about a hypothetical random statistical concept of an average random woman who's thoughts I can't know in advance. It's a personal policy question to apply to dating male-attracted women in general.
How long do I wait to disclose, if I choose Path 2? For me, my gut says that trade-off point is either near the end of the first date or sometime during the second date. I think waiting three dates to disclose something that could potentially be a dealbreaker in a 2F scenario is too long, but I think I don't need to bring it up right away in conversation in the first date and can allow for some time to connect. Besides, for both parties, the majority of the time investment of the first date is probably in the preparation rather than during the actual date, so each additional unit of time once we've actually met is small compared to what's already invested in getting the date to happen. Less true for long first dates, which I have a habit of having, but true a lot of the time.
Now, I still haven't directly addressed why Path 2 is a viable alternative to Path 1, but I've needed to explain the implications of Path 2 before getting to this point. The large pool of women I might be compatible with to date, pool X, and its subset, pool Y, are distinguished by Y being the subset of women for whom there is presumably no stigma because in Path 1 I've chosen to openly disclose my bisexuality before talking to them. So, in Path 1, the path of stigma-free women, I'm dating within the pool Y, a subset of X, where X is the total pool of women with and without stigmas. If, for the sake of argument, you adopt my rationale for why the women with the stigmas (as long as they're negotiable and not dogmatic in their stigma) are no more and no less dateable than the women without the stigmas, then each fractional unit of the subset Y, the women without stigmas, is just as worthy of my attention and energy as (X-Y), the de-facto pool of only women with stigmas. If that's the case, then there is equal potential in my future partner coming from either pool, which means that making large fractional cuts to X really hurts my prospects.
One flaw in my approach: there are confounding variables that are relevant to how right someone may be for me that are wrapped up with stigma toward bisexual men. For example, having that stigma might correlate with other undesirable qualities, such as other discriminatory views toward other groups, if that person is in the habit of making broad assumptions about large groups of people. Or, the stigma might correlate with being more socially conservative on various issues that I'm socially liberal about. Not the end of the world, but it counts, and might add up and combine with other correlates to mean that the entire pool of women with stigmas, X-Y, is less suitable for reasons not directly attributed to the stigma itself, but correlated with the stigma. I know of no research that studies male-attracted women's attitudes towards bisexual men and what those attractions correlate to, positively or negatively. If anyone has some, a comment with a link would be greatly appreciated. If anyone is a sex researcher studying sexual orientation and sexual stigmas, I hope this one day becomes a research question if it isn't already.
After dwelling on this and all of it's ins and outs, some of which I haven't taken the time to write here, I think that a lot hinges on the equal prospect assumption that the suitability within pool X is evenly distributed (perfectly randomly). Now, in reality, it might just be counterintuitively true that it is very close to random and there isn't a significant different between pools Y and X-Y (the women without stigmas and the women with stigmas), and therefore there isn't a significant difference between choosing Path 1 and Path 2, in terms of my prospects. Or it could be true, as my intuition would lead me to believe, along with many of you I'm sure, that the suitability is significantly different between the women with the stigmas and the women without. (I'm defining suitability relative to me specifically, not in general terms for all men. Optimally suitable for me is suboptimally suitable for someone else. I'm using suitability as a synonym for "quality of match", not "quality of person".) A lot hinges on what's empirically true here, and what's true here and how it suits up with my own suitability with partners is hard to predict. At best, I can guess, and I'll have to.
Another flaw in my approach: what if I'm not optimizing for the right thing? Specifically, everything I've said so far is to maximize the suitability of my dating pool based on my approach to dating within that pool. Currently, the approach doesn't take into account costs incurred to others, such as the women who's time I've wasted in the 2F cases of Path 2. If you recall (I'm awed by you for getting this far, let alone recalling anything so far), the 2F cases of Path 2 are the "doomed from the start" cases, where the woman's stigma is not open to reason and she ends it on the spot without further conversation. For those women, had I chosen Path 1, their time wouldn't be wasted. I'm not counting the women in scenarios 2D and 2E as having their time wasted because for those there's still a chance. But the 2F cases are wasted time with no prospect of recovery. If the wasted time had just been mine, choosing Path 1 or Path 2 would only bear on my own time. But it doesn't.
Another objection one could have, but I've ruled out, is that one could question whether it's strictly ethical to even take Path 2 at all, considering I would be knowingly hiding something from a potential partner and knowing that it might leave them feeling blindsided. And the time wasted, while a cost unto itself in terms of the actual time, counts double morally because not only did the consequence of their wasted time come to pass, but I knowingly created the situation in which that consequence came to pass. It wasn't an accident, it was set up knowingly as a possibility. I've heard these objections before and they don't hold up to basic scrutiny. First, the harm has to be compared to the potential benefit, so it's not obvious it's the wrong thing to do, especially considering the harm is small compared to the benefit (potentially meeting your future husband vs having a few hours wasted). Second, this is just how life and dating work all of the time anyway. We all have things, unlike sexual orientation, that are actually bad and that we can be blamed for, things we're not proud of from our past, that we all carry around with us. We don't make it a point of order to divulge all of this in every first interaction with every potential platonic friend or romantic partner. We hope that with time, we open up to each other and that the other party will accept us, flaws and all. And sexual orientation isn't even a bad thing, it's a neutral thing, so the harm of deliberately delaying it can't be worse than failing to disclose that actually bad thing you did from a few years ago, and yet we do so, knowing that if we disclosed that bad thing right away when meeting someone new, it could jeopardize the introduction. So while I've heard people make impassioned please before about being totally out when dating for this reason, like some analogous situation to consent, sorry, the moral argument there is pretty weak the way I see it.
Some final thoughts:

If I choose Path 1, the path of being openly out from the start, I am lowering the size of my dating pool, I am minimizing the potential time I waste for all parties, and I am skewing the pool's women toward characteristics that correlate negatively with stigma against dating bisexual men. Intuitively, this skew would be beneficial (my personal best guess based on my preferences). Or, it could counterintuitively be true that, for some strange set of reasons, suitability characteristics increase, not decrease, with the same stigma. It's impossible to know in advance but if I were to bet right now I'd bet the latter.
If I choose Path 2, the path of waiting for the right time to disclose my sexuality, I am maximizing the size of my dating pool, I am making the dating process more complicated for myself, and I am generating the externality of potentially wasted time to some women with nonnegotiable stigmas.
My emotional urge, my gut feeling, is to choose Path 1 and be free of this vexation. Just have everything be simple and accept whatever marginal costs come with it. But I also know that math is real and it's unwise to ignore it, even hand-wavey notional math, when the stakes are high, as I feel they are. Is my apprehension of the stakes appropriate? Maybe not. Maybe I think the stakes are higher than they are. Surely more things in life will affect the quality and satisfaction of my relationship with my partner than this silly question. But so will this question, and I'm already working on the other stuff.
Of course, all of this is said and meant in the statistical abstract and isn't how I'd literally approach each specific interaction with a woman I'd want to date, but what it does affect, even as a statistical abstraction, is whether or not I should choose Path 1 or Path 2. You could also make the case that if it's causing me this much worry, better to just go with the gut and take the simpler path. I also suspect that the general attitude of pro-outness being encouraged within LGBT+ discussions will drive many to think that Path 1 is a no-brainer. And perhaps that's right. Yet many heteroromantics will probably know what I mean when I say it's hard to dismiss Path 2 too easily...
Personally, my dream scenario is that I choose Path 1 and it works out that I meet a great woman who is fine with who I am, or even likes it, or who is herself bisexual, and I will have forgotten even having thought to do otherwise. But the fear that there's a chance the right person for me will be found on Path 2 is what's holding me back.

TL;DR Nope, you're gonna have to read it or skip it, sorry.
If you made it to the end, thank you. Even if you don't respond, thanks for hearing me out. It took me a while to put it into words and I know a lot of men in my situation feel the same way.

Sony just bought AWAL and Kobalt Neighbouring rights for $430 million. Along with Orchard, Sony ( the major label) are now the biggest player in independent music

5 Strategies in Quant Trading Algorithms

Hey everyone, I am a former Wall Street trader and quant researcher. When I was preparing for my own interviews, I have noticed the lack of accurate information and so I will be providing my own perspectives. One common pattern I see is people building their own algorithm by blindly fitting statistical methods such as moving averages onto data.
I have published this elsewhere, but have copy pasted it entirely below for you to read to keep it in the spirit of the sub rules. Edit: Removed link.

What it was like trading on Wall Street

Right out of college, I began my trading career at an electronic hedge fund on Wall Street. Several friends pitched trading to me as being a more disciplined version of wallstreetbets that actually made money. After flopping several initial interviews, I was fortunate to land a job at a top-tier firm of the likes of Jane Street, SIG, Optiver and IMC.
On my first day, I was instantly hooked.
My primary role there was to be a market maker. To explain this, imagine that you are a merchant. Suppose you wanted to purchase a commodity such as an apple. You would need to locate an apple seller and agree on a fair price. Market makers are the middle-men that cuts out this interaction by being always willing to buy or sell at a given price.
In finance lingo, this is called providing liquidity to financial exchanges. At any given moment, you should be confident to liquidate your position for cash. To give a sense of scale, tens of trillions in dollars are processed through these firms every year.
My time trading has been one of the most transformative periods of my life. It not only taught me a lot of technical knowledge, but it also moulded me to be a self-starter, independent thinker, and hard worker. I strongly recommend anyone that loves problem solving to give trading a shot. You do not need a mathematics or finance background to get in.
The trading culture is analogous to professional sports. It is a zero sum game where there is a clear defined winner and loser — you either make or lose money. This means that both your compensation and job security is highly dependent on your performance. For those that are curious, the rough distribution of a trader’s compensation based on performance is a tenth of the annual NBA salary.
There is a mystique about trading in popular media due to the abstraction of complicated quantitative models. I will shed light on some of the fundamental principles rooted in all trading strategies, and how they might apply to you.

