Podcasts about euclidian

The Ancestral Science Podcast was grateful to speak with PHILIP STEVENS, San Carlos Apache, Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Idaho, about (global/Western) mathematics being like pornography or taxidermy, non-Euclidian tessellations in mesquite wood stacking, patterns of the Land, Apache ontologies, academic camouflage, and focusing on how to take care of our own garden/sphere of influence to broaden mathematical perspectives. Upon Philip's request, honoraria was gifted to someone we know that is in need. They were grateful, thank you. Remember, you can support the pod and rock some unique Indigenous Science merch at www.relationalsciencecircle.com/shop, all proceeds go towards Knowledge Keeper honoraria, following protocols, and keeping the pod going. Please like, share, follow, and rate the pod, it goes a long way to share this knowledge.Hand to Heart to Indigenous Screen Office and Bespoke Productions Hub.As always, for all you educators out there, extensive shownotes are HEREHere are some fast cool links from the episode:“A Woodcutter's Story: Perceptions and Uses of Mathematics on San Carlos Apache Reservation” (article) by Philip Stevens“‘A space for you to be who you are': an ethnographic portrait of reterritorializing Indigenous student identities” (article) by Vanessa Anthony-Stevens, Philip Stevens-Math as......arithmetic -in school math was a place to count -it was about memorization and abstract ideas, disconnect from self, culture, land, spirit ...pornography -Philip mentioned that the processes he was required to go through to understand global/western mathematics made him feel like a pornographer, because it removed all emotion and love. ...taxidermy -Learning global/western mathematics was like hunting then killing mathematics, taking its life, its spirit, its energy, then stuffing it with inanimate, unfamiliar, unrelated...materials. It is no longer a relative, no longer connected to culture, Land, ceremony, community, or spirit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A just society, politics, economics & ideology. What our culture used to call Civics.But we don't seem to be civilized these days, do we?If you keep on the way you have been the past few weeks, it is going to be a long four years. Just remember, nothing is perfect, nothing is finished, & nothing lasts forever. Flat earth theory, non-Euclidian geometry, the divinity of George Washington, School vouchers, circles of love, the abuse of high quality Chinese tea! Tune in to find out if we're Christian Nationalists, Communists, Libertarians, Socialists, bleeding heart monarchists or just stumbling on our journey on The Way of the Life of Faithfulness to the evangelion of Jesus, The Christ.Reference materials for this episode: Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses  - Ss. Barsanuphius and John  - Questions 699 & 700Scripture citations for this episode:Luke 10:25-37 - Who Is My Neighbor1 Peter 2:1-17 - Do not let your freedom become a pretext for evilThe Christian Saints Podcast is a joint production of Generative sounds & Paradosis Pavilion with oversight from Fr Symeon KeesParadosis Pavilion - https://youtube.com/@paradosispavilion9555https://www.instagram.com/christiansaintspodcasthttps://twitter.com/podcast_saintshttps://www.facebook.com/christiansaintspodcasthttps://www.threads.net/@christiansaintspodcastIconographic images used by kind permission of Nicholas Papas, who controls distribution rights of these imagesPrints of all of Nick's work can be found at Saint Demetrius Press - http://www.saintdemetriuspress.comAll music in these episodes is a production of Generative Soundshttps://generativesoundsjjm.bandcamp.comDistribution rights of this episode & all music contained in it are controlled by Generative SoundsCopyright 2021 - 2023

Regina's new council has their first executive committee meeting and it starts with a tax-hike blooding to initiate in the newbs. Take that, Advance Regina! Plus, Pierre Poilievre declares war on all of Canada's cities. What's that guy's damage, anyway? Music by Guidewire (aka Ryan Hill). Originally broadcast on 91.3FM CJTR.

This time we're talking with our guest about life across the Pond. If early US cities were inherently walkable, what on earth happened? Is an active travel revolution possible in such a car-centric nation? Why are there parking minimums in new developments? And what on Earth is Euclidian zoning?!John Simmerman, of the Active Towns podcast and YouTube channel, joins Adam and Laura at the start of a two month European odyssey, to talk about his work promoting active lives in the US.John spent the first 15 years of his career promoting healthy living among employees in the corporate world, before shifting his focus to the built environment and its impact on health. In the USA, roads and motor traffic dominate public space, and interstate freeways divide and segregate communities, often along racial and socioeconomic lines. John's videos and podcast promote the benefits of walkable, bikeable costs both in terms of health and beyond, to quality of life and community vibrancy.Links:You can find out more about Active Towns, and John's work, here: https://www.activetowns.org; and his YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/activetownsEuclid, it turns out, is a US village where zoning powers were first established by a local government.And Adam shared that Simpsons clip on Twitter a while back: https://twitter.com/i/status/1347530929816932353By the way, if you want ad-free listening, behind-the-scenes and bonus content and to help support the podcast - head to (https://www.patreon.com/StreetsAheadPodcast). We'll even send you some stickers! We're also on Twitter and welcome your feedback on our episode: https://twitter.com/podstreetsaheadIf you're reading this, please can you take 1 minute to give us a rating and write a review? It helps us more than you probably think.Episode edited by Clare Mansell. Support Streets Ahead on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Maryland REALTORS CEO, Chuck Kasky, Esq., is joined by Maryland Department of Planning Secretary,  Rebecca L. Flora, to discuss how planners can guide, change, create more sustainable and equitable outcomes, and establish themselves as critical to Maryland's thriving communities. Rebecca L. Flora, AICP, was confirmed as Governor Wes Moore's nominee for Secretary of the Maryland Department of Planning on February 17, 2023, the latest achievement in a career spanning more than 35 years, including planning leadership positions in the public and private sectors.As Secretary, Flora provides comprehensive leadership of the Department's mission, objectives, and initiatives, including oversight of Planning Services, State Data Center, Maryland Historical Trust (MHT), and Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum (JPPM) in Calvert County.Flora comes to the Department of Planning with extensive urban planning experience, having worked in the Pittsburgh area for more than 20 years in project management, community development, and was the first executive director of the Green Building Alliance (GBA), whose vision is to address climate change, advance human health, achieve social equity, and create thriving economies.