Arbitrage

One way traders make money is through an arbitrage or a risk free trade. Suppose you could buy an apple from Sam for $1, and then sell an apple to Megan at $3. A rational person would orchestrate both legs of these trades to gain $2 risk free.
Arbitrages are not only found in financial markets. The popular e-commerce strategy of drop-shipping is a form of arbitrage. Suppose you find a tripod selling on AliExpress at $10. You could list the same tripod on Amazon for $20. If someone buys from you, then you could simply purchase the tripod off AliExpress and take home a neat $10 profit.
The same could be applied to garage sales. If you find a baseball card for $2 that has a last sold price on EBay for $100, you have the potential to make $98. Of course this is not a perfect arbitrage as you face the risk of finding a buyer, but the upside makes this worthwhile.

Positive expected value bets

Another way traders make money is similar to the way a casino stacks the odds in their favour. Imagine you flip a fair coin. If it lands on heads you win $3, and if it lands on tails you lose $1. If you flip the coin only once, you may be unlucky and lose the dollar. However in the long run, you are expected to make a positive profit of $1 per coin flip. This is referred to as a positive expected value bet. Over the span of millions of transactions, you are almost guaranteed to make a profit.
This exact principle is why you should never gamble in casino games such as roulette. These games are all negative expected value bets, which guarantees you to lose money over the long run. Of course there are exceptions to this, such as poker or card counting in black jack.
The next time you walk into a casino, make a mental note to observe the ways it is designed to keep you there for as long as possible. Note the lack of windows and the maze like configurations. Even the free drinks and the cheap accommodation are all a farce to keep you there.

Relative Pricing

Relative pricing is a great strategy to use when there are two products that have clear causal relationships. Let us consider an apple and a carton of apple juice. Suppose there have a causal relationship where the carton is always $9 more expensive than the apple. The apple and the carton is currently trading at $1 and $10 respectively.
If the price of the apple goes up to $2, the price is not immediately reflected on the carton. There will always be a time lag. It is also important to note that there is no way we can determine if the apple is trading at fair value or if its overpriced. So how do we take advantage of this situation?
If we buy the carton for $10 and sell the apple for $2, we have essentially bought the ‘spread’ for $8. The spread is fairly valued at $9 due to the causal relationship, meaning we have made $1. The reason high frequency trading firms focus so much on latency in the nanoseconds is to be the first to scoop up these relative mispricing.
This is the backbone for delta one strategies. Common pairs that are traded against each other includes ETFs and their inverse counterpart, a particular stock against an ETF that contains the stock, or synthetic option structures.

Correlations

Correlations are mutual connections between two things. When they trend in the same direction they are said to have a positive correlation, and the vice versa is true for negative correlations. A popular example of positive correlation is the number of shark attacks with the number of ice-cream sales. It is important to note that shark attacks do not cause ice-cream sales.
Often times there are no intuitive reason for certain correlations, but they still work. The legendary Renaissance Technologies sifted through petabytes of historical data to find profitable signals. For instance, good morning weather in a city tended to predict an upward movement in its stock exchange. One could theoretically buy stock on the opening and sell at noon to make a profit.
One important piece of advice is to disregard any retail trader selling a course to you, claiming that they have a system. These are all scams. At best, these are bottom of the mill signals that are hardly profitable after transaction costs. It is also unlikely that you have the system latency, trading experience or research capabilities to do this on your own. It is possible, but very difficult.

Mean reversions

Another common strategy traders rely on is mean reversion trends. In the options world the primary focus is purchasing volatility when it is cheap compared to historical values, and vice versa. Buying options is essentially synonymous with buying volatility. Of course, it is not as simple as this so don’t go punting your savings on Robinhood using this strategy.
For most people, the most applicable mean reversion trend is interest rates. These tend to fluctuate up and down depending on if the central banks want to stimulate saving or spending. As global interest rates are next to zero or negative, it may be a good idea to lock in this low rate for your mortgages. Again, consult with a financial advisor before you do anything.

Seedhe Maut - Kranti - English Translation

It follows the following format:-
Lyrics Translation (Comments//Meaning//Amateur Breakdowns if needed)
Kranti- Seedhe Maut
Verse 1 - Encore ABJ
Kabhi nahi dhool chaati Kabhi naii khaai maat
Never Have I ever have tasted dirt/ground Never have I ever eaten defeat
(Dhool chatna:- an Idiom which translates to tasting dirt means being badly defeated originating form "kusti" the indian variant of wrestling which is fought in soft dirt ground. To win you have to slam/drive your opponent in the ground so the person losing almost always gets dirt on his face)
Kabhi naii sardard bana Kabhi naii khaya khauf
Never have I ever been a headache for someone Never have I ever been scared
(Khauf-fear, khauf khana - being scared)
Tabhi Bhai Seedhe Maut Tera Bhai Seedhe Maut
That's exactly why your brother is Straight Death Your brother is Straight Death
(Encore uses the name of the duo as a synonym of Badass or similar)
Rakhe zada chele naii Rakhi maine chene bhot
I have not kept many adherents but I have kept a lot of chains
(Chele/chela- a devout follower)
2k18 ka ye BAYAAN hai Zabani janng me hum toofan hai
This is our Declaration/Statement of the year 2018 In war of words we are akin to a cyclone
Vo humpe sote, the neeche hum jaise deewaan hai Ab hum deewaane
They used to sleep on us, as if we a small bed, but now we are crazy/mad
Chawde jaise cheeni diwaal hai Ye chawal uble, Inka banne wala ab pulaav hai
We carry ourselves/have an attitude that we are as tough as The great wall of china. These rice are boiling, they are gonna be made into a pulao
Nazare thi ja tak vaha pe dhool thi Dilli ki baat nahi kar raha apne vajood ki
As far I could see there was dust, I am not talking about Delhi's pollution but rather the reason for my existence
Karu Mai Kya? Kya NDA bharu? Pehenu wardi? Ya khaki pehenu karu Gunda gardi?
What should I do. Should i fill the NDA(national defence agency) recruitment form and wear an army uniform or should I wear a police uniform and be a thug
Sun Hui naso se leke haddi Faili thi dar se badan me sardi Gane banane me mili garmi
From my nerves to my bones everything in me was numb. There was a coldness spread in my whole body due to fear. I found warmth to combat it and get rid of the fear of uncertainty about my future in the process/procedure of making Music
Izzat kamai ni chadi charbi chadhi seedhi fir faiki rassi
I have earned respect, not just acquired false/unjust pride. I climed the ladder and then threw a rope from the top down below
(Charbi charna:- an idiom which translates to getting fat all over meaning getting prideful in oneself without properly earning that pride)
Nikalu jitne ho Meri baski Hu karta madad kyuki meri marzi
I bring everyone up the ladder with me that I am able to. Yes I help others as it my choice to do so
To taliya rakh apni apne pe abhi ke liye aur jaake sunn album meri
Keep your claps/praise to yourself and go and listen to my album for now
Asli me azad hu agle saal hogi koi gunjaiish nahi baat yaad rakh meri (oh!)
I am truly free/independent, come next year there is gonna be no room for doubt remember my words
Verse 2 - Calm
Haalat hain theek karni Chhu mantar (Kyu tu) Salah de chahiye ni Khoob antar (Yu to)
Have to get our condition/circumstances to a desired level in such a way that it seems like magic to others. I don't need your advice as there is a lot of difference between you and me
Gaadi k paiye pe du panchar (Aaj) Girenge pedo se bohot bander
I will puncture the Tyres of your car. A lot of monkeys will fall from trees
Dil kare naak me dam karu Baatein kam karu aankhein band karu jaake bam Karu Jhota ek thoda bohot
My heart tells me to be a nuisance, to talk less, to close my eyed, to go and smoke up a little bit
Chill karein saath me sab badhe Jaan pe sab khaade kaam pe sab lage
All of us chill together and grow together. All of us stand together till the last breath for each other. All of us are doing our part
Daw pe sab lage fake Dono saath me gogeta
We have bet everything thing on us. The two of us together are like gogeta
Laashe bicchi me doshi tha Peeche Sez, Uday, Mo bhi tha
Dead bodies were laying around and I was the culprit responsible for them. Sez , Mo Joshi & Uday Kapur(founders of Azadi Records) were right behind me too supporting me
(Dead bodies probably mean all the songs and performances/ shows he has killed with the support of Sez and Azadi Records)
Akela ka haath hai nahi seedha Taang hi ghussa di bhai game me Vidic hu rakhlunga jeb me (Nemanja)
It wasn't just one guy's hand in our success, both my legs are in the game and I am akin to the footballer Vidic Nemanja and thus I am skilled enough to put all my competitors in my pocket
Quidditch ka seeker hu bhaida me peekar hu ghira to chheekha shazam me
I am a seeker from the fictional game of Quidditch . I am quite drunk from drinking . If I surrounded I scream shazam like the fictional superhero
Maana me saalo se inn Saare riwaazo ke binn Jeete aaya firr bhi jeet te aaya mujhe chahiye ni meet ya maya devta ya suicide me khush hu
I agree that I have been living all these years without any rules or regulations set by the society but still have been winning it all. I have no need/want for fame or money, however my life ends in be it me achieving deity status or suicide I am happy with it
Aage na kisike haath jod Dogle mile to saath chodd
I have never pleaded in front of anyone. I have cut all ties to two-faced people i have met
Lowkey the jo mile vo hile dhobi se Modi le Show mile paanch aur
The ones that were lowkey met me and got baffled by my talent and I got 5 more shows
Aaya me maut dene Yaha saale bot khele
I have come to give/distribute death. The guys playing here are bots
(bot](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bot) refers to lame/mediocre players/noobs. The term was recently popularized in india through the growing e-sports sence and games like PUB-G getting popular)
Bhaagunga pitthu giraake Complex de chuka bohot pehle
I will run after making the pitthu Stack( Pitthu Garam is a game played by kids in north india) fall, I have given them complex since way back
Bohot maile Dil hain dekhe
I have seen many dirty/unclean hearts
Abhi to shuru hue maze aane
Only recently we have started enjoying ourselves
Aisi kya tootan hai dono ko fodne ki padhi bas hum hi jaane
Only we know what kind of urgency We have to go above and beyond and deliver everytime
Edit: thanks to u/pandeyji_ka_ladka for pointing the error regarding "bot".

Ariana Grande’s ‘Positions’ - A Case Of Style Over Substance - Album Review

In an attempt to navigate new audiences and transcend genre barriers, an artist’s credibility is often held in limbo. For some, the change provokes an undiscovered edge, something fresh, and a clear cut explanation as to why the stylistic overhaul has taken place. The flip side, however, often proves detrimental to the status of the artist, as I find it leaves a permanent mark within the discography, that I’d bet my money on them wanting to forget. An artist who is currently caught in the crossfire is reigning pop princess Ariana Grande. Defining herself as a staple, and a cultural pop monolith head and shoulders above the competition as of late, it’s clear she’s decided to usher in her next era. Whilst her venture into r&b has inevitably been in the cards, with Ariana and fans alike foaming at the very thought of it, her efforts carry all the usual stylistic suspects, with all the unfortunate substanceless baggage.
While it’s unquestionable that ‘Positions’ is first and foremost Ariana’s official claim to the top of the r&b ladder, I want nothing more than to perceive it as a minor detour away from her humble pop roots. Although I had reason to believe ‘Positions’ would yet again trump the Ariana discography, given her previous triumphant streaks that saw her entertain the kooky eccentricity of Pharrell Williams on ‘Sweetener’, and later, master an honest rendition of pop with the heartbreakingly introspective ‘thank u, next’, ‘Positions’ less than glamourous roll-out should have indicated anything but a continued hot streak. I suppose that’s where the suspicions grew from. As Ariana deviated from a blue-print she had made her own, the less and less relevant to its successors ‘Positions’ would become.
What started as cautious apprehension, became an unfortunate reality upon the release of the album’s lead single, ‘Positions’. Sure, it boasts those trademark Grande vocals as she showers us with this sensual prowess, sounding like a seductive temptress, all whilst preaching of being a dedicated lover, but outside of what feels like a guarantee, given Ariana’s proven vocal pedigree, it’s all just so forgettable. With its toothless, overproduced instrumental, subpar application of her range and this inaudible enunciation - a blast from the past that consistently haunts Grande on ‘Positions’ - I struggle to believe that this was Ariana putting her best foot forward.
Things don’t get much better when approaching the album in its intended canonical form. We have the opener ‘shut up’, which in retrospect is a highlight, but feels more like an interlude than the formal opener to the next chapter of Grande’s career. It easy on the ears with its enchanting arrangement of multi-textured vivacious strings and frolicking piano passages, met with Grande’s angelic ‘fuck you’ statement - or in this case, her authoritative ‘shut up’ anthem - to those who pry too intently on her private matters. Grande has a knack historically of getting it right with these inviting openers, yet here ‘shut up’ feels like an unrefined, last-minute addition to fit the bill.
Where her magnum opus ‘thank u, next’ saw Ariana inviting us into the crushing lows of reality by her lonesome, ‘Positions’ is a more familiar approach to the Grande ethos as she enlists the help of some of music's juggernauts. We have the monolithic ‘off the table’ which sees Ariana and The Weeknd going back and forth, complimenting each other both stylistically and lyrically. Ariana finds herself in a place of insecurity, concerned with devoting herself unquestionably whilst Abel plays the role of the antithesis, acting as the nurturing embrace and reassuring guide that holds her hand along her path of doubt. It is a stunning display of two artists strutting the height of their vocal prowess, as this theatrical display of love brings the best of the both of them.
I fail to justify singing the same praise to the other collaborative cuts that find their way onto the record. However hard she tries, Ariana’s efforts to squeeze a painfully apparent lack of life out of her contemporaries just comes across as awkward. ‘Motive’ sees the likes of Grande and Doja Cat sharing a stage, a collaboration that on paper feels like a match made in heaven, only for the two to mix like oil and water. It feels as if Doja Cat is hellbent on sabotaging the track as she contests everything that works here. Taking a page out of Chance the Rapper’s book, Doja adopts these hideous vocal inflections and a particularly irritating nasally delivery to stain an otherwise slick and feverish experience. Things don’t fare much better on ‘safety net’ as Ty Dolla $ign continues his hot streak of underwhelming performances. Here, he leaves a lot to be desired as he struggles to hold his own against the vocal tenacity of Ariana in this cutesy lovers duet.
Where the new-born stage of her career was suggestive of Ariana being yet another name for the pop world to inevitably chew through and forget, it feels as if she has defied the odds as of late by consistently wowing either thematically or sonically. This is where ‘Positions’ unambitious light and regressive nature truly come into play. Rife with raunchy imagery, an outright horny demeanor, and its lustful roots, sure there’s potential for that mature and intimate r&b record Ariana has long been dabbling with, but what we’ve been given just feels so on the nose and generic. The pinnacle of this disregard for subtlety is on ‘34+35’. Ariana quite literally removes the wit from the numerical phrase, as if it wasn’t obvious enough, as she spells out her lustful intentions “Means I wanna "69" with you” on this dysfunctional sex jam.
The infatuation with bluntly expressed desires and the absence of the idea of beauty within the metaphor continues as Ariana exhibits some of her most underwritten and nondescript tracks to date. We have the offensively generic ‘just like magic’ which punches well below its weight in virtually every way possible outside of Ariana’s liberating vocal performance. Here, Ariana glosses over her accomplishments and achievements in a celebratory fashion. Whilst I’m all for an artist taking pride in their craft, I struggle to see what Ariana’s rendition of hollow braggadocio brings to the table. It feels like such a slap in the face having experienced just how in-depth and visceral Ariana has proven her story-telling talents to be in the past, to now hear her sell herself short with this by the books approach.
Looking past ‘Positions’ supremely subpar presentation and its gentrified landscapes, and I feel we get the occasional glimpse into the album Ariana so desperately wanted this to be. We get raunchy done right on the anything but coy ‘nasty’. Built upon a spine of those synonymous dreamy, delicate synth passages, don’t be fooled by its pretty and innocent presentation, as the track is anything but the tale of a damsel in distress it’d have you believe. It’s steamy, sexy, flirtatious and everything in between, as Ariana dedicates herself to her primal desires as she yearns for physical intimacy. Another strong point in the tracklist is the classy ‘love language’. With its zany fluttering synth melodies, flamboyant keys, and luxurious string movements, there’s a real vintage flair that ignites Ariana’s most gorgeous vocal performance across the album.
Thankfully, we end on a positive note, both metaphorically and literally, as the album’s closer, ‘pov’, preaches a particularly heartwarming sentiment that sticks with me long after conclusion. It’s a game of perspectives and intrigue, as Ariana finds herself wanting to live vicariously through her partner to learn to love and accept herself the way others do. Brought to life with these poignant synths and soaring strings, the arrangement is, simply put, pure euphoria and pure bliss. It is a simply breathtaking final moment as Ariana incorporates her most angelic and impassioned performance on ‘Positions’, as she pulls out all the stops on this theatrical exploration of what it is to be a human.
‘Positions’ really feels like a missed opportunity and a glimpse of Ariana regressing back to her old ways. Whilst I appreciate her willingness to branch out, and feed an outlet she has been teetering on the cusp of for years now, this feels like anything but the long-awaited r&b classic I expected it to be. Even when trimmed to its tidy 41 minute run time, and at only 14 tracks, ‘Positions’ is predominantly filler that comes off as serviceable due to just how easy on the ears it all is. It’s painfully obvious that this thing is built on the mantra of style over substance, as she conforms to a great deal of the usual tropes, but with none of that grand promise, exciting revelations, or heartache lyricism that very few have managed to pull off just as seamlessly as Grande. In many ways, I feel the shtick leaves Ariana feeling like a fish out of water. Try as I might, her application here, time and time again leaves me wanting more as I am constantly left trailing off, thinking back to just how much more complimentary and organic Ariana felt in the genre where she reigned supreme for a reason.
Positions - Ariana Grande - 5/10

Road to Taykhoo - This is the beginning of my realistic fiction story set in the fictional country of Teegia - let me know what you guys think!