If anyone has taken some basic mathematics, you are probably familiar with Euclidian Geometry. Euclidean geometry is what most people just call geometry.  It is the study of shapes like triangles and circles in a simple plane. This type of geometry was developed over 2000 years ago, and it is based on certain set axioms. However, later mathematicians challenged one of those axioms, and it completely changed how we thought of geometry. Learn more about non-Euclidian geometry and what it means in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors BetterHelp Visit BetterHelp.com/everywhere today to get 10% off your first month ButcherBox Sign up today at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to choose your free steak for a year and get $20 off."  Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello Interactors,My last post on fractals led me to refamiliarized myself with the man who coined the term, Benoit Mandelbrot, and his influential work on the fractal-like wonders of nature. I didn't realize he was following in the footsteps of 19th century mathematicians critical of the absolutist purity of Euclidean geometry – themes I recently explored here and here. My journey led me to a memory of a plane landing on a plane and the complexities that surface on the surface.Please don't be shy. Leave a comment or a like. Or just hit reply with a smiley face and a hello!Now let's go…I have a childhood memory, fueled by a crayon drawing, of watching a plane land at the Des Moines airport. My dad was returning home after a business trip. Over time, this memory transformed into a riddle most likely inspired by high school calculus. The riddle posed a question: as the distance between the plane and the runway progressively decreases, when does it equal zero? My pondering was rooted in the observation that, at a microscopic level, the rubber of the tire and the rough surface of the concrete never truly merge into zero. The presence of black streaks on the tarmac from rubber left behind served as evidence. According to classical physics, at an atomic level, the distance between a landing plane and the runway approaches zero but never truly reaches it.This is because the outermost electron clouds of the atoms in both the tires and the runway surface repel each other due to electromagnetic forces, creating a minute gap between them, measured in angstroms (10 to the power of -10 meters). However, from a practical standpoint, classical mechanics tells us that at a macroscopic level, the plane does make contact with the runway and eventually comes to a stop. Classical mechanics focuses on the behavior of objects on a larger scale, which outweighs the effects observed at the microscopic level. The mechanics of "touchdown" do not rely on atomic physics to achieve zero distance for the safe arrival of our loved ones.In my childhood crayon drawings, I depicted the runway as a straight line and the plane's wheels as a circle. Yet, this representation itself is a macroscopic interpretation of reality. If we were to examine my marks with a magnifying glass, we would see fragmented wax resting on the textured paper's peaks and valleys rather than perfectly straight lines or round circles. Similarly, we would find fragments of rubber deposited on the peaks and valleys of the concrete runway.In the realm of high school calculus, the line representing the runway and the circle representing the wheel would be precisely drawn on rigid gridded paper using a plastic flowchart template, akin to the tools my dad used to pseudocode his COBOL programs he no doubt was debugging with his colleagues in Toronto.Mathematically, I would have described the landing as the height of the plane decreasing as a function of time, incorporating concepts like velocity and acceleration. This interplay between decreasing height and time signifies the plane's motion until it decelerates and reaches a minimum altitude, indicating touchdown. I would have positioned the circle of my plastic template precisely on the flat line, accompanied by an equation describing the moment of touchdown.However, in 1982, two years before I was in calculus and the year I was learning geometry, mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot published "The Fractal Geometry of Nature," a highly influential book. Mandelbrot's work highlighted the importance of mathematics that deviated from the traditional Euclidean curves and shapes. Introduced by ‘modern' mathematicians like Georg Cantor and Giuseppe Peano a century earlier, the days of regarding mathematics as absolutely pure and unquestioning were being questioned.Mandelbrot offers why we were set on this smooth, well-worn trajectory of Euclidian mathematical purity,“The fact that mathematics, viewed by its own creators as ‘absolutely pure,' should respond so well to the needs of science is striking and surprising but follows a well-worn pattern. That pattern was first set when Johannes Kepler concluded that, to model the path of Mars around the Sun, one must resort to an intellectual plaything of the Greeks–the ellipse. Soon after, Galileo concluded that, to model the fall of bodies toward the Earth, one needs a different curve–a parabola. And he proclaimed that ‘the greatest book [of nature]...is written in mathematical language and the characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures…without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.' In the pithy words of Scottish biologist D'Arcy Thompson: ‘God always geometrizes.'”Of the work of Cantor's set theory and Peano's space-filling curves, the theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman J Dyson wrote,“These new structures were regarded by contemporary mathematicians as ‘pathological.' They were described as a ‘gallery of monsters,' kin to the cubist painting and atonal music that were upsetting established standards of taste in the arts at about the same time. The mathematicians who created the monsters regarded them as important in showing that the world of pure mathematics contains a richness of possibilities going far beyond the simple structures that they saw in nature.”Mandelbrot's research delved into the exploration of fractals, which he described as broken shapes, distinct from the smooth Euclidean curves. These fractals opened new possibilities, allowing for the modeling of complex phenomena found in nature. Mandelbrot's fractal geometry was brought to life through computer-generated images of landscapes and clouds, reflecting the generative algorithms found in nature. These images showcased the jagged, impure, and fractured lines that emerged, challenging the simplicity of Euclidean shapes.Mandelbrot emphasized that drawing a line between just two points on a square Euclidean plane oversimplifies reality. Instead, he considered the fracturing that occurs when lines connect every point in a square or a cube. In fact, the term "fractal" itself derives from the Latin adjective "fractus," meaning "broken." Mandelbrot highlighted the relevance of fractals lying between the shapes of Euclid, akin to fractions lying between integers.Mandelbrot offers that “When mathematicians concluded about a century ago that the seemingly simple and innocuous notion of ‘curve' hides profound difficulties, they thought they were engaging in unreasonable and unrealistic hairsplitting. They had not determined to look out at the real world to analyze it, but to look in at an ideal in the mind. The theory of fractals shows that they had misled themselves.”Mandelbrot's work demonstrated that the seemingly simple crayon drawing of my dad's plane landing concealed profound difficulties. My self-imposed brain teaser was was not an exercise in unreasonable hair-splitting, but rather an analysis of the real world. Fractals, I now know, provide a mathematical framework to quantify irregularities found in natural structures and allow for the analysis and modeling of complex systems exhibiting patterns at different scales.Mandelbrot's groundbreaking ideas expanded on Cantor and Peano to illuminate the vast possibilities and richness of mathematics beyond the limitations of traditional Euclidean structures. These concepts empower us to better understand the complexities of the natural world and prevent us from being misled by overly idealized notions. Thanks to their work, we are better equipped to explore and comprehend the intricate beauty of the natural world. Even the jagged wax deposits of the line depicting a runway in my childhood drawing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Hello Interactors,I'll admit it, the early summer weather here in Seattle has been a distraction. So, I turned to a writing companion this week to help. I took my notes from a talk I saw at the AAG conference in March, and you know what comes next…I pasted it in ChatGPT. I then took some papers referenced in the talk, grabbed their abstracts, and pasted those in ChatGPT. After a few iterations of ‘expand on this', ‘merge these…' and ‘shrink this to three sentences' I had all the working components needed to form an essay roughly 1000 words long.I pasted that into Word and began editing in my own voice and adding bits of my own thoughts. When I'd get stuck on a concept or blending of concepts, I'd ask ChatGPT to blend them for me. When I was unsure or dubious of its confidence, I'd turn to Google Scholar and Wikipedia for further reference or content to be rewritten more evidentially.I find ChatGPT a valuable writing companion. Some facts are often way off and downright fictional at times, but it is good at taking a jumble of ideas, lists of points, or disparate topics and putting them into cohesive starting points. Especially when the sun is shining and it's 72 degrees outside.Let me know what you think and what your thoughts are on using ChatGPT for this kind of thing. Here's what ChatGPT says are three takeaways from this post.Key Takeaways:* Grid and Place Cells: Researchers have discovered specific patterns of neuron firing in the brains of rats, mice, bats, and humans, known as place cells and grid cells. Place cells are found in the hippocampus and respond to specific locations in the environment, while grid cells in the entorhinal cortex form grid-like patterns representing the overall layout of space.* Non-Euclidean Geometries: The discovery of grid cells and cognitive maps challenges the dominance of Euclidean geometry in understanding spatial cognition. Grid cells exhibit a hexagonal grid pattern, highlighting the non-Euclidean nature of cognitive maps in the brain.* Computational Models: The integration of computational models such as reinforcement learning and successor representations, inspired by the research on place cells and grid cells, offers a deeper understanding of spatial cognition. These models capture the complex interactions between cognition, decision-making, and the environment, reflecting the non-Euclidean nature of grid cells and challenging traditional geometric frameworks. By incorporating these computational approaches, researchers can develop more comprehensive and inclusive models of spatial cognition that consider the interconnectedness and dynamic nature of cognitive processes and the environments we navigate.As interactors, you're special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You're also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let's go…TELLTALE CELLS OF RAT TRACESIn my last post, I talked about how Platonic and Euclidian geometric purity and gridded Cartesian planes may have overly influenced Western thought, beliefs, and actions. Scientific thinking may have been errantly seduced by the certainty and accuracy of rational proofs to describe not only the physical world but how our minds and body interact with it and each other. We now know it's likely the world is constructed of layers of indeterminant, interrelated complex interactions occurring at atomic, chemical, biological, psychological, sociological, astronomical, and cosmological levels.And yet theoretical and observable patterns emerge amidst this chaos that can and are described and understood through both Euclidean and non-Euclidean patterns. For example, patterns found in the brain. Cognitive scientists studying rats in the 1970s discovered a collection of neurons fired when a rat entered a particular place in a maze. They called these neuron firing locations place cells.This video shows a rat running around in a circular environment (black line) and any time a particular cell is active (red dots). The red dots cluster around one location, which is the place field of the cell. (Source: Jankowski M, O'Mara S (2015) via Wikipedia)Place cell patterns are found primarily in the hippocampus region of the brain. They're derived from a collection of firing neurons that selectively respond to specific locations or places in an environment. Place cells are influenced by environmental cues and play a crucial role in spatial memory formation, allowing for the association of specific memories or experiences with particular places. They are instrumental in the formation of cognitive maps, which are inherently non-Euclidean because they can include unpredictable shortcuts, deviations, and distortions.As research continued in the 1990s, the arrangement of these patterns began showing signs of grid-like regularity. Some speculated the brain was forming a kind of rectangular grid. And then in 2005, scientists discovered grid-like patterns firing in an area neighboring the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex – also involved in spatial processing and memory. They termed these grid cells and they indeed resembled Euclidean regularity.  These collections of neurons fire at regular intervals as a rat moves about the environment. As it nears a node of its virtual lattice, neurons fire in the entorhinal cortex. These nodes make a grid-like pattern, but it's not a regular rectangular grid. It instead is comprised of hexagonal shapes. Unlike place cells, which have specific firing fields for distinct locations, grid cells offer a continuous representation of space, capturing the overall layout and virtual hexagonal geometry of the environment in the brain.By establishing a kind of coordinate system, scientists theorize grid cells are used to monitor movement and position relative to the surrounding space. This supports path integration and reinforcement which helps maintain a sense of direction and distance traveled. While the eyes play a crucial role in strengthening these patterns, the lattice is nonetheless present even when traversing in the dark – absent of external cues.While this phenomenon has been found in the brains of rats, mice, bats, and humans, similar findings exist in insects, albeit sparse and more static. Neurons in their antennal lobe encode the identity of odors through patterns formed by synchronized oscillating feedback loops with other neurons responsible for olfactory processing and learning.Research on place cells, grid cells, and other brain structures involved in spatial representation and learning can provide valuable insights into how humans perceive and navigate space. By understanding the neural mechanisms underlying spatial cognition, researchers can refine and validate cognitive models of space.MOST CERTAINLY A CERTAIN UNCERTAINTYWhile I was attending the American Association of Geographer's conference in Denver last March, I attended a session aimed at a body of research called behavioral and cognitive geography (BCG). This discipline has opened new avenues for understanding the links between human cognition, behavior, and the environment. This interdisciplinary field combines concepts from geography, psychology, neuroscience, AI, and other disciplines to explore how individuals and groups interact with space and make decisions individually and collectively.One important aspect of BCG is decision making. Researchers in this field aim to develop more representative models of decision making by incorporating insights from disciplines such as judgment and decision making. This involves moving away from unrealistic assumptions grounded in traditional, rational interpretations in geography using Euclidean geometry. Two of my professors at UCSB, Reg Golledge and Waldo Tobler, both called for non-Euclidean investigations after forays into their groundbreaking research in cognitive maps in the 1970s.Advancing this knowledge will require accounting for the context of spatial decision making. This includes social norms, institutions, and the physical environment that influences us. Additionally, acknowledging the heterogeneity among decision makers and considering cultural values is crucial for developing comprehensive decision models that are representative of all groups.Collaborations with fields such as artificial intelligence, computational neuroscience, and social physics are contributing to expanding the scope and ambition of BCG. One researcher in this area from the University of Leeds, Ed Manley, presented at the conference. He is developing new analytical methods that blend topological and computational neuroscience, like those found in grid and place cell research, to account for both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries and explanations.His recent research integrates both cognitive and behavioral geography using advanced agent-based modeling and spatial analysis. By leveraging the availability of large-scale, rich data on human mobility with computational models of spatial cognition he sees opportunities for deepening our understanding of how people interact with place.There are two computer-based models he is currently exploring – reinforcement learning (RL) and successor representations (SR). These concepts are influenced and inspired by advancements in neuroscience – including place cell and grid cell research. Reinforcement learning is a general framework for learning optimal behavior through interactions with an environment while successor representations are a specific method used within reinforcement learning.Reinforcement learning involves an agent that learns to make decisions and take actions in an environment to maximize cumulative rewards. The agent interacts with the environment, receives feedback in the form of rewards or penalties, and adjusts its behavior based on this feedback. The goal is to learn rules that map states to actions to maximize the expected cumulative reward.Successor representations represent the state transitions and expected future rewards associated with different states. Instead of directly representing states and their values, successor representations capture the underlying structure of the environment. Probability scores are mapped to transitions between states and the expected cumulative reward that can be obtained from each state.The modeled probability values of a state relates to the expected cumulative reward obtained by starting from that state and following a particular set of rules. By representing states in terms of their expected future rewards, successor representations provide a more compact and informative representation of the environment.COMPLEXITY AND CONNECTION IN SUCCESSOR EVOLUTIONIn the context of reinforcement learning, successor representations can be used to facilitate learning and decision-making by providing a structured representation of the environment's dynamics. This allows computer-based agents to make better-informed decisions based on the expected future rewards associated with different states.Manley's integration of SR into cognitive geography holds promise for understanding the construction of spatial knowledge and its connection to cognition. This method captures the idea that previous choices inform future decisions, mirroring the cognitive processes involved in spatial learning. This approach is closely linked to the spatial-dependent nature of tasks, which arise from geographic processes – including the formation of the natural and built environment.This research also shows potential for tailoring learning processes to known demographic and background factors, allowing for more fair, accurate, and representative models of spatial cognition. This enables researchers to account for the diverse influences that shape decision-making and spatial behavior among different populations and their environments.Moreover, the utilization of these methods in cognitive geography provides an avenue to develop models of space that blend metric and topological representations systematically. This integration allows for a more comprehensive understanding of spatial environments, capturing both the quantitative measurements and the qualitative relationships between locations.This approach to geography represents a departure from dominant Platonic, Euclidean, and Cartesian thinking, embracing complexity and connectedness. These computational approaches reflect and acknowledge the dynamic nature of cognition, where the iteration of past choices inform future decisions.It highlights the interconnectedness between cognition and the environment, challenging compartmentalized views and fostering interdisciplinary approaches. This departure from fixed and predetermined paths echoes a broader shift towards embracing complexity in our understanding of the world. It encourages us to view spatial cognition as a dynamic process influenced by a multitude of factors, rather than relying solely on rigid geometric frameworks and dogma.It invites us to move away from rigidity and instead embrace the dynamic, interwoven nature of our cognitive processes and the environments we navigate. By doing so, we can foster a more nuanced, inclusive, and holistic understanding of spatial cognition and representation that aligns with the intricacies and interdependencies of the world we inhabit. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

This is the fourth track of a new collaboration with my music friend Pete Swinton. I will be re-working some of his tracks from his excellent Butterfly and Ship album. https://peteswinton.bandcamp.com/album/butterfly-and-ship This track is a re-work of his track - 01. OSC Sine 63Hz 0dbFS. It was mixed in the AUM app on my iPad and used iPad apps such as Hillman Synth, Euclidian, Nembrini Delay, Grand Finale, Fluss and Bleass Chorus.