Road to Taykhoo
Yegyar Beiraghan started hearing noises. A weird swishing sound and a tapping at his window. Tinkerings of music that didn’t seem to have a melody. Then, he woke up.
Yegyar was a 15 year old boy with a wiry build, dark brown wavy hair, gray eyes, and olive skin. Drowsy, tired, and frustrated from the short, six hour nap that was supposed to be sleep, he slowly turned his head to the electric clock on his nightstand, praying for it to be too early to get ready for the horrendous experience that was school. To his dismay, the bright, glowing red numbers on the black screen showed 7:41. He quietly cursed, making a mental note to himself to try to go to sleep earlier in the day. He knew he’d just end up staying till two in the morning anyway. Yegyar got up slowly; his whole body seemed to be in a mild malaise. Moving to the dresser, he pulled on his school uniform: navy chinos and a white polo with the school seal sewn on. Now dressed, he trod over to the heavy maple door of his bedroom and turned the brass handle.
Walking, or rather creaking, through the corridor, passing framed portraits of himself at two, at the pumpkin patch next to a scarecrow, at seven, holding a violin, and at twelve, in his soccer uniform, he thought of the day to come. Would Sengin, his crush, finally ask him out to the Winter Formal? He smiled to himself at the thought. It was supposed to be girls asking guys, but he wondered if he should try and ask her anyway. Trodding down the walnut stairs, he suddenly felt a sharp pinprick on the sole of his foot.
Wincing from the pain, he picked up the injured foot to survey the damage. He found an inch-long strip of hardwood lodged in. Gingerly, he tried pulling it out. He struggled to hold on to the tip of the splinter with his thumb and forefinger. He knew the right thing to do was to walk carefully to the bathroom and sort through the cabinet for a splinter-pulling instrument, but for some unknown reason, perhaps the thought of taking too much time locating the tweezers, he didn’t. Thumb and forefinger securely attached to the piece of wood, he pulled. Nothing. He pulled harder. It wouldn’t budge. Now he was using both hands to try and dislodge the wooden invader, and, to his delight, it finally came free. He picked it up, and felt giddy. He started to chuckle at it, the chuckle turning into a hearty laugh, and the laugh turning into a maniacal cackle. Suddenly, he realized he sounded like a psychopath. And a psychopath at this time in the morning! He looked around, behind him, in front of him, and listened for footsteps.
Good.
The coast was clear.
He tumbled down the rest of the stairs, all eight of them, and landed on the icy, frozen chill of the linoleum. A vague sense of dread and misty terror filled the foyer where he stood. There was nobody around. Yegyar ambled to the kitchen, and opened the cupboard. As usual, a musty, half-rancid, half-perfumed smell of clove, cinnamon, paprika, and stale crackers entered his nostrils. He rustled around for the box of granola bars, his favorite, and came upon it where it always was, behind the beans and next to the rancid crackers. Those expired squares of ground wheat were his father’s favorite, although he couldn’t figure out why. He reached in the box and felt a bar. Extracting it, he realized it wasn’t a bar, and rather just a wrapper. Puzzled, he stuck his head in the cardboard enclosure of the box and was shocked not to feel the cascade of granola bars on his nose.
“Hi, Yegyar. You’d better hurry up. It’s already 8:03.” Drat, he thought to himself. He shaved off twenty minutes just dressing and splintering about. He turned around and saw his mom with a cup of tea and the newspaper.
“Sorry, I’d thought I’d better throw those granola bars out,” she mentioned. “They have way too much sugar. I never noticed when buying them.” Something didn’t seem right to Yegyar. He thought of the empty wrapper in the box and felt a burst of anger well up inside of him.
“Then, why was there a wrapper in the box?” Yegyar asked. He instantly regretted it. His mom erupted into lecture mode, putting down the tea she was about to sip.
“Don’t talk back to me like that, young man. Do you see this roof over your head? Your father and I work very hard to support you. The least you could do is be grateful. Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Yegyar murmured, but inside he was seething. His mom, relieved by the respectful tone of voice, relaxed and turned back into the pacific side of her demeanor.
“Good, I made you some oatmeal, but you’d better eat it quickly.” Yegyar chugged the ceramic bowl, the gloopy, bland oatmeal scorching his throat. It had a weird taste. What was it? Garlic? Yegyar had no time to ponder what his mother put in the oatmeal. He rushed to the door, pulled on his shoes, threw on his backpack, and out he went.
“Have a good day!” his mother screeched.
His legs pounding on the pedals of his MX-830 Falcon road bike, Yegyar felt the cruel, wintry bite of the early February air on his face. Squinting his eyes to protect them from the wind, drops of moisture froze on his eyelashes, turning himself into a part-snowman. He was cycling as fast as he could manage on the gravel-topped road connecting his house with the city. Spruces, weighted down with snow, bare birches, wide oaks, and lofty beeches with brown leaves clinging to lower branches, survivors from last spring, surrounded him. The land in Karsh-Gaiga would be frozen until Mid-April, when streams would come to life, buds on trees would give way to new, chartreuse leaves, and snow would be almost fully melted. In the distance, he saw Lake Aibashar, the largest in Teegia, frozen with indigo blue ice reflecting the vivid sky. The drone of a car flew past him and he thought how lucky the people in it were to be in the heated, cozy interior with warm light and comfortable seats. It was a pleasant enough journey in September, but right now he felt betrayed by his parents as to why he had to ride his bike in the -20 degree air.
The woods cleared out and he turned onto the bike lane on Provincial Road 104, or Raibenghan Avenue at this stretch of it. He passed Toghan Bookstore, whose owner was always kind to Yegyar and once in a while let him have a free book, Darkhin grocery, a small family-owned business run by a couple in their 60s, Lakeside Cafe, a high-end bistro, and Baibaran Bakery. He would’ve loved to have stopped by and picked up a warm almond bun there, but he didn’t have time.
Turning onto Yarankhan Street, he went by the Chalet-style houses, with their fluffy caps of snow and tall elm trees lining the street, coming together to form a tunnel that would be beautiful in the summer, but now was just a reminder of the deadness and brutality of winter, a cage of bare branches. In the distance, Yegyar could see his school, Taibarag Chaishenkhu High. It was named after a Teegian king who defended his homeland from the invading Chuffians. Supposedly, he also was extremely ruthless to his own subjects, ordering anyone who spoke against him to be executed, but they didn’t teach that in history class. The stone-clad building was two storeys, with a red corrugated tin roof, and engravings of snakes at the entrance, a fitting design for the teachers of the school. Yegyar screeched to a halt and locked his bike. He was relieved to see the throng of zombie-like students entering the building. He was one of them, joining the crowd. Seeing his friend Egun, his face lit up a little.
“What’s up, Yeg?” he greeted Yegyar. “You ready for the English test?” Yegyar almost paused in his tracks. He had totally forgotten about studying for the vocab test for English. It was like he was never informed of it. The vocab list was tucked away deep in his backpack between science lab reports and math homework. He cursed, sending a teacher’s scornful eyes his way.
“That’s today?” he asked. He hoped the answer was no.
“Yeah, you studied?” Yegyar told him he forgot.
“Don’t worry man, you can study at study hall,” Egun reassured him, and he was off to his first period. Yegyar knew that wouldn’t do anything for him as he stepped inside Mrs. Hainakhan’s English class.
Ch. 2
Yegyar entered the classroom, with helpful posters about synonyms, frequently misspelled words, dimmed lighting, and a lavender scented candle infusing its flowery scent. He grabbed a cardboard privacy fence at the table next to the door and made his way to his desk. He propped the fence on the fake plastic varnish of the plywood desktop. He knew he was doomed. Quickly, he grabbed a dull pencil from his backpack pocket and waited for the test to begin.
“I don’t want to see any vocab papers out. We’re going to start the test in two minutes,” Mrs. Hainakhan announced. She walked to her bureau and pulled out a stack of papers. Licking her finger every so often, she started passing out the tests. He saw his tablemate Chaigaran get his test and then he saw in front of him a slowly falling white piece of paper careening toward his desk. Dread filled him. Hopefully, the words wouldn’t be too hard. He read a lot, so maybe he saw most of these words before. He took a peek at the paper and saw:
Define these words and use in a sentence:
Adumbrate
Ebullient
Scurrilous
Probity
Inchoate
Vituperate
Turpitude
The dread that filled him grew deeper. He didn’t know any of them. They sounded like a different language and he desperately tried to decode anything that looked slightly familiar. His parents were strict on grades, and if he received anything below a 90, they would scold him. He didn’t know what would happen if he failed.
“You may start,” Mrs. Hainakhan notified the class. Three ominous words. Yegyar started to define adumbrate. “Useless or idiotic” he wrote. He saw the word “dumb” in it and thought that might’ve had something to do with the word. “The adumbrate man tried to erase his writing with his pen cap,” he wrote for the sentence. That was ironic. Yegyar was making a fool of himself; he could’ve just put “Yegyar was being adumbrate by forgetting to study for the vocab test.” Oh well, it probably wasn’t the right definition anyway, he thought. Yegyar turned around and saw a couple of students turning their papers in. Frustration and stress filled his mind. He forced himself to calm down, but he struggled with the rest of the definitions and moved on to the multiple choice. He did a little better there and thought he might just pass the test. Now most students had their privacy fences down and only a couple of them still were answering questions. With a heavy heart, Yegyar got up from his seat and stumbled to the collection tray, putting his test in. Mrs. Hainakhan assembled the papers and put them in her gradebook.
“Okay, everyone finished? We have five minutes left in class. I’ll pass out the Atokhen Bridge projects from last week. I was a little disappointed by the grades, you guys really need to work harder and focus on the story,” Mrs. Hainakhan said. Receiving his project, Yegyar was astonished at the large, crimson 75 circled on his project folder. He thought he had worked hard on his project and had expected at least a 90. He knew Mrs. Hainakhan was a tough grader, but he didn’t know she was that tough. He listened to the other student’s reactions. He was surprised to hear Teitengar, who usually struggled in school, get an 85.
“Bro, I got an 85! Let’s go!” Teitengar punched the wall in excitement.
“Nice job, man. I got an 87, not bad!” Nondraighan said. “Hey Yegyar, what’d you get? You’re really smart, I bet you got a 100.” Yegyar winced at his desk, turning away from the two boys. He didn’t want to ruin their expectations.
“No, Nondra. He’s probably sad. Hey Yegyar, a 95 is nothing to be ashamed of. You can tell us what you got!” Teitengar said reassuringly. They were used to Yegyar being low-key about his high grades.
“75.” Yegyar mumbled the grade. He was really ashamed.
“What was that, Yeg?” Nondraighan prodded.
“75.” Yegyar spit out the grade a little louder this time.
“What’d he say, Nondra?”
“He got a 75. Wow, that’s low. I feel bad for him,” Nondraighan told Teitengar.
“75? Wow, I’m smarter than Yegyar. What the heck, is this an alternate reality?” Teitengar questioned. Yegyar thought the same. Everything was going horribly so far, and it was only 9:30!
The bell rang, and Yegyar got up slowly, trekking to the door.
Math was pretty uneventful. Yegyar was good at math, and the class was doing two-step equations, so it wasn’t bad at all. Still, he felt put off and unmotivated by the day’s events. Feeling a little better after math, he made it to history. Mr. Wenyep was droning on about the Reforms of 1877 and the transfer of power from royalty to a democracy. Yegyar, and indeed about half the class were about to fall asleep in the beige room, with its maps of Aibashar and Teegia, posters of motivational sayings, and famous figures. There was a bobblehead of Eshkan Hencharkhei, a highly regarded man who helped found the national school system of Teegia, on Mr. Wenyep’s desk.
As Yegyar was drifting off into daydreaming, thinking about moving to a warmer place in this cold part of the year, suddenly he heard his name in a loud booming voice.
“Yegyar, can you tell me who was the first person to sign the Reformation Accord of 1877?” Yegyar tensed up, and it dawned on him that he didn’t listen to a thing Mr. Wenyep said. The stolid look Mr. Wenyep gave him wasn’t giving anything away, but Yegyar had an idea that he knew he wasn’t paying attention. Well, if he didn’t know the answer, he might as well add a little humor to the situation.
“Um, Mr. Hunyarkhui?” he said, serious in tone. Mr. Hunyarkhui was the principal of the school; many students joked about how old he was. The classes erupted into a giggle. Rashar, a large boy with round glasses who found everything funny, was on the verge of tears, his resounding chortle making the whole class laugh harder. Mr. Wenyep wasn’t laughing, he wasn’t even giggling. He didn’t find it funny at all.
“Mr. Beiraghan, you have disrupted my class and caused everyone to lose their focus. Detention. Tomorrow after school,” he reproached.
Yegyar sunk in his seat. Egun, sitting across the room, gave him a knowing glance. For the rest of the class, Yegyar felt humiliated and sensed his cheeks burning. After the bell rang, he got up and made his way to his homeroom. Egun caught up with him
“That was hilarious, Yeg. Too bad you gotta go to detention,” he said.
“It would be too bad if I went to detention,” Yegyar answered. The ideas of leaving this town were already forming in his mind.
In Ms. Leikhurun’s homeroom class. Yegyar sat at his desk listening and reading the announcements on the smartboard. As Ms. Leikhurun went on about track meets, food drives, fundraisers, bake sales, and the school musical, he thought about asking Sengin to the dance. He saw the announcement flash on the screen for ten seconds, and he knew he had to do it.
“Okay, that’s that” Ms. Leikhurun said, and went to grading papers. Yegyar caught a glimpse of Sengin, with her light brown eyes and black hair, and started to get up. As he was walking to her desk, he thought of what he should say. Hey, Sengin, what do you think about going to the winter formal with me? Simple, but it didn’t sound bad. He was two desks away when, Gaishenur, a tall boy with freckles and straight medium brown hair turned around and said in a half whisper,
“So, hey Sengin, the winter formal’s coming up, I was wondering if you’d like to go with me, if you haven’t asked anyone yet.” Blushing, she said that sounded great. Yegyar’s heart shattered. It felt like he was punched in the stomach. He turned around and went back to his seat, about to cry. He desperately maintained his composure. Still, the blow to his confidence was devastating. That tears it, he thought. First the splinter, then the test, then the bad grade, then the detention, and now this?
“Oops, guys, I almost forgot. I gotta hand out your report cards.” Oh no, Yegyar thought. Something’s bound to go wrong. Ms. Leikhurun went around the class handing cards first to Iduran, Cheigin, and Atanga and now making her way to him. The 7x5 envelope fell to his desk, holding the potential to ruin or repair his school life. He didn’t want to look at it, so he slipped it into his backpack.
Lunch was his solace from the brutality of the day. He unpacked his lunch and ate the delicious barley and beans with chicken in silence. He thought to himself, I need to get out of here, everything’s been going wrong. But where should I go? He thought of the cold, barren wasteland that was Karsh-Gaiga for half of the year. He wanted life, warmth, and energy. Taykhoo, the nearly tropical megacity in the south of Teegia where oranges and pineapples grow, beckoned to him.
The rest of the day was as crummy as the part before it. In Ancient Teegian class, he spoke in English while he wasn’t supposed to. In chemistry class, the teacher yelled at him for breaking a beaker and spilling toxic fluid on the lab table. In orchestra, he couldn’t stay together with the rest of the group. He biked home utterly exhausted and angry.
Ch. 3
Yegyar entered the red wooden house in no mood to talk.
“Hi, Yegyar, how was school?” his mother asked. She couldn’t even begin to understand how horrible it was.
“Jim-dandy.”
“That’s good, Yegyar. I heard from your homeroom you got your report card today.” How did she know that? He pondered it for a while and came to the conclusion that she must’ve gotten an email.
“We’ll open it after dinner, okay?” his mother said. He agreed and continued to his room. Inside he was fearful. It shouldn’t be too bad, right? He had been getting less than perfect grades recently, especially in English.
Now in his room, with its white walls, posters of the periodic table and the Ikhai Ice (a basketball team), the Teegian flag, a globe, a bookshelf to the right of his bed, and his nightstand and dresser to the left, Yegyar sat on his bed and opened his backpack. He went through it, taking everything out: projects, homework, forms, tests, quizzes, bellwork, pens, pencils, erasers, notebooks, folders, and binders. And his report card. He weighed it in his hand, worried. He got into a panic, pacing the room. He thought, what will happen if the grades are bad? Should I care? He had such a bad day that not very much mattered to him anymore. His mind became increasingly nihilist as he paced. He turned on his laptop and searched “Taykhoo.” He read up on it, reading about the climate and people. It sounded great. There were trendy and cultural areas in parts of the city that he would love. Not like bland old Karsh-Gaiga. The weather was great, warm for 10 months of the year and cool for 2 months. Palm trees lined the streets and cafe culture presided everywhere. There was a great public transportation system, with metro, ferries, light rail, bus, commuter rail, and high-speed rail. For the next two hours, he watched videos and played games on his laptop (the phone he had was his mom’s former phone, which was at least as old as he was). Settling in to play another round of Battleground X on his laptop, his mom burst into his room, sending a shock wave of cold wind to his face.
“Hey, Yegyar, dinner’s ready.” She glanced at Yegyar playing his computer game. “Oh, and you know I don’t like you playing those games. I hope you did your homework. Come on, it’s bean pods and beef pancakes.” That didn’t sound too bad after a long day at school. He trundled down the stairs, careful not to step on any splinters, and met with his father at the dinner table. His dad was helping himself to a few bean pods, making loud crunching and slurping noises like a pig. It hurt Yegyar’s ears, and every so often he would make fun of his dad’s chewing by imitating it. His mom clanked a red porcelain plate at his place, and he took a couple pancakes and a ladleful of beans. He ate quietly, mulling over the day’s events. How could it get this bad?, he thought. He drank some water, letting the cool, smooth trickle hydrate his parched mouth. His parents were drinking hot cinnamon tea. It smelled good, but Yegyar was never a fan of it. They continued eating for the next twenty minutes. Yegyar, relishing the food as relief from the day.
“So, Yegyar, how ‘bout that report card?” his father probed. “You have it here?” Yegyar shook his head and ran upstairs to fetch it. His eyes traveled around the room and he spotted it on his bed. Picking it up, he walked back slower than when he came, his heart rate increasing. His parents coming into view from the foyer, he started getting nervous, his palms becoming clammy. He handed it to his dad.
“Let’s see here,” his dad said. He ran his thumb under the seal, tearing it open. Picking the card up and holding it out a couple feet from his face, his eyes widened. Shock, then anger flooded into his face, which turned as red as a freshly boiled lobster. He sort of looked like one too, with tiny round eyes like black orbs set in his bowling ball shaped head.
“What is this, Yegyar?! A 79 in English, a 83 in Science, and a 88 in Orchestra! In Orchestra, Yegyar! How is that even possible?! I thought we raised you better! Oh my gosh-” and his father held his face in his hands.
“Look at your father, Yegyar! Look what you’ve done! See how he feels, you made him that way! Unbelievable, a 79 in English!” Yegyar turned around, angry tears forming. It was impossible. It never occurred to him that his grades were slipping. Anyway, who cared? His parents didn’t care about his livelihood, only about his grades! Is that what parents are for? It’s not even what teachers are for! He stormed up the stairs and ran down the corridor into his room. Turning on his laptop, he started to pound on the keyboard in frustration when he heard footsteps come up the stairs.
“You should be done with your homework by now, Yegyar. I’m very disappointed in you. You let this family down. What a shame, our only son!” his mom said with a heavy sigh. If it was supposed to make Yegyar ashamed of himself, it wasn’t working. In fact, he was angry at them. Just as he was about to unpause the movie, he heard a slam of a door and loud arguing for his parents room. Although muffled, he could make out most of what they were saying.
“God, what a disappointment! You should’ve really raised him better, Maigin!”his father yelled.
“Me?! where were you when I was trying to take care of him?! He’s abominable, and he’s getting worse!” his mom retorted.
“You know, you’re right, I don’t even want him! What a disgrace, sitting around in his room all day! How about some recognition of our care! The spoiled brat!”
“You don’t want him?! I don’t want him either, you take him!” his mother hissed.
His father sputtered in exasperation. “No, you! You’re the one who “raised” him!” he said in a mocking tone. His father’s inflection sent an icy grip of anguish that felt like the Ross Ice Shelf was collapsing on Yegyar.
This was too much for Yegyar. It was unbearable to hear. If they didn’t want him, then he didn’t want them either.

Why SpaceX Dreams Of Colonization But Must Dream Of All Space And How We Might Get There

Why SpaceX Dreams Of Colonization But Must Dream Of All Space And How We Might Get There

Introduction
Elon Musk’s had a sentiment sometime last year that it would be easier for Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) to land on the Moon [or Mars] than it would be to convince National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) they could. This is likely no longer true. While publicly Administrator Jim Bridenstine appears to do his best to treat both Commercial Crew Program (CCDev) Partners Boeing and SpaceX equally, reading between the lines of his Congressional budget response, I believe Bridenstine is fully behind SpaceX not just with launching American Astronauts with Rockets on American Soil (AARAS) but moving forward forward with Project Artemis, deep space, Mars, or any future NASA missions.

Old Space and New Space
With the CCDev Admin. Bridenstine has himself, personally, been afforded an opportunity to work hand in hand with both partners; with this deep dive into the operations and culture the he now has a clear understanding on the differences between how “old space” of Boeing versus “new space”of “SpaceX” conducts themselves during their success and failures.
Admin. Bridenstine has seen the true measure and dedication of the entire SpaceX team, from entry level engineers to the top management including the CEO & Chief Engineer Elon Musk. NASA’s Administrator has witnessed firsthand how SpaceX can quickly adapt, how motivated SpaceX is to its goal of spaceflight and human colonization of space, and the kind of leadership Musk can provide for those working SpaceX, the space industry, and the entire public. Administrator Bridenstine having compared “new space” to “old space” - has seen the future, and that future is now.
Both Boeing and SpaceX have seen their fair share of setbacks and failures on the road to AARAS. When this non-official race started, Boeing was legacy and seen as the clear leader. Not only had years of experience building spacecraft but a proven track record flying them. Boeing was already working on SLS and Orion and at the time NASA not only seemed pleased with their projects, they admired them as the only real possible future.
SpaceX, when selected did have some success with Commercial Resupply Services (CRS), but later suffered from tarnished record as one of their Falcon 9 (F9) rockets failed during the 7th resupply mission. A year later another F9 failed during propellant loading while on the pad during static fire testing. While SpaceX seriously underbid Boeing by a large margin, most all considered them to be the fall back or the secondary cheaper option to the more sure bet of Boeing. Asking most any space insider at the time to bet who would be first to the ISS, money would have been on Boeing.
Now the shoe is on the other foot after what seemed to be smooth sailing for Boeing development. When a root cause analysis is applied to the origin of these failures at Boeing and SpaceX, it shows a fundamentally different foundation for errors and more importantly how these errors are a reflection of the type of company Boeing and SpaceX are. With the first SpaceX failure, it appears to revolve around an issue between parts failing below specification and not being rated to work at the cryogenic temperatures SpaceX was submitting them to. The second failure had to do with some unknown or lesser known interaction of carbon/metal/oxygen in material science.
Boeing’s mishaps during the most recent Starliner test flight was especially concerning; not only with a series of errors that should have been part of the readiness testing prior to launch, but even more worrying was how NASA was able to determine that Boeing, who opted for process verification over testing verification, was not following their own process guidelines to prevent such an issue - then seemed to blame its NASA overseers for not catching them. Beyond what problems lie within Boeing from within the Aviation division some of these issues seem systemic and cultural within the company as a whole. Error and failures occur, but what is troubling is how the company handles and responds to them (or doesn’t until forced).