Tucker Carlson & A Case Study in Christian Nationalism & Theocratic Conservatism Introduction One may wonder how the algorithmic gods of the medias mutter and chirp and old clips of Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro emerge from the ancient shadows, but be assured that they do and when they do, they provide one with opportunities to pull your son aside, like Solomon in Proverbs and say, do you see that man? Yeah, not like that. Now the particular clip that is currently making the rounds is from 2018, and a great deal of water has gone under the old proverbial bridge and has flowed many miles hence, even to the wild lands of Wuhan and beyond. And so one might hope that greater light has come into the great Tucker Carlson’s eyes. I mean, if they can lock us down, close our churches, foist useless, perhaps even harmful masks on our faces, and demand injections or else you’re a hater, a bigot, and a scoundrel, perhaps he’s had a change of heart. But the clip is from when a Ben Shapiro interview of Tucker Carlson, where Tucker argues that since family is the foundational building block of society and an unmitigated good, society ought to take steps to protect it and defend it. And certain technological advances that threaten that good ought to be curbed and perhaps even prohibited. Tucker says that if we don’t we may very soon end up with a situation where a reasonably well-adjusted college graduate (one who doesn’t smoke pot) may not have the means to provide for himself, much less take a wife, and raise a family with her. And when pressed by Ben Shapiro about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence driving trucks on American highways, Tucker says that if he was President he would absolutely order the Department of Transportation to ban all AI on federal highways because if they didn’t millions of jobs would be lost. And truck driving is one of the most common jobs for high school educated men in America. Setting the Table Now let’s set the table carefully here. First, it’s absolutely true that the natural family is the foundational building block of society. Second, let’s agree that society should do everything lawfully in its power to protect and encourage family formation and flourishing. But here is where the questions begin to array themselves. What actually is “lawfully in its power?” Can the state simply do anything that appears to contribute to some notion of the “common good?” How should society protect and encourage natural family formation? My previously stated proposal is that as Protestant Christians we must begin with the clear instructions given in Scripture and then work our way out from those by good and necessary consequence, by the light of nature and Christian prudence. So I don’t think we need an explicit Bible verse about AI and truck drivers, but I do think we need clear-eyed biblical principles. There are multiple problems with Tucker’s proposal, beginning with him acting like a socialist. The assumption of socialism/Marxism is that there is no God, and therefore the state must take His place. Since there is no God to do justice, rendering unto each man what he deserves, the State takes unto itself this responsibility. Fascism need not be dark and bloody at first. It simply claims the right to command commerce and markets for the “common good” of society, for the good of families and family values. But it’s still fascism and socialism for all that, even if the state is commanding Bible reading and church attendance. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying that Tucker’s second presidential fiat would be compulsory Bible reading and church attendance. But why exactly not? Furthermore, these soft-socialist/fascist policies claim a kind omniscience. Tucker claims that millions of jobs will be lost in a matter of years. But this sounds like the conservative equivalent of the environmental doomsdayers. If you don’t ban plastic bags today, the oceans will rise in five years and millions will die! Or sometimes they even notice real problems, like for example, air pollution. But as Alex Epstein has helpfully catalogued, over and over again, there’s a certain simplistic and narrow mindset that looks at one factor and multiplies it by a million without accounting for all the other possibilities and concludes that the apocalyptic outcome is inevitable! And that’s trying to be god while sucking at it. So when environmentalists have projected air pollution from coal and oil and other fossil fuels, what they have consistently not accounted for is adaptation, creativity, ingenuity, and improvements in technology which mitigate, minimize, and sometimes completely undo the dangers and potential harms. People, made in the image of God, are like God, and despite our fallen natures, they are generally trying to improve things. Tucker’s comments struck me as not only tapping into that false socialist omniscience, but they were demeaning and condescending to the very human beings he was claiming to want to protect and help, while apparently completely forgetting about other human beings in the equation. Now, it’s an entirely open question as to whether it would ever actually work to have AI drive trucks in this country. At the very least, we would want to have a chain of liability clearly articulated, and like the goring ox in Exodus 21, require restitution and harsh penalties for any harm or damage that occurs. But why does Tucker paint the drug free college graduate like a helpless victim? Why are working class high school graduates being described as completely dependent on truck driving jobs? Can they not do anything else? A few decades ago they worked in American factories, but after the government got involved in “helping” them, they all got sent overseas. And here we are suggesting more Big Government involvement to help “fix” inequities. “We’re the government and we’re here to help,” are still the most terrifying words in the English language, even when they are in the mouth of so-called “common good” conservatives. Now, the fact of the matter is that even if the tech and liabilities all got sufficiently sorted, and people started experimenting with AI truck drivers, the change wouldn’t happen overnight. But as it started to happen (if it ever did), you would immediately be funding all the developers, troubleshooters, repairment, maintenance, and updates needed to grow and improve that new technology. The other part of the “inevitability-omniscience” complex is a failure to see that new technology only ever depends upon human beings creating it, maintaining, fixing it, improving, and so on. Read Life After Google by George Gilder and repent of your implicit Darwinism. Artificial intelligence will always be completely dependent upon human intelligence. So just as a new technology begins to break into markets, new human jobs come into being. And this is how it has always worked. As technology changes, some folks are laid off and find new creative outlets, but all of that new technology also always creates new needs for human workers. The Biblical Common Good The Biblical vision of the common good is each sphere of government exercising the power delegated to it by Christ obediently. The Magisterial Reformers were working in a particular historical moment where church government had way overreached its bounds, and part of the way you begin to limit overweening powers is by reinvigorating the balance of powers. In the days of Luther and Calvin it was absolutely necessary to call the magistrates to take up the sword of justice and push back the encroachments of the Papal See. However, we now live in an era where the state has become the Infallible Mouth of God, and it’s high time ministers of the gospel declared the Lordship of Christ and commanded magistrates back into their own lane, while insisting that husbands and fathers, wives and mothers step up to the plate and take back their authority in the home and marketplace. Until a crime has been actually committed, it is an unjust use of violence to manipulate markets. I understand that when you live in a snake pit of market regulations the temptation is to simply join the mafia and release your own “good” snakes into the mix, but as we learn from one of those lesser known Mosaic principles, never bring more snakes to a snake pit unless your snake will swallow all of them and turn back into a walking stick when it’s done. God has established three governments among men: the family, the church, and the state. These governments are not water-tight jurisdictions, but function more like a Venn diagram with clear differences and some overlap. God has assigned to the family the jurisdiction of health, welfare, and education. God has assigned to the church the ministry of worship and discipleship, the administration of Word and sacrament. God has assigned to the state the ministry of the sword of justice. Closely related is the difference between sins and crimes. We see this distinction beginning in the differing ministries of Abraham and Melchizedek, Moses and Aaron, as well as the differing penalties provided in the Mosaic law. When the law says that someone will be “cut off from among his people,” this is the ordinary discipline of Old Testament family and “church.” When the penalty prescribed is restitution or stripes or death, this the ministry of the sword. Now granted these are not pristine, Euclidian categories. Many of the laws in the Mosaic code have moral, ceremonial, and civil elements to them. Nevertheless, ceremonial laws were under the jurisdiction of the priests and civil laws were under the jurisdiction of the judges and magistrates. But the fact that family law was also being established in the Mosaic law is profound. Laws surrounding marriage and divorce and remarriage within families, with instructions for what might be appealed to civil magistrates for civil penalties begin to establish these jurisdictional differences. In other words, not all sins are or should be crimes. Covetousness is a sin but not a crime. Lying is always a sin, but not all lies should be adjudicated as crimes. Lust is a sin, even adultery in the heart, but until the lust is acted upon in fornication or adultery, there is no crime to adjudicate. A rebellious son ought to be disciplined by his own parents for many years before they determine to appeal to the civil magistrate for criminal penalties. But here is where the jurisdictions overlap: if a true biblical crime has been committed in a family or church, the civil magistrate is authorized by God to intervene. A civil magistrate my seek a warrant to arrest a father and pastor for sexual abuse. But by the same token, a father may resist or ignore tyrannical orders given a magistrate and a pastor may rebuke a magistrate and command him to repent of his sin, just as John did and lost his head for it. When a church excommunicates a professing Christian, barring them from the Lord’s Supper and fellowship in the local church, the church is exercising its power to protect truth and morality in a society. When a family disciplines its young children teaching them Christian virtues the family government is doing its part to cultivate families and work ethics and morality. The family has the power to ultimately disinherit a son or daughter for gross immorality or apostasy. And it is the job of the state to punish crimes as defined by Scripture. No crime has been committed if a trucking company fires a driver in favor of an AI driver. Conclusion In the clip mentioned, Tucker Carlson says that even though he believes in free markets it’s not an absolute or religious commitment or requirement. He says there’s no “Nicene Creed of Capitalism” he has to subscribe to. Now he’s absolutely right if he means that free markets may not be used to justify committing crimes (e.g. theft, murder, etc.). But what Tucker is actually proposing is denying jobs and livelihoods to those working in AI, and by the making it a law, he’s threatening the use of violence for those who try. In the name of doing good and protecting families, Tucker is proposing that he be the one who gets to choose the winners and the losers. Truckers are the winners; programmers and new tech are the losers. Sorry, the gods have spoken. We know what’s best for you. And actually, we’ve decided that cars have taken too many jobs away from horses and mules. So yeah, we’re going back to the Middle Ages, you greedy capitalist pigs. But seriously, where’s the line? Ok, I’ll stop here. Tucker says there’s no Nicene Creed of capitalism, and that’s true enough, but there is a Nicene Creed that says that God is the “Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible…” Invisible things would include market forces, the creativity and ingenuity of men, as well as their created needs and desires. Until or unless God gives a government the authority to step in, it is a violation of the Nicene Creed to grasp power for yourself and violently or coercively prohibit the free actions and creativity of people. It must always be remembered that if the primary power of the state is the power of the sword, then whenever you call for a “ban,” you are simultaneously calling for the use of violent, coercive force to be used if someone disregards the ban. I’m sorry, but we just had a few years of a police state trial run in the West with law enforcement fining churches for being open, for mandated gags on peoples’ faces, and frog marching decent law-abiding citizens off to jail for singing songs in public. I do believe in the “common good,” but the common good is determined by God’s Word and not simplistic, short-sighted calculations. It was those kinds of simplistic, short-sighted calculations that the Imperial College of London used to insight the COVID panic. So, no thanks. God’s world is more resilient, more complex, more glorious than that.