A Paradigm that Shapes the Company and Leads a Nation
There are two main types of people when going into a fight: those who follow the warrior ethos and those who follow the survivor mentality. When you are trying to survive, in your mind you think dying is a real possibility and you need to do what you can to survive. The warrior ethos thinks only of defeating enemies.
What defines a great company? A great company does not just dominate its market or industry; nor does it simply exist for long periods of time. A great company shapes the way people live, it changes how all other businesses operate, and it serves as a berating disruptive force. This is accomplished not through hyping and making people believe they are great, but through delivering actual goods, services, and products.
Now, there are two possibilities at play. The first is that in previous generations Boeing once was a great amazing American company a leader in the Aviation and Aerospace industries, leading to its legacy that led to selection for SLS, Orion, and now CCDev. The second is that Boeing never truly met the criteria to be a great company its secure market position only existing feeding off the teet of taxpayers and it is only now with real competition that the truth is being exposed. With all the systemic failures that have continued to plague this company and continued dangerous ways it handles them, it is clear it is not learning or trying to learn from these failures.
Whichever the case, many great people may work for the company, but the Boeing that exists today is a survivor and their mentality is to minimize risks to ensure survival. If they were a great company they will never return to the warrior they might have been before the Boeing 2707. Taking chances on technologies that could take us to Mars or beyond could lead to major failures and that is too much or too costly of a risk for a survivor mindset company. It is not interested in big dreams only big pocketbooks, and I believe the indication is what Administrator Bridenstine has seen from Boeing has him concerned.
SpaceX, comparatively, is following the warrior ethos, setting up goals and not letting the fear of failure prevent them from fighting on to the next. SpaceX is not afraid to make mistakes and when errors are made they use them to use them to improve not only their vehicles, but allow the knowledge and technology to improve all spaceflight. What Administrator Bridenstine has seen from Musk and SpaceX not only seems to have him encouraged but has him excited.
NASA’s and SpaceX’s goals on human spaceflight are aligned; NASA’s and Boeing’s are not.

Politics, Funding, and what the Public will Tolerate
I believe SpaceX now has the full weight of the support of the NASA Administrator. What this means without getting into the mess of politics; if one were to extract the the historic record of an incumbent president with a decent economy SpaceX should have that support for another 4.5 years (written before coronavirus outbreak). At their rate of improvement we are looking at the largest shift in space since Apollo.
With support from the Executive Branch of the US Government, one must look at the Legislature. What does it look like for House and Senate elections? The current Democrat controlled House did pass a pretty atrocious aforementioned spending bill that would have handed the keys of spaceflight over to Boeing and prevented private partnerships with SpaceX and other companies on pretty much everything, not just the Moon or Mars. This is likely not a partisan issue along party lines, as this is more an issue with lobbying. The funding must also contend with infamous legends in the Senate like Rep. Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama who has long harmed space exploration and science in favor of jobs and financial kickbacks.
At the heart of impossible dreams, such as becoming a space faring civilization, is the reality that it requires thinking and invention of something intangible - science and knowledge that cannot yet be imagined. If it cannot yet be imagined it cannot be quantified, if it cannot be quantified, it cannot be given a value. However, it is invaluable once you have it, but has no value while you do not. The public has little patience knowingly* spending money on the intangible or what they cannot imagine, but it is these ideas and inventions that are the very foundation for all advancement in modern health and technology. People's lives are forever improved because we pushed and explored our boundaries into the unknown. The core issue is that Congress, thus the public is the crux for any exploration, including space, and they need something tangible to believe in. This is what I am focusing on today.

Do or Do Not; There is No Try
Every step and decision that SpaceX makes must align with the dream of getting to Mars, building a sustainable colony, and making humanity a space faring civilization so that the light of life will not be extinguished. Spending the time asking the right question can be more important than spending the time answering correct answers to the wrong questions. As Elon said in his interview with Tim Dodd, the best part is no part. Elon also likes to design along first principles and we can see in a lot of his business how disruptive and amazing these kinds of principles, among others, can be.
Right now SpaceX is blasting off like a rocketship getting their first 9 meter (9m) Starship (SS) and Superheavy (SH) parts prepped in Boca Chica (BC) for the 20 kilometers (20k) and orbital tests later this year. These are key milestones necessary for their goal of sending 9m cargo versions of SS to Mars in 2022 and assisting NASA with their Artemis program to the Moon. However, the biggest reason for the push for the 9m SS is that the 9m SS can launch ~540 Starlink satellites for a fraction of the cost with an est. of $5 million or lower compared to $30 million with Falcon 9 (F9). Not only does this reduce a substantial burden of cost for SpaceX for Starlink, but ramps up production and potential revenue for funding further missions going to Mars necessary for SpaceX.
When Starlink is successful, thereby funding secured for their Mars Shot, what does the timeline look like for SpaceX? It is aggressive, yet within grasp, cargo to be launched to Mars in 2022 and humans launched early as 2024. We must ask do these radical timelines align as the best way of building a sustainable colony on Mars? Dr. Robert Zubrin brings up this question quite often. He does not want to see boots, flags, pictures, come home, forget senario. In what way does SpaceX doing a couple of early one off cargo and astronaut missions to Mars do for one day sending entire waves of colony ships there? The answer is quite obvious to all of us, besides very important testing and validation of equipment, it is to make people believe we can do it.
Right now if you talk to the average US taxpayer who has seen rocket launches like SpaceX F9 land, but don’t know the first thing about them and you tell them that Space Launch System (SLS) NASA is responsible for cost taxpayers 2+ billion dollars is not reusable and the F9 costs ~$50 million, they ask well why isn’t the SLS reusable and why does it cost so much? The brilliant people who lobby jobs at Congress to keep jobs in certain districts knew this would be problematic for voters especially when there are specific laws in place for waste, fraud, and abuse. So they went and created a mission that only SLS could do (*in a single launch) in order to justify its existence.
Now when that question is asked, they can tell their voters, “the SLS is state of the art technology derived from the Space Shuttle that is the most powerful* rocket that exists* today and far more capable* than that little Falcon 9, it can even take our American Astronauts back to the Moon* from American Soil!”. Obviously we all here know that that Starship is going to be a serious disruption to this entire industry, these Congresspeople, Senators, and the Space Industry. But the thing is even though the mission and size of the Lunar Gateway is rather unnecessary and was a waste because it only existed to justify the existence of a jobs program, it doesn’t mean similar concepts are invalid when addressed by Starship and SpaceX to benefit the core mission.

We want to Remember History with Wings, but it Belongs to those with Anchors
On September 12th, 1962 President John F. Kennedy gave his historic speech that forever changed the direction of a nation and a world. Leading the path of the United States to drive forward into the unknown, to strive to overcome challenges that are difficult is part what defines us as human beings, and that we are not just content looking at the stars wondering what exciting discoveries may be up there versus instead of fighting over scabbles over soil.
However 50 years ago today, on March 7th 1970 President Richard M. Nixon changed officially undid that directive, with general support from the public. Setting the space program on part with any other domestic program or policy, reduction in the NASA budget, and effectively ending all human spaceflight beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) where we have remained for Fifty Years. LEO has become a dirty word for human spaceflight. Space Station is synonymous with a Middle-Age of space exploration.
As much as the International Space Station (ISS) has provided goods amounts of scientific research and good will between once enemy nations, it has felt more of an anchor than as a stepping stone. Even the Lunar Orbiting Gateway (LOG) which exists only to give SLS a mission only it can do on paper, (*in a single launch) can provide more amazing scientific studies for astronauts and scientists for the Moon. Perhaps it can even provide some deep space research, but ultimately it provides very little in real funding and technology that moves us any closer to a colony on the Moon or Mars. However, just because these are poor examples of stations doesn’t mean space stations are anchors.

Colonization needs more than a Railroad and only SpaceX can Build it
SpaceX is developing and building a 9m Starship with core mission the core mission to colonize Mars but is also using the 9m SS to launch Starlink missions to provide the funding that core mission. Using technology to gain an overlapping benefit is necessary to reach extraordinary goals. In order to reach that amazing goal of being multiplanetary civilization there are several types of technologies, methodologies, and simply partnerships that need to be developed and tested in space before colony ships can begin departing to Mars. As pointed out in a recent interview with Joe Rogan, Astronaut Garrett Reisman said we have research on 1g+, we have research in microgravity ~0g, but not much in between. We don’t know the effects on the human body, plants, or animals of .38g on Mars or .16g long term effects on Luna. In fact right now SpaceX plans to send humans from Earth at 1g, fly for about 3 months at 0g using resistive training exercises to prevent bone and muscle loss, then land at .38g on Mars. On return simply reverse. NASA on the other hand probably has been granted Congressional approval to put together a preliminary panel to decide to study the matter in 2069.
We have the ISS, but it is not designed or capable of large scale gravity research of this kind. There are several companies attempting to make launchable modules, but even then there are manufactures that produce blowup dolls that seem to generate less controversy. However, there is one company that is capable and part of their core mission to build something that would allow others to study this and that is SpaceX. Such a large scale station has a number of advantages that only SpaceX can leverage.
One, it can be built with the same stainless steel used to build Starship. It is cheap, plentiful, mass-manufactured, easy to repair, and having steel in orbit could always be repurposed for other tasks (ships) in the future. Two, once the station(s) is built SpaceX can access it quickly, easily, and inexpensively with Starship; this means when companies and Congress are forced by opportunity to use this gift it ensures continued partnership with SpaceX on current and future endeavours, something the current House budget bill tries to prevent. Three, since SpaceX can place this in a non-ISS eccentric orbit and in a more friendly equatorial orbit it can rendezvou more often. Rather than having a backlog of NASA Astronauts who have to make a cut to do work in space with this station(s) and variable gravity, low launch costs, and when partnered with Starship it can be a frequented workplace. NASA could have an entire workforce and staff placed there. On Monday morning you take Starship up, on Friday you take one home.

Biggest Hurdle for Multi-Planetary Civilization is not Technical
Why do these things matter? How does a massive orbital station help the core mission of SpaceX reach colonization of Mars? I was talking with a few people the other week about going to Mars as I am someone who believes it is the grandest adventure one could take. I am one of those people who has the goal, to be at that point in life that, I can sell my home, buy a ticket, move to Mars, and live on a hostile planet with other human beings so that one day a thriving civilization will arise from dust. However, when listening to Rogan talk to the Astronaut Reisman, he thinks only crazy people will go. That is when it dawned on me after all these conversations, why a massive station matters. Why seeing huge rocket land and it seeming so routine and normal matters. Why the public’s perception of space, not just of people going wanting to colonize Mars, but all space, matters.
For the average person, the taxpayer to support what NASA does, to get Congressional and Senate support, they have to see it as normal and reasonable. The public no longer has the stomach for the excitement of the amazing and unknown, only the safe and maybe slightly a little bit out there. We need funding for more than rockets to get there; we need more than a rail road, we need more than Starship to colonize and send people to Mars.

We Can’t Wait
Part of what SpaceX does is to push that edge so that edge that once seemed impossible now seems probable until that probable becomes normal and expected, but we must not just dream big, but we must also think wide. We need a large gravity station that can test long-term effects of Mars and Moon like gravity on humans, plants, and animals, including embryonic development because if we are going to have a colony we need to have babies. Ethically we can not wait to put our best minds on the problems of human development for colony research into reproduction until after we are colonizing, we need to start now. Life, uh, finds a way. It can end miracuously or terribly tragically and it is something we have to have figured out before people land there.
We need this station to test out plant strains whether grown in Martian soil or hydroponically in .38g or .16g best grow, not when we first set boots there, but now, so it's ready for when we get there. We need to see how cats, dogs, fish, cows, pigs, etc live, grow, react to being in these types of environments. Part of the reason we seek to make life multi-planetary is so that the consciousness and life are not extinguished should something happen on Earth. If we go alone not only is that a lonely way to go it would be selfish. Besides, as much as people ethically want lab grown meat, there should be a backup if the fate of humanity is at risk.
We want to joke about space tourism being a joke for someone going up for 20 mins, or a couple of orbits, let’s stop making it a joke and make it a real thing. Space isn’t a joke, space isn’t the future, space is now, and space should be as real for every day folk as taking a cruise. It needs to be that if we want to explore the oceans of Europa with manned subs or see the rings of Saturn for ourselves.
Colonizing Mars, are we just going there to die? Life needs things to live and there is more to life than growing food, eating, defecating, sleeping, and breeding. We don’t just want to live on Mars to die on Mars, or Space, or the Moon. We want to live on Mars or on the Moon or in Space - SO we can explore it. We don’t just want to get up in the morning sip our coffee watch the blue sunrise of mars and think, with that calm melancholy of contentment “yup I’m done”, no, we get up with a spark of life and think, “I’ve got so much more to do and see!” Yeah getting there, landing there* (in one piece), and living there is a big piece of the puzzle, but we have to remember part of getting somewhere is the journey getting there. We need to remember Mars is part of the journey not the end. There are other gardens to build and maintain before we get there, and after..

Switching to Stainless Steel Changed Everything
How big would such a gravity research station be? How would you launch such an orbital station? While I may not get these numbers right, first draft I propose building a 20 meter launch vehicle; Uber Heavy (UH) lifter and Super Starship (SSS), the UH sitting roughly the same height as the current Super Heavy (SH) and the SSS roughly only 20 meters taller than the SS (with exception to special mission designed fairings). The purpose of this vehicle is to launch 18m ring sections of Starship grade stainless steel with a robotic system that would weld these sections to create massive tubular ring for a station. A floating donut if you will.
The SSS would have a robot system protruding out of the end and would act like a spider spinning a web with each 18m ring section completed. First unfurling the rolled cut coiled stainless steel from the cargo bay, then welding the single seam weld to create the ring and birthing the first ring. A secondary precut curve strip would be welded on by the robot and the ring would in forward as another ring would have its single seam welded before welded to the curve strip and the ring the whole section would then be continuously pushed out of the SSS. Again imagine a spider spinning its web or a birthing process. This process may take multiple launches depending on how big of a ring is made and the robot may need to be removed from the ship for ring completion.
Once this ring is completed on opposing sides strong docking ports, preferably with potential to rotate Starship can dock and provide energy to boost, spin, and despin. However, this ring can be completed multiple times to create multiple stations for different uses such as fuel depots, where the larger 20m SSS can drop off fuel for the fleets of 9m SS and avoid thousands of launches to send hundreds of ships to Mars. Or one can connect multiple rings together and weld plates to create a drum tube like the Nauvoo from the Expanse.

Why a single 20m vehicle?

Can refuel 9 meter vehicle in less launches than other 9 meter versions
9m is more suitable for Mars in-situ resource production
Can launch and build massive stations out of 18-15-9m construction materials
Can launch 9 m Starship with full vacuum only raptors which can then aerobrake with Earth and dock at dedicated transfer station SpaceX station for physical attunement back to Earth
Reduces launch cadence for refueling, range, noise, landing ships
If not used often Raptors can be placed on other ships
Reduces number of launches for tankers for “fleets” of 9m SS down order of magnitudes
Larger launch windows with weather
Falcon Heavy (FH) was louder than SH according to Environmental Impact Study (EIS)
May mean 20m vehicle may or may not be as loud as people think
Still would need massive launch and landing pad

Why build a SpaceX Gravity Spin Station?

Dedicated transfer station allows for testing and training of people on safety for departing and returning passengers, including gravity acclimation
Logically easier to have Starship Shuttles (similar to Earth to Earth SS) to EO stations and dedicated Mars colonial ships for passengers already in orbit, due to the nature of in orbit refueling
Allows for testing of larger life support systems for Earth to Mars and Moon Missions in increments rather than current component legacy methodologies
Can be used as a shipyard to build other deep space vessels or gateways for other companies or agencies
Workyard in an easy orbit compared to ISS, with 9m Starship could go up to work for a few days can come back by the end of the week
Used with 20m SSS tanker a ring refueling station means tanking can be done way in advance of launch windows, meaning launch assuredness goes up
SpaceX can simply wait in orbit refuel and wait to launch when time is best
No more launch windows, simply rideshare to station on SS and all launch providers launch from station with vacuum/space rated stages to desired orbits
Massive amounts of pressurized volume and space means no more expenditure miniaturizing science equipment and reduction of launch costs so massive boost to scientific study of all kinds science
Stations could be sold or rented for real space tourism
In-space welding
Whether vacuum welds or cold-welding for superior welding of steel for Starships fleets

[OC] The MLB All-Time Beer Team

Baseball, America’s game, has always been synonymous with beer. Many ballparks are still named after beer companies, many teams were founded purely as a way for the townspeople to drink beer, and everyone likes to enjoy a nice brew at the ballpark (depending on the affordability of said brews at your hometown park). Given that we currently have an abundance of time and a dearth of baseball, I bring to you the MLB All-Time Beer Team.
My Process: Haphazard and not exhaustive. I tried to select the most beer-y player at each position based on an undisclosed litany of criteria (my incredibly flawed background knowledge). This was not a scientific process, and I welcome any additions to this roster! Player value was not considered, but player prominence was, so there is certainly a correlation (causation?! we'll get to that) between achievement and popular association with beer. Some positions had much more beer association than others, which resulted in more competition that required some snubs at particular roster spots--for example, pitchers and outfielders are overwhelmingly beer-y compared to middle infielders and catchers. I didn't provide honorable mentions--please do in the comments. For each player, I have provided my rationale for their appearance on this list, the strength of their association with beer on a scale of 1-5 cans, and the player’s metaphorical Spirit Beer (it is this final category that I welcome much additional conjecture and debate).
Position Players:

1B: Seth Beer
2B: Whit Merrifield
3B: Wade Boggs
SS: Alex Rodriguez
C: Pudge Rodriguez
OF: Bud Weiser
OF: Babe Ruth
OF: Darryl Strawberry

Five-Man Rotation:

John Lackey
Jon Lester
Josh Beckett
Aaron Nola
David Wells

Relief Pitcher:

Pat Light

Player by player, here are all of the advanced metrics that went into the formulation of this all-time beer roster.
First Base: Seth Beer

Rationale: His inclusion here is self-evident. Minor leaguer Beer became a meme when he was one of the players that the Astros sent over to the DBacks for Zach Greinke last season: “Astros trade Beer for Greinke.” Hardy har har. Beer is a top twenty prospect in the DBacks’ system, but he was a legendary college player at Clemson, winning the college player of the year award as a freshman in 2016. His name immediately includes him on this roster.
Beer Association: Three cans. The name is undeniable, but his beer association appears to be all in the name for the moment.
Spirit Beer: That New Offering From Your Local Microbrewery. They have what is undeniably beer, but, much like 23-year-old Beer, they need some time to figure things out, and their beers are very hit-or-miss, much like Beer and his 20%+ K rate in AA last season.