Tucker Carlson & A Case Study in Christian Nationalism & Theocratic Conservatism Introduction One may wonder how the algorithmic gods of the medias mutter and chirp and old clips of Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro emerge from the ancient shadows, but be assured that they do and when they do, they provide one with opportunities to pull your son aside, like Solomon in Proverbs and say, do you see that man? Yeah, not like that. Now the particular clip that is currently making the rounds is from 2018, and a great deal of water has gone under the old proverbial bridge and has flowed many miles hence, even to the wild lands of Wuhan and beyond. And so one might hope that greater light has come into the great Tucker Carlson’s eyes. I mean, if they can lock us down, close our churches, foist useless, perhaps even harmful masks on our faces, and demand injections or else you’re a hater, a bigot, and a scoundrel, perhaps he’s had a change of heart. But the clip is from when a Ben Shapiro interview of Tucker Carlson, where Tucker argues that since family is the foundational building block of society and an unmitigated good, society ought to take steps to protect it and defend it. And certain technological advances that threaten that good ought to be curbed and perhaps even prohibited. Tucker says that if we don’t we may very soon end up with a situation where a reasonably well-adjusted college graduate (one who doesn’t smoke pot) may not have the means to provide for himself, much less take a wife, and raise a family with her. And when pressed by Ben Shapiro about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence driving trucks on American highways, Tucker says that if he was President he would absolutely order the Department of Transportation to ban all AI on federal highways because if they didn’t millions of jobs would be lost. And truck driving is one of the most common jobs for high school educated men in America. Setting the Table Now let’s set the table carefully here. First, it’s absolutely true that the natural family is the foundational building block of society. Second, let’s agree that society should do everything lawfully in its power to protect and encourage family formation and flourishing. But here is where the questions begin to array themselves. What actually is “lawfully in its power?” Can the state simply do anything that appears to contribute to some notion of the “common good?” How should society protect and encourage natural family formation? My previously stated proposal is that as Protestant Christians we must begin with the clear instructions given in Scripture and then work our way out from those by good and necessary consequence, by the light of nature and Christian prudence. So I don’t think we need an explicit Bible verse about AI and truck drivers, but I do think we need clear-eyed biblical principles. There are multiple problems with Tucker’s proposal, beginning with him acting like a socialist. The assumption of socialism/Marxism is that there is no God, and therefore the state must take His place. Since there is no God to do justice, rendering unto each man what he deserves, the State takes unto itself this responsibility. Fascism need not be dark and bloody at first. It simply claims the right to command commerce and markets for the “common good” of society, for the good of families and family values. But it’s still fascism and socialism for all that, even if the state is commanding Bible reading and church attendance. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying that Tucker’s second presidential fiat would be compulsory Bible reading and church attendance. But why exactly not? Furthermore, these soft-socialist/fascist policies claim a kind omniscience. Tucker claims that millions of jobs will be lost in a matter of years. But this sounds like the conservative equivalent of the environmental doomsdayers. If you don’t ban plastic bags today, the oceans will rise in five years and millions will die! Or sometimes they even notice real problems, like for example, air pollution. But as Alex Epstein has helpfully catalogued, over and over again, there’s a certain simplistic and narrow mindset that looks at one factor and multiplies it by a million without accounting for all the other possibilities and concludes that the apocalyptic outcome is inevitable! And that’s trying to be god while sucking at it. So when environmentalists have projected air pollution from coal and oil and other fossil fuels, what they have consistently not accounted for is adaptation, creativity, ingenuity, and improvements in technology which mitigate, minimize, and sometimes completely undo the dangers and potential harms. People, made in the image of God, are like God, and despite our fallen natures, they are generally trying to improve things. Tucker’s comments struck me as not only tapping into that false socialist omniscience, but they were demeaning and condescending to the very human beings he was claiming to want to protect and help, while apparently completely forgetting about other human beings in the equation. Now, it’s an entirely open question as to whether it would ever actually work to have AI drive trucks in this country. At the very least, we would want to have a chain of liability clearly articulated, and like the goring ox in Exodus 21, require restitution and harsh penalties for any harm or damage that occurs. But why does Tucker paint the drug free college graduate like a helpless victim? Why are working class high school graduates being described as completely dependent on truck driving jobs? Can they not do anything else? A few decades ago they worked in American factories, but after the government got involved in “helping” them, they all got sent overseas. And here we are suggesting more Big Government involvement to help “fix” inequities. “We’re the government and we’re here to help,” are still the most terrifying words in the English language, even when they are in the mouth of so-called “common good” conservatives. Now, the fact of the matter is that even if the tech and liabilities all got sufficiently sorted, and people started experimenting with AI truck drivers, the change wouldn’t happen overnight. But as it started to happen (if it ever did), you would immediately be funding all the developers, troubleshooters, repairment, maintenance, and updates needed to grow and improve that new technology. The other part of the “inevitability-omniscience” complex is a failure to see that new technology only ever depends upon human beings creating it, maintaining, fixing it, improving, and so on. Read Life After Google by George Gilder and repent of your implicit Darwinism. Artificial intelligence will always be completely dependent upon human intelligence. So just as a new technology begins to break into markets, new human jobs come into being. And this is how it has always worked. As technology changes, some folks are laid off and find new creative outlets, but all of that new technology also always creates new needs for human workers. The Biblical Common Good The Biblical vision of the common good is each sphere of government exercising the power delegated to it by Christ obediently. The Magisterial Reformers were working in a particular historical moment where church government had way overreached its bounds, and part of the way you begin to limit overweening powers is by reinvigorating the balance of powers. In the days of Luther and Calvin it was absolutely necessary to call the magistrates to take up the sword of justice and push back the encroachments of the Papal See. However, we now live in an era where the state has become the Infallible Mouth of God, and it’s high time ministers of the gospel declared the Lordship of Christ and commanded magistrates back into their own lane, while insisting that husbands and fathers, wives and mothers step up to the plate and take back their authority in the home and marketplace. Until a crime has been actually committed, it is an unjust use of violence to manipulate markets. I understand that when you live in a snake pit of market regulations the temptation is to simply join the mafia and release your own “good” snakes into the mix, but as we learn from one of those lesser known Mosaic principles, never bring more snakes to a snake pit unless your snake will swallow all of them and turn back into a walking stick when it’s done. God has established three governments among men: the family, the church, and the state. These governments are not water-tight jurisdictions, but function more like a Venn diagram with clear differences and some overlap. God has assigned to the family the jurisdiction of health, welfare, and education. God has assigned to the church the ministry of worship and discipleship, the administration of Word and sacrament. God has assigned to the state the ministry of the sword of justice. Closely related is the difference between sins and crimes. We see this distinction beginning in the differing ministries of Abraham and Melchizedek, Moses and Aaron, as well as the differing penalties provided in the Mosaic law. When the law says that someone will be “cut off from among his people,” this is the ordinary discipline of Old Testament family and “church.” When the penalty prescribed is restitution or stripes or death, this the ministry of the sword. Now granted these are not pristine, Euclidian categories. Many of the laws in the Mosaic code have moral, ceremonial, and civil elements to them. Nevertheless, ceremonial laws were under the jurisdiction of the priests and civil laws were under the jurisdiction of the judges and magistrates. But the fact that family law was also being established in the Mosaic law is profound. Laws surrounding marriage and divorce and remarriage within families, with instructions for what might be appealed to civil magistrates for civil penalties begin to establish these jurisdictional differences. In other words, not all sins are or should be crimes. Covetousness is a sin but not a crime. Lying is always a sin, but not all lies should be adjudicated as crimes. Lust is a sin, even adultery in the heart, but until the lust is acted upon in fornication or adultery, there is no crime to adjudicate. A rebellious son ought to be disciplined by his own parents for many years before they determine to appeal to the civil magistrate for criminal penalties. But here is where the jurisdictions overlap: if a true biblical crime has been committed in a family or church, the civil magistrate is authorized by God to intervene. A civil magistrate my seek a warrant to arrest a father and pastor for sexual abuse. But by the same token, a father may resist or ignore tyrannical orders given a magistrate and a pastor may rebuke a magistrate and command him to repent of his sin, just as John did and lost his head for it. When a church excommunicates a professing Christian, barring them from the Lord’s Supper and fellowship in the local church, the church is exercising its power to protect truth and morality in a society. When a family disciplines its young children teaching them Christian virtues the family government is doing its part to cultivate families and work ethics and morality. The family has the power to ultimately disinherit a son or daughter for gross immorality or apostasy. And it is the job of the state to punish crimes as defined by Scripture. No crime has been committed if a trucking company fires a driver in favor of an AI driver. Conclusion In the clip mentioned, Tucker Carlson says that even though he believes in free markets it’s not an absolute or religious commitment or requirement. He says there’s no “Nicene Creed of Capitalism” he has to subscribe to. Now he’s absolutely right if he means that free markets may not be used to justify committing crimes (e.g. theft, murder, etc.). But what Tucker is actually proposing is denying jobs and livelihoods to those working in AI, and by the making it a law, he’s threatening the use of violence for those who try. In the name of doing good and protecting families, Tucker is proposing that he be the one who gets to choose the winners and the losers. Truckers are the winners; programmers and new tech are the losers. Sorry, the gods have spoken. We know what’s best for you. And actually, we’ve decided that cars have taken too many jobs away from horses and mules. So yeah, we’re going back to the Middle Ages, you greedy capitalist pigs. But seriously, where’s the line? Ok, I’ll stop here. Tucker says there’s no Nicene Creed of capitalism, and that’s true enough, but there is a Nicene Creed that says that God is the “Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible…” Invisible things would include market forces, the creativity and ingenuity of men, as well as their created needs and desires. Until or unless God gives a government the authority to step in, it is a violation of the Nicene Creed to grasp power for yourself and violently or coercively prohibit the free actions and creativity of people. It must always be remembered that if the primary power of the state is the power of the sword, then whenever you call for a “ban,” you are simultaneously calling for the use of violent, coercive force to be used if someone disregards the ban. I’m sorry, but we just had a few years of a police state trial run in the West with law enforcement fining churches for being open, for mandated gags on peoples’ faces, and frog marching decent law-abiding citizens off to jail for singing songs in public. I do believe in the “common good,” but the common good is determined by God’s Word and not simplistic, short-sighted calculations. It was those kinds of simplistic, short-sighted calculations that the Imperial College of London used to insight the COVID panic. So, no thanks. God’s world is more resilient, more complex, more glorious than that.

A track recorded in AUM using Patterning 2 (using samples from a Pulsar23)going through Varispeed app and Reelbus tape effect. Synth sounds from DRC app with effects from OtherDessertCities with notes from Euclidian (midi notes generator).

We're investigating non-Euclidian geometry once again with Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett!

Pop Screen's Bowie month ends in the only way it was ever going to: with a lot of talk about Muppets and 'packages'. Made during a critical and commercial low point in Bowie's musical career, this elaborate Jim Henson-directed fantasy nevertheless gave him one of his most celebrated screen roles - and, in its maddeningly catchy musical numbers, gave us easily the most enjoyable songs of his mid-80s lull. This week, Archaeon rejoins the podcast to talk about traumatic childhood memories, the surprisingly lasting influence of Bowie's enormous barnet, and the screen career of his young co-star Jennifer Connelly. There are also digressions covering the limited options this movie offers for clickbait writers, the general scariness of 1980s children's films, and the real reason why we've never done a K-pop episode. Come for the crotch jokes, stay to learn which leading modern sculptor voiced one of the puppets! If you want us to keep making podcasts where we refer to a rock legend's genitals as "non-Euclidian", you can donate to our Patreon, where you'll get a monthly exclusive bonus episode of this show, extra video games coverage from Archaeon, Graham's classic Doctor Who reviews and more. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for more news. #popscreen #moviereviews #davidbowie #labyrinth #jenniferconnelly #muppets #jimhenson #1980s #terryjones #fantasy 

In addition to Euclidian geometry, Thomistic theology, Enlightenment philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, epics, novels, and essays, an important part of a Wyoming Catholic College liberal arts education is leadership. After two weeks of the three-week backpacking expedition that serves as their initiation to the college, our freshmen are on their own. The upperclassmen leaders keep watch, but are no longer part of the freshman groups as they travel, set up camp, cook, pray, discuss, and sleep. We expect—and we get—solid leadership. Yes, but what does that have to do with the liberal arts? As Dr. Travis Dziad, an alumnus of the college, teaches leadership, and outdoor education at the college as well as theology he is well equipped to offer some insights.

This week Sky and Jake watch episode 5 of Pirates of Darkwater: "Victory" So much happens in this episode. We discuss the baffling non-Euclidian architecture of the Malestrom, the complex biology of the constrictus, how we're all going to be eating garlic crickets one day, and how Bloth has a super awesome table that we want in real life. https://popculturefailure.podbean.com/   popculturefailure@gmail.com Show: @FailedPopCultur Jake: @mdwstlvaffr Sky: @sandwichsurplus      

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about all things color in CSS, both current and coming soon! Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what's happening with your code, track errors and monitor performance with Sentry. Sentry's Application Monitoring platform helps developers see performance issues, fix errors faster, and optimize their code health. Cut your time on error resolution from hours to minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners new to Sentry can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code TASTYTREAT during sign up. Sanity - Sponsor Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get a Sanity powered site up and running in minutes at sanity.io/create. Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on sanity.io/syntax. Show Notes 04:39 - color-contrast() Part of CSS5! Maybe. The color-contrast() functional notation takes a color value and compares it to a list of other color values, selecting the one with the highest contrast from the list. 06:01 - Accent color https://davidwalsh.name/css-accent-color 07:34 - currentcolor https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color_value#currentcolor_keyword 08:54 - Profiled color values - color() https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color_value/color() 11:00 - color-mix() https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color_value/color-mix() The color-mix() functional notation takes two color values and returns the result of mixing them in a given colorspace by a given amount. Would be handy for programmatically generating colors - 10% more blue for a border? Sure! 14:18 - Space-separated functional color notations rgba(255 255 255 0) instead of rgba(255,255,255,0.5) 15:28 - RGB and HSL with Alpha rgb() and hsl() can take alpha and percent values - rgb(0 0 0 / 50%) or rgb(0 0 0 / 0.5) 18:22 - Hex + Alpha values RRGGBBAA How do you remember?!?! Transparent 21:49 - lch(), lab(), hwb() notation CIELAB color space aka Lab is a color space. A color space is an organization of colors in coordination color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of color Lab is intended as perceptually uniform Perceptually uniform - a perceptual uniform color space ensures that the difference between two colors (as perceived by the human eye) is proportional to the Euclidian distance within the given color space. https://lea.verou.me/2020/04/lch-colors-in-css-what-why-and-how/ Links https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color_value https://twitter.com/argyleink Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott's Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes' Instagram Wes' Twitter Wes' Facebook Scott's Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

For over a decade Crop Circle Secrets has led the way in helping the public make an informed decision on the origin of crop circles. Its factual research has provided an antidote to deliberate falsification of the genuine phenomenon by skeptics, hoaxers and their allies in the media. Crop circles are scientifically proven to be manifestations of energy under intelligent guidance. Over 80 eyewitnesses describe them to be made by tubes of light in less than fifteen seconds, as proved by a Japanese camera crew in 1989. The evidence for crop circles as a genuine phenomenon is found in Freddy Silva's book Secrets In The Fields. Contrary to popular perception, crop circles are not a modern phenomenon. They were witnessed by policemen and farmers as far back as 1890, they exist in the folklore of South Africa and China, and are mentioned in 17th Century academic texts. Over eighty eyewitnesses have seen crop circles forming in under fifteen seconds. Around 1980 they re-appeared as simple circles and rings in southern England, where 75% of designs are reported. By the late 1980s they developed into pictograms, not unlike the petroglyphs found at sacred sites. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today the crop glyphs display as fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics. To quell the public's growing interest in crop circles, the British Military presented two individuals named Doug and Dave to the media via a fictitious press agency, as the makers of all crop circles. The majority of their claims were later proved to have been fabricated, but never reported in the media. So, what exactly lies behind real crop circles? In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent and swirled; they are subjected to a short and intense burst of heat that softens the stems to hover just above the ground, where they re-harden without damage. Research suggests that infrasound is producing such an effect. It has also been scientifically proven that soil samples taken from within crop circles show changes to its crystalline structure and mineral composition. Expert analysis concludes that heat of 1500ºC would create such a change. These are hardly the kind of anomalies created by pranksters with planks! Crop circles also show existence of ultrasound, and such frequencies are known to exist at ancient sites such as stone circles and menhirs. And like all ancient sacred sites, crop circles appear at the intersecting points of the Earth's magnetic pathways of energy. Consequently, it is not unusual for people to experience heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles - a situation also common to sacred sites and ancient temples. Biophysical evidence shows the plants' seed embryos are altered, and the liquid in the plants has been heated from the inside. In genuine formations there is also a reorganization of the plant's crystalline structure. Other evidence from crop circles shows how the floors of laid plants are swirled in mathematical proportions relative to the Golden Mean, the vortex used by nature to create organisms. Mathematically, genuine crop circles have yielded five new geometric theorems. based on Euclidian geometry. They are also encoded with sacred geometry - those harmonic ratios that govern the relationship between the orbits of planets in our solar system. Crop circles alter the local electromagnetic field; often compasses cannot locate north, cameras and cellular phones malfunction, packs of fresh batteries are drained in minutes, and the frequencies are known to affect aircraft equipment.- http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/To listen to all our XZBN shows, with our compliments go to: https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv*** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewpaper.com

For over a decade Crop Circle Secrets has led the way in helping the public make an informed decision on the origin of crop circles. Its factual research has provided an antidote to deliberate falsification of the genuine phenomenon by skeptics, hoaxers and their allies in the media. Crop circles are scientifically proven to be manifestations of energy under intelligent guidance. Over 80 eyewitnesses describe them to be made by tubes of light in less than fifteen seconds, as proved by a Japanese camera crew in 1989. The evidence for crop circles as a genuine phenomenon is found in Freddy Silva's book Secrets In The Fields. Contrary to popular perception, crop circles are not a modern phenomenon. They were witnessed by policemen and farmers as far back as 1890, they exist in the folklore of South Africa and China, and are mentioned in 17th Century academic texts. Over eighty eyewitnesses have seen crop circles forming in under fifteen seconds. Around 1980 they re-appeared as simple circles and rings in southern England, where 75% of designs are reported. By the late 1980s they developed into pictograms, not unlike the petroglyphs found at sacred sites. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today the crop glyphs display as fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics. To quell the public's growing interest in crop circles, the British Military presented two individuals named Doug and Dave to the media via a fictitious press agency, as the makers of all crop circles. The majority of their claims were later proved to have been fabricated, but never reported in the media. So, what exactly lies behind real crop circles? In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent and swirled; they are subjected to a short and intense burst of heat that softens the stems to hover just above the ground, where they re-harden without damage. Research suggests that infrasound is producing such an effect. It has also been scientifically proven that soil samples taken from within crop circles show changes to its crystalline structure and mineral composition. Expert analysis concludes that heat of 1500ºC would create such a change. These are hardly the kind of anomalies created by pranksters with planks! Crop circles also show existence of ultrasound, and such frequencies are known to exist at ancient sites such as stone circles and menhirs. And like all ancient sacred sites, crop circles appear at the intersecting points of the Earth's magnetic pathways of energy. Consequently, it is not unusual for people to experience heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles - a situation also common to sacred sites and ancient temples. Biophysical evidence shows the plants' seed embryos are altered, and the liquid in the plants has been heated from the inside. In genuine formations there is also a reorganization of the plant's crystalline structure. Other evidence from crop circles shows how the floors of laid plants are swirled in mathematical proportions relative to the Golden Mean, the vortex used by nature to create organisms. Mathematically, genuine crop circles have yielded five new geometric theorems. based on Euclidian geometry. They are also encoded with sacred geometry - those harmonic ratios that govern the relationship between the orbits of planets in our solar system. Crop circles alter the local electromagnetic field; often compasses cannot locate north, cameras and cellular phones malfunction, packs of fresh batteries are drained in minutes, and the frequencies are known to affect aircraft equipment.- http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/To listen to all our XZBN shows, with our compliments go to: https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv*** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewpaper.com

About: Thierry Holweck is a French electronic musician, whose thematic music is based on sound exploration made with his modular system. Recordings are captured performances of tracking the white rabbit down a sonic worm hole that share time between mono and polyrythymic layers, twisted by Euclidian and random parameters. Created is a conversation between tension and release and a mix of simple and gentle melodies. Natural sounds like a wood floor, animals and any natural element fed into the sampler add depth and humanise the soundscape. Thierry is based in Lyon-Croix-Rousse, France. Links: https://www.instagram.com/tholweck/ https://www.facebook.com/severin24music https://vimeo.com/pandatransport

For over a decade Crop Circle Secrets has led the way in helping the public make an informed decision on the origin of crop circles. Its factual research has provided an antidote to deliberate falsification of the genuine phenomenon by skeptics, hoaxers and their allies in the media. Crop circles are scientifically proven to be manifestations of energy under intelligent guidance. Over 80 eyewitnesses describe them to be made by tubes of light in less than fifteen seconds, as proved by a Japanese camera crew in 1989. The evidence for crop circles as a genuine phenomenon is found in Freddy Silva's book Secrets In The Fields. Contrary to popular perception, crop circles are not a modern phenomenon. They were witnessed by policemen and farmers as far back as 1890, they exist in the folklore of South Africa and China, and are mentioned in 17th Century academic texts. Over eighty eyewitnesses have seen crop circles forming in under fifteen seconds. Around 1980 they re-appeared as simple circles and rings in southern England, where 75% of designs are reported. By the late 1980s they developed into pictograms, not unlike the petroglyphs found at sacred sites. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today the crop glyphs display as fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics. To quell the public's growing interest in crop circles, the British Military presented two individuals named Doug and Dave to the media via a fictitious press agency, as the makers of all crop circles. The majority of their claims were later proved to have been fabricated, but never reported in the media. So, what exactly lies behind real crop circles? In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent and swirled; they are subjected to a short and intense burst of heat that softens the stems to hover just above the ground, where they re-harden without damage. Research suggests that infrasound is producing such an effect. It has also been scientifically proven that soil samples taken from within crop circles show changes to its crystalline structure and mineral composition. Expert analysis concludes that heat of 1500ºC would create such a change. These are hardly the kind of anomalies created by pranksters with planks! Crop circles also show existence of ultrasound, and such frequencies are known to exist at ancient sites such as stone circles and menhirs. And like all ancient sacred sites, crop circles appear at the intersecting points of the Earth's magnetic pathways of energy. Consequently, it is not unusual for people to experience heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles - a situation also common to sacred sites and ancient temples. Biophysical evidence shows the plants' seed embryos are altered, and the liquid in the plants has been heated from the inside. In genuine formations there is also a reorganization of the plant's crystalline structure. Other evidence from crop circles shows how the floors of laid plants are swirled in mathematical proportions relative to the Golden Mean, the vortex used by nature to create organisms. Mathematically, genuine crop circles have yielded five new geometric theorems. based on Euclidian geometry. They are also encoded with sacred geometry - those harmonic ratios that govern the relationship between the orbits of planets in our solar system. Crop circles alter the local electromagnetic field; often compasses cannot locate north, cameras and cellular phones malfunction, packs of fresh batteries are drained in minutes, and the frequencies are known to affect aircraft equipment.- http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/