Second Base: Whit Merrifield

Rationale: Whit Merrifield is one of the most overlooked and underrated players in baseball, which makes his partnership with Boulevard Brewing Company completely unsurprising: BBC is the largest craft beer company in the Midwest, but I bet you didn’t know that (and neither did I). Merrifield has led the league in hits for the past two seasons, but the average fan wouldn’t know him if he threw an empty at them. Hell, in 2018 he led the league in hits and stolen bases, finished with 5+ fWAR, and didn’t get an all star nod. Whit, and BBC, represent the overlooked Midwest. His name is also almost literally a kind of beer (Wit).
Beer Association: Two cans. He is a dedicated partner with BBC, but, sadly, both Whit and BBC represent a local campaign.
Spirit Beer: Boulevard Brewing Company’s Unfiltered Whit, of course.

Third Base: Wade Boggs

Rationale: Oh, Wade Boggs (may he rest in peace). Everything that has been said about Wade Boggs and beer has already been said. We don’t know how many beers he actually drank on that legendary cross-country flight, but reports fluctuate between 64 and 107. Boggs has declined to confirm the actual number, but he does confirm that “it was a lot of Miller Lites.”
Beer Association: Emphatic five cans and team captaincy.
Spirit Beer: Miller Lite (of course).

Shortstop: Alex Rodriguez

Rationale: It pains me to include him on this list, but there were very few shortstops associated with beer, and A-Rod was an okay ballplayer. A-Rod recently became the co-owner and chairman of Presidente Beer. According to Forbes, A-Rod says, “The hundreds of Dominican major league players and Latin American players that have played in this country, the first thing they do after a game is have a Presidente.” Hyperbole? Maybe. In any case, A-Rod is a beer advocate.
Beer Association: One can. Buying a beer company does not make you a beer person, but middle infielders tend to not be associated with beer.
Spirit Beer: Natty Ice. Potent, ubiquitous, seems like a good idea, they make a lot of money, you get over it as you get older, and everyone hates it.

Catcher: Ivan Rodriguez

Rationale: Pudge is, of course, one of the most legendary catchers of all time. He also partnered with Nine Band Brewing in Texas to endorse his own beer, 13 Gold, named for the thirteen Gold Gloves that he earned over the course of his 21-year career.
Beer Association: One can. Catcher is thin on beer associations.
Spirit Beer: Pabst Blue Ribbon. Much like Pudge, PBR has been consistently at or near the top of the beer food chain forever, and they are decorated (hence the blue ribbon). Also like Pudge, PBR goes in and out of fashion (PEDs, ebbs and flows of his career, etc). Pudge played for seven different MLB teams, and everyone has PBR memories (for better or worse).

Outfield: Bud Weiser

Rationale: Harry Budson “Bud” Weiser played most of his early-1900s career in New York and Pennsylvania leagues, but he did play a few games for the Phillies in 1915 and 1916, going 12-74 in the majors on his way to earning -0.8 WAR. Sheesh. What a name, though. Considering the rest of this lineup, he’s worth a spot.
Beer Association: Two cans. Strong name, weak game.
Spirit Beer: Budweiser. The brand name is strong, but, like Sir Weiser, the beer is below average.

Outfield: Babe Ruth

Rationale: It is an accepted truth that George Herman Ruth was the greatest player of his time while subsisting completely on hot dogs and beer . . . during prohibition and the Great Depression. If you ask him, the Babe actually drank so much beer to support his community: “Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, 'It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.’” He was truly a Depression-era social leader, that George.
Beer Association: Five cans. That beer gut is legendary.
Spirit Beer: Sam Adams Boston Lager. They both originated in Boston and both eventually left Boston to produce elsewhere. Ruth was ahead of his time and dominated, much like how Sam Adams was ahead of the craft beer boom. If Ruth were to play today, he would likely not be as dominant as he was in his time, but he did more to grow the game than almost any other player in history. Sam Adams has lost its cache as a “cool” craft beer, but they opened the door for other craft breweries to enter the market.

Outfield: Darryl Strawberry

Rationale: Darryl Strawberry is on the team as a representative from the debaucherous Mets of the eighties. Of course, they weren’t known just for their beer drinking, but Strawberry makes sure to set the record straight: “Beer was the foundation of our alcoholic lifestyle. We hauled around more Bud than the Clydesdales.” Additionally, according to Untappd, Strawberry has nineteen different craft beers named after him. Talk about a legacy.
Beer Association: Four cans. If he wasn’t known more for doing coke and having sex in between innings than he was for drinking beer, this would be a five.
Spirit Beer: Abita Purple Haze. Abita makes offbeat fruity beers that are risky and full of flair, like Darryl Strawberry, but they are undeniably successful.

SP: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, John Lackey

Rationale: The 2011 Red Sox. Yuck. The chicken-and-beer scandal (which needs no repeating) came as the Sox lost a nine-game division lead by going 7-20 to end the year amidst turmoil. Terry Francona was unjustly shooed out of town, and Bobby Valentine led the Red Sox to a 69-win season in 2012. Beckett, Lester, and Lackey--three legendary pitchers who all made valuable contributions to the Red Sox at other points in their careers--spearheaded the ugliness. They were all on the 2012 roster before the purge in the offseason of 2013.
Beer Association: Four cans. One cannot talk about the 2011 Red Sox without talking about beer, but their careers are not defined by 2011.
Spirit Beer: Busch. Like this SP threesome, Busch looks great--the mountains on the can!--and makes a lot of money, but who wants a regular Busch? You’ll just get fat and end up with a bad taste in your mouth. If you want to drink trash, you should order a Busch Light, just as we wanted another version of these pitchers.

SP: Aaron Nola

Rationale: Nola partnered with Yuengling, ingratiating himself with the fans of Philadelphia. He donned a butt-ugly Yuengling uniform and declared: “I had my first Yuengling Lager after being drafted by Philadelphia and I haven't looked back. The fact that America's Oldest Brewery is family owned and operated is important to me as I value family over everything." He is a company man, that Nola.
Beer Association: Two cans. Regional favoritism.
Spirit Beer: Narragansett. Nola loves to fish and he sports a sick curveball (“hook”--get it?), so he takes another regional favorite that is forever associated with coastal fishing after being featured in Jaws.

SP: David Wells

Rationale: David Wells is that guy who anti-baseball advocates point to when they argue that baseball players aren’t athletes. Wells may actually have been the most impressive athlete in baseball: He claims to have been “half drunk” when he threw a perfect game in 1998. He claimed to regularly drink 25 beers at a time. He literally mentions beer in the title of his book (who knew that David Wells had a book?). He brags about how he drank beer regularly during his best season. Wells is truly the everyman player.
Beer Association: Three cans for his consistent effort toward being associated with beer.
Spirit Beer: Guinness. David Wells does not look like an athlete, but he was truly an excellent pitcher. People who have never had a Guinness assume that its deep, dark color means that it is bitter and heavy, but Guinness is actually light and refreshing. Plus, the glasses are extra thicc (like Wells), and it is a stout. David Wells is also stout (Get it? Get it??).

RP: Pat Light

Rationale: I love Pat Light. In his one year in the majors (2016), Light was an absolutely horrid major league pitcher, giving up 21 earned runs on 22 hits over only 16.2 innings in seventeen appearances. Since then, he has become a cult figure among a certain crew of Red Sox fans (whaddup whaddup) for his humility and ability to make fun of himself while still following the Red Sox. He’s on this list for two reasons: His name sounds like a beer’s name (Bud Light, Coors Light, you fucking get it), and I would love to get a beer with Pat Light.
Beer Association: ½ can. I recognize my biases.
Spirit “Beer”: Four Loko. Only do it a few times, all hell breaks loose, and you never forget it (or, you forget everything, as most Red Sox fans have sadly done with Pat Light).

This team turned out to be littered with all-time greats, which tells us one of two things: Either beer is rightfully synonymous with baseball, or we only hear the stories about the good players who drink a lot of beer.
Or maybe, just maybe, a lot of beer makes you better at baseball.
PS: (All stats are per Fangraphs. Please become a member if you are inclined! They are struggling, as many of us are, during this pandemic. Much love.)

If there is a feeler of feeling, how is the self an illusion? I still can't understand the illusion of the self?

CMV: "Sex change" and "sex reassignment" are loaded, biased terms that were created to influence how people view sex. Literally speaking, it's impossible to change your sex.

define bet synonym video

bet definition: 1. to risk money on the result of an event or a competition, such as a horse race, in the hope of…. Learn more. Another word for bet. Find more ways to say bet, along with related words, antonyms and example phrases at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. 1. to risk an amount of money by saying what you think will happen, especially in a race or game. You lose the money if you are wrong and win more if you are right. bet on: Thousands of people bet on the result of the match. bet something on something: I bet £10 on each of the horses. bet (someone) that: bet-on | definition: place a bet on | synonyms: back, stake, punt, parlay, game, bet, play, ante, double up, gage, wager| antonyms: disapprove, front, fore, anterior, negate Bet definition, to wager with (something or someone). See more. bet. 1. n ante, gamble, hazard, long shot, pledge, risk, speculation, stake, venture, wager. 2. vb chance, gamble, hazard, pledge, punt (chiefly Brit.) put money on, put one's shirt on, risk, speculate, stake, venture, wager. English Collins Dictionary - English synonyms & Thesaurus. See also: Bet. In response to a statement. Slang for Fa sho, which is slang for For sure; which means Sure or Okay. (Derived slang from the 1980's .) " All set homie." "Bet." Translation: "Everything is set, my friend." Definition of bet. (Entry 1 of 3) 1 a : something that is laid, staked, or pledged typically between two parties on the outcome of a contest or a contingent issue : wager —often used figuratively in such phrases as all bets are off to stress the uncertainty of an outcome. b : the act of giving such a pledge. bet | definition: maintain with or as if with a bet | synonyms: promise, foretell, prognosticate, anticipate, forebode, predict, wager, call| antonyms: anterior, negate, forward, veer, ahead Synonym.com is the web's best resource for English synonyms, antonyms, and definitions. Synonyms of bet. (Entry 1 of 2) 1 the money or thing risked on the outcome of an uncertain event. she offered the bet of a free lunch if her team won the World Series.

Bet Synonyms, Bet Antonyms | Thesaurus.com

define bet synonym

define bet synonym - win

Humanity Chooses Knowledge