For over a decade Crop Circle Secrets has led the way in helping the public make an informed decision on the origin of crop circles. Its factual research has provided an antidote to deliberate falsification of the genuine phenomenon by skeptics, hoaxers and their allies in the media. Crop circles are scientifically proven to be manifestations of energy under intelligent guidance. Over 80 eyewitnesses describe them to be made by tubes of light in less than fifteen seconds, as proved by a Japanese camera crew in 1989. The evidence for crop circles as a genuine phenomenon is found in Freddy Silva's book Secrets In The Fields. Contrary to popular perception, crop circles are not a modern phenomenon. They were witnessed by policemen and farmers as far back as 1890, they exist in the folklore of South Africa and China, and are mentioned in 17th Century academic texts. Over eighty eyewitnesses have seen crop circles forming in under fifteen seconds. Around 1980 they re-appeared as simple circles and rings in southern England, where 75% of designs are reported. By the late 1980s they developed into pictograms, not unlike the petroglyphs found at sacred sites. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today the crop glyphs display as fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics. To quell the public's growing interest in crop circles, the British Military presented two individuals named Doug and Dave to the media via a fictitious press agency, as the makers of all crop circles. The majority of their claims were later proved to have been fabricated, but never reported in the media. So, what exactly lies behind real crop circles? In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent and swirled; they are subjected to a short and intense burst of heat that softens the stems to hover just above the ground, where they re-harden without damage. Research suggests that infrasound is producing such an effect. It has also been scientifically proven that soil samples taken from within crop circles show changes to its crystalline structure and mineral composition. Expert analysis concludes that heat of 1500ºC would create such a change. These are hardly the kind of anomalies created by pranksters with planks! Crop circles also show existence of ultrasound, and such frequencies are known to exist at ancient sites such as stone circles and menhirs. And like all ancient sacred sites, crop circles appear at the intersecting points of the Earth's magnetic pathways of energy. Consequently, it is not unusual for people to experience heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles - a situation also common to sacred sites and ancient temples. Biophysical evidence shows the plants' seed embryos are altered, and the liquid in the plants has been heated from the inside. In genuine formations there is also a reorganization of the plant's crystalline structure. Other evidence from crop circles shows how the floors of laid plants are swirled in mathematical proportions relative to the Golden Mean, the vortex used by nature to create organisms. Mathematically, genuine crop circles have yielded five new geometric theorems. based on Euclidian geometry. They are also encoded with sacred geometry - those harmonic ratios that govern the relationship between the orbits of planets in our solar system. Crop circles alter the local electromagnetic field; often compasses cannot locate north, cameras and cellular phones malfunction, packs of fresh batteries are drained in minutes, and the frequencies are known to affect aircraft equipment.- http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/ ****************************************************************** To listen to all our XZBN shows, with our compliments go to: https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv *** AND NOW *** The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.com The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com ******************************************************************

For over a decade Crop Circle Secrets has led the way in helping the public make an informed decision on the origin of crop circles. Its factual research has provided an antidote to deliberate falsification of the genuine phenomenon by skeptics, hoaxers and their allies in the media. Crop circles are scientifically proven to be manifestations of energy under intelligent guidance. Over 80 eyewitnesses describe them to be made by tubes of light in less than fifteen seconds, as proved by a Japanese camera crew in 1989. The evidence for crop circles as a genuine phenomenon is found in Freddy Silva's book Secrets In The Fields. Contrary to popular perception, crop circles are not a modern phenomenon. They were witnessed by policemen and farmers as far back as 1890, they exist in the folklore of South Africa and China, and are mentioned in 17th Century academic texts. Over eighty eyewitnesses have seen crop circles forming in under fifteen seconds. Around 1980 they re-appeared as simple circles and rings in southern England, where 75% of designs are reported. By the late 1980s they developed into pictograms, not unlike the petroglyphs found at sacred sites. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today the crop glyphs display as fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics. To quell the public's growing interest in crop circles, the British Military presented two individuals named Doug and Dave to the media via a fictitious press agency, as the makers of all crop circles. The majority of their claims were later proved to have been fabricated, but never reported in the media. So, what exactly lies behind real crop circles? In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent and swirled; they are subjected to a short and intense burst of heat that softens the stems to hover just above the ground, where they re-harden without damage. Research suggests that infrasound is producing such an effect. It has also been scientifically proven that soil samples taken from within crop circles show changes to its crystalline structure and mineral composition. Expert analysis concludes that heat of 1500ºC would create such a change. These are hardly the kind of anomalies created by pranksters with planks! Crop circles also show existence of ultrasound, and such frequencies are known to exist at ancient sites such as stone circles and menhirs. And like all ancient sacred sites, crop circles appear at the intersecting points of the Earth's magnetic pathways of energy. Consequently, it is not unusual for people to experience heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles - a situation also common to sacred sites and ancient temples. Biophysical evidence shows the plants' seed embryos are altered, and the liquid in the plants has been heated from the inside. In genuine formations there is also a reorganization of the plant's crystalline structure. Other evidence from crop circles shows how the floors of laid plants are swirled in mathematical proportions relative to the Golden Mean, the vortex used by nature to create organisms. Mathematically, genuine crop circles have yielded five new geometric theorems. based on Euclidian geometry. They are also encoded with sacred geometry - those harmonic ratios that govern the relationship between the orbits of planets in our solar system. Crop circles alter the local electromagnetic field; often compasses cannot locate north, cameras and cellular phones malfunction, packs of fresh batteries are drained in minutes, and the frequencies are known to affect aircraft equipment.- http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/******************************************************************To listen to all our XZBN shows, with our compliments go to: https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv*** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com ******************************************************************

Manfromleng attends a lecture by Harvey Walters, the Seeker investigator from the Investigator Starter Decks for the Arkham Horror LCG by Fantasy Flight Games. CC licensed music from the album Lovecraft Memories by Zreen Toyz. Contact manfromleng@gmail.com. Direct DownloadYouTubeiTunesGoogle Podcasts On this episode, we're attending a lecture by one of Arkham's oldest, most distinguished professors, Harvey Walters, an investigator for the Seeker class released in the Investigator Starter Deck product. I'll share my thoughts on Harvey, explore his viability in the multiplayer and solo formats and examine some of the player cards that are included in his starter deck. By the end of this video, I hope that you'll be better prepared to ace Harvey's course on non-Euclidian mathematics at Miskatonic University. There are spoilers throughout if you care about that sort of thing. If you enjoy what you hear, like, comment and subscribe. Will Harvey's lectures shed light on the nature of the Mythos or will they bore players to tears? Let's find out! Harvey Walters is among the oldest, if not the oldest, investigators in the history of Mythos-related gaming. Harvey originated in the 1st edition of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game in 1981, where he was a sample investigator used to illustrate the character creation process and the game's mechanics. I first encountered Harvey and his unfortunate companion, Kurt, when I picked up the 4th edition of the roleplaying game in 1989, and Harvey has reprised his role as the sample investigator in every edition since, including the 7th edition of the game that was released in 2015. Harvey appeared in the original Arkham Horror boardgame, which was published by Chaosium in 1987, and every Arkham Horror Files product released by Fantasy Flight Games. Harvey is the original investigator, so I was looking forward to seeing how designer MJ Newman would interpret him for the Arkham Horror LCG. She did not disappoint. Harvey Walters, The Professor, has 4 Willpower, 5 Intellect, 1 Combat and 2 Agility. He has the Miskatonic trait, 7 Health and 8 Sanity. Harvey has the following response: After an investigator at your location draws 1 or more cards from their deck during the investigation phase: That investigator draws 1 card (Limit once per round). Harvey's Elder Sign effect is +1. Draw a card. Harvey Walter's base skill values are typical of an intellectual Seeker whose goal is to investigate the Mythos from the safety of a university campus rather than the heart of a steamy jungle. Harvey's advanced age and experience have taught him a thing or two about controlling his fear, which is reflected by his above-average Willpower. Harvey has an advantage against common Willpower-based treacheries, such as Rotting Remains and Frozen in Fear from the Core set. Harvey lacks the mental discipline of a highly trained Mystic though, so he'll still need to commit cards and/or resources to deal with treacheries such as Crypt Chill and The Yellow Sign from the Core set, Arcane Barrier and Visions of Futures Past from The Dunwich Legacy or Centuries of Secrets from The Circle Undone. Willpower skill tests are required by some Parley actions and they also appear on Agenda and Act cards from time to time. Harvey's above-average Willpower is helpful during these types of skill tests, although he'll likely need to commit additional cards and resources to pass them consistently. Fortunately for Harvey, his starter deck includes one card with multiple Willpower skill icons, Arcane Enlightenment, as well as cards, such as Celeano Fragments, Encyclopedia (0) and Higher Education (0), that can modify his base Willpower. Harvey's highest skill value happens to be in the most important skill in the game. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: playing an investigator with 5 Intellect is like playing an entirely different game of Arkham Horror LCG. An investigator with 5 Intellect has such a huge advantage that the rest of the card could be blank, and I'd probably still play them. Intellect skill tests during Investigate actions become a breeze at all but the highest-shroud locations, and you can often race through scenarios before the encounter deck has a chance to put up much of a defence. The question is not whether you'll discover clues when you take an Investigate action, but how many clues you can discover with one Investigate action. Harvey's starter deck includes several cards, such as Celaeno Fragments and Whitton Green, that can raise his Intellect to 6 or 7, while Extensive Research (0) and Deduction (0) can help him discover additional clues. Intellect is critical to Investigate actions and it is also tested by many Parley actions. Harvey is gentleman and a scholar who will have little difficulty enlisting the aid of ‘Jazz' Mulligan in Extracurricular Activity, gathering vital clues about the King in Yellow from Constance Dumaine in The Last King or persuading Ichtaca that he is not her enemy in The Untamed Wilds. There aren't that many treacheries that test an investigator's Intellect, but Harvey is in a far better position than most investigators to deal with cards such as False Lead from the Core set, Ephemeral Exhibits from The Miskatonic Museum or Black Stars Rise from The Path to Carcosa. Harvey's experience and advanced age do wonders for his Willpower and Intellect. The same can't be said for his Combat and Agility, both of which are below average. Below-average Combat and Agility aren't a significant liability in multiplayer since there is usually at least one combat-orientated investigator at the table who will happily take enemies off Harvey's frail hands. However, enemy management can be a significant problem for Harvey during a solo campaign. Up until recently, Seekers have had very few options at Level 0 to deal with enemies. The situation has improved slightly with the release of cards such as Blood-Rite in the Before the Black Throne. Harvey's starter deck contains two more enemy management options, Disc of Itzamna (0) and Occult Invocation. Encyclopedia (0) can also be helpful in a pinch, although it requires an action to trigger, which would open Harvey up to attacks of opportunity. Unfortunately, Harvey's below-average Combat and Agility skill values also make him vulnerable to several common encounter cards. A simple Locked Door from the Core set has the potential to become an impenetrable barrier for Harvey, while Grasping Hands has the potential to deal a significant amount of damage to him. Needless to say, escaping Entombed from The Forgotten Age will require a Herculean effort from our fragile professor. Scenarios such as The Essex County Express, Undimensioned and Unseen and Curtain Call have all sorts of nastiness in store for Arkham's less Agile investigators, and Harvey will be lucky indeed if he can make it through The Forgotten Age campaign without falling off a rope bridge or succumbing to a Snake Bite. There is only one Parley action that tests either Combat or Agility, Nasht: Priest of the Dreamlands from Beyond the Gates of Sleep: however, it's a difficult test for Harvey to pass unless he has a trick up his sleeve. Harvey's response isn't as flashy as some of the other special abilities available on Seeker investigators, but it ranks among the most powerful in the game. Draw wins games, and Harvey's ability to draw extra cards each turn is unmatched. In the multiplayer format, Harvey can use his response to help other investigators at the table dig that much deeper into their decks for the right tools for the job. Is the Guardian or Mystic in the group missing that key weapon or spell? Harvey lets them draw additional cards each turn so they can find it that much faster. The ability to draw extra cards isn't that common outside the Seeker card pool, so having an investigator at the table who can feed card draw to other players from the word go gives a group an edge against the encounter deck. If you're playing Harvey in the solo format, then he gets to keep all that additional card draw for himself, which is fantastic. Harvey may trigger his ability in response to taking a vanilla draw action during his turn, but the ability also synergizes with a wealth of other cards in the Seeker card pool. For example, you may use in conjunction with assets, such as Dream-Enhancing Serum, Feed the Mind and Old Book of Lore; events, such as Blood-Rite, Cryptic Research and Preposterous Sketches; and skills, such as either level of Perception or Eureka! If Harvey uses any of these cards on his turn, he gets to draw an extra card, and all those extra cards means he has extra options to counter the machinations of the encounter deck. Harvey is capable of drawing so many cards so quickly that he can exceed his maximum hand size if you're not careful, forcing him to discard some of those hard-earned cards during the Upkeep phase. Fortunately, Harvey's starter deck contains several cards that let him not only boost his maximum hand size into the double digits, but also reward him for maintaining a so-called Big Hand. Big Hand decks are a relatively new concept in the Arkham Horror LCG since there weren't than many cards to support the strategy until the Dream-Eaters cycle. The premise of the deck is simple: use cards, such as Vault of Knowledge, Laboratory Assistant and Dream-enhancing Serum to jack your hand size into double digits, and then draw like a madman, cycling through your draw deck rapidly while abusing powerful cards, such as Knowledge is Power. A good example of this type of strategy is a Mandy Thompson deck built by Cuherdir, which is capable of cycling through the draw deck multiple times per turnonce it's up and running. While this strategy is extremely effective in either solo or multiplayer, Cuherdir's deck contains 45 XP worth of cards, so it's the type of deck that you either play in standalone or a deck that you build towards, not something you play at the beginning of a campaign. It's also worth noting that many of the cards in this deck are on the optional List of Taboos because the designers recognized that they were overpowered. Harvey's starter deck may not be capable of cycling itself several times per turn, but our professor is no slouch in the Big Hand department. Between his signature asset, Vault of Knowledge, Laboratory Assistant and Arcane Enlightenment, Harvey can have 10 plus cards in his hand during his turn. While testing Harvey, I added Dream-enhancing Serum from A Thousand Shapes of Horror to the mix, and I routinely had a 12-plus cards in my hand within a turn or two. I often had so many cards in my hand that I felt spoiled for choice how to respond to threats from the encounter deck. When you've got that many cards in your hand, you can start to feel nigh untouchable, whether you're Investigating, Fighting or Evading. Sadly, Harvey is not immune to danger once he amasses a fistful of cards, cycles his deck and begins abusing powerful events such as Knowledge is Power. Beyond the Veil, a common treachery from the Dunwich Legacy, can put the kibosh on those types of shenanigans very quickly. Harvey has a surprising amount of health for a fragile old man, but even he will be hard-pressed to mitigate 10 damage. Cards such as Crypt Chill from the Core set can whittle away at Harvey's key assets, while Laboratory Assistant is fragile at only one health. Even basic weaknesses, such as Amnesia from the Core set and Drawing the Sign from the Path to Carcosa, can spell trouble for Harvey, although he is in a better position than most investigators to recover from these types of setbacks. Harvey pings himself for a horror each time he cycles his deck, but that shouldn't be much of a threat, given that he has 8 Sanity and access to plenty of high Sanity allies who can soak the horror for him. The biggest difference between running a Big Hand strategy in Harvey and another Seeker investigator, such as Mandy Thompson, is his signature weakness, Thrice-Damned Curiosity. Mandy's signature weakness, Shocking Discovery, forces her to draw an encounter card, which may or may not have an impact, when she cycles her deck. As we'll see in a moment, that is not the case with Thrice-Damned Curiosity, which can easily kill Harvey if he cycles his deck too rapidly. If Harvey didn't draw enough cards with his response, his Elder Sign ability gives him a chance to draw even more. Remember that if Harvey pulls an Elder Sign during a skill test on his turn, he can trigger his response, too, drawing a second card. This didn't happen all that often during my games with Harvey, but it's a nice option if Harvey is preoccupied and can't find the time to squeeze in some type of draw action. Harvey gets +1 to his modified skill value if he pulls an Elder Sign, which is the same for all investigators in the starter decks. That's not all that surprising, considering Harvey is primarily focused on discovering clues. Harvey has a base Intellect skill value of 5, which becomes a 6 or 7 with a few key assets in play, so it's not like he needs a big boost from the Elder Sign during Investigate action. Unfortunately for Harvey, pulling an Elder Sign won't be enough to save him if he can't muster enough skill icons during more challenging Combat and Agility skill tests. Harvey's signature card is Vault of Knowledge. It's a three-cost asset with Willpower, Agility and Wild skill icons and the Talent trait. It is Harvey Walters deck only. Your maximum hand size is increased by 2 while Vault of Knowledge in in play. It has the following game text: Response - After you successfully investigate, exhaust Vault of Knowledge and choose an investigator at your location: That investigator draws 1 card. Vault of Knowledge is the type of signature asset that does everything that Harvey could ever want. First, it boosts Harvey's hand size, providing a cushion for all those extra cards that he's going to draw during a scenario. Cards that increase a player's maximum hand size are few and far between, so this ability is a welcome one, especially if Harvey wants to lecture to allies other than Laboratory Assistant. If that isn't enough, Vault of Knowledge rewards Harvey for doing what he does best, that is, investigating and discovering clues. Of course, this ability gives Harvey yet another opportunity to trigger his response and draw an additional card. The nice thing about Vault of Knowledge is that Harvey can share that draw with another investigator at his location, facilitating the development of their board states. Guardians, Rogues, Mystics and Survivors have received a few more ways to draw cards since the Core set days, but Seekers still monopolize the mechanic. Harvey is unique in that he can share some of that draw consistently with other investigators at the table, which makes him a valuable support investigator in addition to being a top-notch cluever. Harvey Walter's signature weakness is Thrice-Damned Curiosity. It has the Flaw trait and the following Revelation – For every 3 cards in your hand: Take 1 damage. Harvey can draw a ton of cards, which is fantastic. The downside of all that draw is that he will also see any weaknesses that are lurking in his deck more frequently. Thrice-Damned Curiosity is the weakness that keeps Harvey honest. Harvey can draw so many cards so quickly that he has the potential to cycle through his deck multiple times during a scenario. Thrice-Damned Curiosity makes you think twice about doing that. Harvey has a lot of health compared with many of his Seeker counterparts, but he needs that extra health to absorb the blow from this weakness, which has the potential to kill him outright depending on the number of cards in his hand when it pops. Now I was lucky while testing Harvey, and Thrice-Damned Curiosity rarely hit for more than one or two damage, but then I wasn't necessarily trying to maximize Harvey's hand size in every game either. Still, that one or two damage was enough to kill Harvey at least once, so Thrice-Damned Curiosity commands respect. If you pursue a Big Hand strategy, which the starter deck encourages you to do with cards such Vault of Knowledge, Arcane Enlightenment, Laboratory Assistant and Extensive Research, then Thrice-Damned Curiosity will likely tag you for anywhere from 3 to 5 damage, which is a significant chunk of Harvey's health. If Harvey has 10+ plus in his hand while cycling his deck, Thrice-Damned Curiosity will almost certainly kill him unless he has a way to mitigate that damage. If Harvey is tackling scenarios such as The Essex County Express or Curtain Call, which can ping investigators for a significant amount of damage unless they're extremely careful, the odds of Thrice-Damned Curiosity landing a lethal blow rise dramatically. Damage mitigation and/or healing is rare in the Seeker card pool, so Harvey's best bet is to pawn off the damage from Thrice-Damned Curiosity on one of his unlucky allies from Miskatonic University. Harvey's starter deck includes one basic weakness that is designed to harass bookish investigators like him. Obsessive has the Flaw trait and the following Revelation – Place Obsessive in your threat area. Forced – When your turn begins: Discard 1 non-weakness card at random from your hand. You may take two actions to discard Obsessive. Obsessive is a Jekyll and Hyde type of weakness. On the one hand, if you're playing a Big Hand style of deck like Harvey, Obsessive is a relatively minor nuisance. On the other hand, if you're playing a deck that doesn't draw that many cards or struggles in the card draw department, it can be a dreadful brute that will shred your hand, leaving you battered and bloody in its wake. Let's take a closer look at both sides of Obsessive. If you draw Obsessive as your basic weakness when you're playing a Big Hand deck, it's somewhat irritating, but you could do far worse. When I was testing a Big Hand Harvey build with Vault of Knowledge, Laboratory Assistant and Dream-enhancing Serum, I had so many cards in my hand most of the time that randomly discarding one of them at the start of my turn to Obsessive simply didn't matter all that much. Sure, Obsessive would discard something important from time to time, but it rarely posed a significant setback. If I had 10+ cards in hand after the random discard, then I usually had an answer to almost anything the encounter deck could throw at me. Sometimes I'd just let Obsessive sit in my threat area because I had better things to do than take two actions to discard it. If you're drawing enough cards to turn after turn to neuter Obsessive's random discard, one of the best ways to deal with it is to simply beat the scenario as fast as possible. Given Harvey's 5 Intellect, he's quite capable of doing just that. If, on the other hand, your deck plays a lot of cards or commits them to skill tests as fast as you draw them, Obsessive is a huge pain in the ass. If your deck doesn't have a good draw engine, then you'll usually end up drawing Obsessive during the Upkeep phase, which is the worst time to see it. I hate when I draw a weakness rather than a card that could potentially help me next turn at the best of times, but Obsessive is doubly painful, because it will discard another card at random from your hand before you have a chance to deal with it. If you don't have that many cards in your hand to begin with, the odds of Obsessive sniping something important rise dramatically. Lose the wrong card at the wrong time, and you could quickly find yourself in a no-win situation. But Obsessive isn't done turning the screws, because you need to take two actions to discard it. If you don't have two actions to spare because you've got more pressing matters to attend to, Obsessive will loiter in your threat area, ripping cards out of your hand turn after turn, which could be devastating. In this type of situation, Obsessive is a very nasty weakness. If you draw Obsessive as your basic weakness in this type of deck, my advice is to remove it from your threat area as quickly as possible. The fewer cards you discard at random, the better off you'll be in the long run. Now that we've analyzed Harvey's strengths, weaknesses, and signature cards, let's examine Harvey's viability as a multiplayer and solo investigator and break down the contents of his starter deck. If you're new to the game and you picked up the Harvey starter deck to play with friends, I've got some good news for you: Harvey is a great multiplayer investigator, and his starter deck is perfectly suitable for your first campaign. I have a few nitpicks with the starter deck, namely the lack of support for Combat and Agility skill tests and the implementation of the Big-Hand strategy, but most of these issues are relatively easy to fix. Much like the Nathaniel Cho starter deck, the Harvey Walters starter deck goes all in on its strategy of choice, in this case, Investigation, leaving him relatively defenceless against Combat and Agility skill tests prompted by enemies, treacheries or locations on the table. Harvey's starter deck contains only 2 Combat, 3 Agility and 5 Wild skill icons, which will make it difficult if not impossible for Harvey to pass Combat and Agility skill tests with any consistency out of the box. Unfortunately, Harvey's starter deck is missing two Seeker staples, ‘I've got a plan!' (0) and Mind over Matter (0), which would help him a lot in either multiplayer or solo formats. While I can understand the omission of ‘I've got a plan!' (0), since the starter deck assumes that Harvey won't be taking that many Fight actions in multiplayer, Mind over Matter (0) is sorely missed, because it would really help Harvey deal with not only the odd enemy, but also the occasional Combat or Agility skill test that occurs during his turn. I'm glad the deck includes ‘I've got a plan!' (2) and Mind over Matter (2), which Harvey can purchase once he earns a few experience points, but they don't do him much good at the beginning of a campaign. Besides, I'm not crazy about the idea of spending anywhere from four to eight experience on these upgrades when the Level 0 versions of ‘I've got a plan!' and Mind over Matter usually suffice. Fortunately, Mind over Matter (0) is available in the Core set, and I wouldn't hesitate to add one or two copies of it to the deck immediately. ‘I've got a plan!' (0), which is in the Miskatonic Museum mythos pack, is a tougher call. If you are playing with two or three other investigators, or you are paired with a ruthless killing machine, such as Nathaniel Cho, you can probably get away without it. Otherwise, I would err on the side of caution and try to include it if at all possible. The implementation of the Big Hand strategy in the starter deck is also somewhat problematic. Cards such as Vault of Knowledge, Arcane Enlightenment, Laboratory Assistant really encourage you to boost your hand size to double digits so that you can reap the rewards of cards such as Celeano Fragments, Forgotten Tome, Higher Education and Extensive Research and Farsight (4). A larger hand size also helps mitigate the drawbacks of Obsessive. However, in my experience, I've found the Big Hand strategy as presented in the starter deck to be somewhat slow, since you need to play a lot of assets to have at least 12+ cards in your hand. Moreover, I'm not entirely convinced the payoff for amassing 12+ cards in your hand is worth it. That leaves you with a couple of options. The first is to abandon the Big Hand strategy altogether. I've played Harvey with and without the strategy, and honestly, it's easier to play the deck without obsessing over your hand size. Your second option is to improve the strategy's consistency. Fortunately, there is a relatively easy fix. Dream-enhancing Serum, a Seeker asset from A Thousand Shapes of Horror, is a perfect for this deck. It has the potential to boost your hand size more than most of the cards in the deck, and it synergizes nicely with Harvey's draw ability. I would highly recommend buying the mythos pack or borrowing a couple of copies the serum from a friend. I think you'll find the deck runs much smoother. While the Harvey Walters starter deck is perfectly suitable out of the box for multiplayer, I wouldn't recommend playing it solo. It simply lacks the tools needed to protect poor Harvey from the dangers of the mythos. That said, once you expand your collection, Harvey's 4 Willpower, 5 Intellect and draw ability make him a tremendous solo investigator. I have beaten some of the most difficult scenarios this game has to offer with Harvey in the solo format. There aren't that many good enemy management tools in the Seeker card pool at Level 0, but once you gain a few experience points, there are some fantastic options whether you prefer to Fight or Evade. The Harvey Walters starter deck contains a wealth of new Seeker cards that work well with not only Harvey, but also other Seeker and off-class Seeker investigators in the card pool. I've tested Harvey against a variety of scenarios as a solo investigator, so most of what I have to say here will focus on the viability of these cards in that format. You can divide the Level 0 cards in Harvey's starter deck into six groups: draw, hand size maximization, resource generation, clue discovery, tomes and cards that interact with tomes and enemy management tools. I'll discuss potential purchases and upgrades later in this video. The first group of cards support Harvey's special ability, drawing cards. Forbidden Tome (0), Feed the Mind (0), Laboratory Assistant, either level of Whitton Greene, Vault of Knowledge and Preposterous Sketches provide Harvey with so many options to draw additional cards during his turn that he should rarely need to take a basic draw action to trigger his response. I'll discuss Forbidden Tome and Whitton Greene a little later, and Preposterous Sketches has been around since Blood on the Altar, which leaves Feed the Mind (0). Feed the Mind (0) is a downgrade for Feed the Mind (3) from the Depths of Yoth mythos pack. It's a lot like its Level (3) counterpart, with the exception that it costs one more resource, the Intellect skill test is slightly more difficult, and the card draw is capped at three. The two cards are so similar that I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of player forgo the Level 3 version altogether. While the prospect of drawing 3+ cards with Feed the Mind is very tempting, it does require an action to play, an action to trigger and a successful skill test, which can and will go wrong from time to time. I went back and forth on this card for a long time before trimming it to one copy and, ultimately, cutting it from my deck altogether. In my experience during testing, Preposterous Sketches required fewer actions and resources and produced the same effect. If you're interested in playing a Big Hand deck, I'd would recommend playing both cards to see which one you prefer. It's entirely possible your answer will be one, both or neither depending on how you've constructed your deck. The second group of cards help Harvey maximize his hand size. Harvey can amass a Big Hand of 10+ cards by playing a combination of Arcane Enlightenment, Laboratory Assistant and Vault of Knowledge. If Harvey happens to get all three assets on the table, he can have a maximum hand size of 14, one shy of the 15 required for the +1 Intellect bonus on Celeano Fragments. I've already discussed the power of Vault of Knowledge, and Laboratory Assistant has been a staple since the Dunwich Legacy, which leaves Arcane Enlightenment. I consider this to be the weakest card of the bunch, and it's the primary reason I recommend picking up Dream-enhancing Serum from the Thousand Shapes of Horror mythos pack. I like the 2 Willpower skill icons, since the starter deck lacks Guts, but I think the card is too slow and offers Harvey too little in the solo format. If I want to increase Harvey's hand size, I'd much rather play Vault of Knowledge, Laboratory Assistant and Dream-enhancing Serum, which has the potential to ramp up your hand size far higher than Arcane Enlightenment. I cut Arcane Enlightenment for two copies of Dream-enhancing Serum, which made an immediate impact because it enables Harvey to have 10+ cards in his hand without Vault of Knowledge or Laboratory Assistant in play, and it gives him yet another way to trigger his response. Dream-enhancing Serum is such as perfect fit for Harvey that I'm surprised it wasn't reprinted in his starter deck. Arcane Enlightenment also provides an additional hand slot for a Tome, which is OK I guess if you're playing the starter deck straight out of the box. Harvey does have plenty of tomes from which to choose. However, if I'm playing solo, I'm not all that interested in wasting a card, 2 resources and an action on a card that doesn't have an immediate impact on the board state. Besides, if I want to play a deck based around tomes, I'll just play Daisy or her parallel version, who can leverage tomes so much better than Harvey. Arcane Enlightenment may be worth playing in either of those investigators, since you can dump Daisy's signature weakness, The Necronomicon, into that additional slot. I'd consider playing a copy of Arcane Enlightenment in Minh Thi Phan, since she could use a hand to hold the King in Yellow. There are two cards in the Harvey's starter deck that generate resources: Burning the Midnight Oil and Cryptic Writings.  The cost curve of Harvey's deck spikes at 2 resources, so the extra resource generation is appreciated. You'll also need those extra resources if you're planning to leverage Higher Education. It's odd that Harvey's starter deck actually contains more resource generation than the Rogue starter deck, but we'll address that problem when I break down Winifred's deck in a future deck tech. Burning the Midnight Oil is similar to Clean Them Out and Sneak By from the Nathaniel Cho and Winifred Habbamock starter decks, respectively, in that it rewards Harvey for doing what Harvey does best, investigating. It goes without saying that Harvey is going to take a lot of Investigate actions in multiplayer or solo, and Burning the Midnight Oil simply hands you two resources for doing so. Piggybacking resource generation on another action is terrific and Burning the Midnight Oil has become a staple in many of my Seeker decks for that reason. I have had an on-again-off-again relationship with Cryptic Writings and its Level 2 upgrade. Currently, we're on the outs. Theoretically, Cryptic Writings works similarly to Burning the Midnight Oil, piggybacking resource generation on card draw. The problem is, I never seem to draw Cryptic Writings during my turn, even when I play an investigator like Harvey, who draws a ton of cards. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but Cryptic Writings' inconsistency, coupled with the fact that I hate taking an action to play Cryptic Writings if I don't draw it during my turn, really bugs me. Long story short, I haven't been playing Cryptic Writings in my Seeker decks lately, but that could change. The fourth group of cards help Harvey discover clues. Deduction has been around since the Core set, which leaves Extensive Research (0), a downgrade for Extensive Research (1) from the Dark Side of the Moon mythos pack. Extensive Research (0) is similar to Working a Hunch from the Core set, the obvious differences being that it's not fast and its exorbitant cost is conditional on your hand size. If you have 12+ cards in your hand consistently, then Extensive Research will save you an action at a high-shroud location. Discovering two clues without making a skill test is also a great option at locations where Investigate actions have the potential to trigger dangerous effects (I'm looking at you, Haunted keyword from The Circle Undone) or tricksy locations, such as Arkham Woods: Cliffside or Arkham Woods: Tangled Thicket for The Devourer Below scenario, which force Harvey to investigate with Agility and Combat, respectively. Unfortunately, Extensive Research prices itself out of the market the moment your hand size falters. I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay for Extensive research to discover two clues, but I can't imagine that it would be more than two or three unless the game was on the line. I took this card for a spin in the Harvey Walters deck I played during the Farkham Nights Ironman event, but I don't think I ever played it. More often than not, my hand size would dip, and Extensive Research (0) was simply too expensive. Extensive Research (1) would have been a better option. The fifth group of cards are tomes and cards that interact with tomes. The starter deck comes with three tomes: Celaeno Fragments, Encyclopedia (0), and Forbidden Tome (0). It also includes two cards that interact with tomes, namely Arcane Enlightenment and Whitton Greene. I am a little surprised that Harvey's deck contains so many cards that focus on tomes, considering the Arkham Horror LCG already has one investigator who specializes in them, two if you count Daisy's parallel version. Unfortunately, Harvey lacks Daisy's special ability to trigger a tome for free each turn, so triggering tomes will eat away at his precious actions. Harvey might be able to make these tomes work in multiplayer, but most of them are too slow for solo play, and I quickly cut them during testing. Daisy, of course, has a much easier time leveraging these tomes. Celaeno Fragments, Book of Books, is a cheap source of extra Intellect and Willpower icons if you're playing a Big Hand-style of deck. While testing Harvey, I routinely had 10 plus cards in hand to qualify for the Intellect and Willpower skill bonuses. I was never able to hit 15 or more cards in hand for the extra +1 Intellect, though, and honestly, I'm not sure the payoff is worth risk, since Thrice-Damned Curiosity has the potential to hit you for a whopping 5 damage if you are holding that many cards in your hand. Celaeno Fragments role in the starter deck is like that of Magnifying Glass from the Core set. Personally, I prefer Magnifying Glass because its Fast and the +1 Intellect skill bonus is unconditional, but Celaeno Fragments is a perfectly acceptable option if you're playing the starter deck out of the box. Encyclopedia (0) is a downgrade for Encyclopedia (2) from the Core set. Encyclopedia (2) sees play in the multiplayer format, because an investigator like Daisy may trigger it with her free action to give herself or another investigator at her location +2 to a skill of their choice until the end of the phase. That bonus is fantastic whether that investigator is planning to Investigate, Fight or Evade. Encyclopedia (2) isn't quite as good in the solo format since triggering it will provoke an attack of opportunity unless you use Knowledge is Power, which isn't included in the starter deck and has since been added to the optional list of taboos. The other drawback of targeting yourself with Encyclopedia is that, in most circumstances, the skill bonus will apply for only two actions, not three if you target another investigator. Daisy, as always, is the exception. The only significant difference between Encyclopedia (0) and its Level 2 counterpart is that it uses secrets, which limit how often you may trigger it. However, the card enters play with 5 secrets, which is quite generous, and Seekers have several ways of adding more secrets if necessary, including the ubiquitous Astounding Revelation from the Dream-Eaters deluxe expansion, so upgrading to Encyclopedia (2) isn't that urgent. Harvey's starter deck includes one ‘untranslated' asset, Forbidden Tome (0), and two upgrades for it, Forbidden Tome (Dark Knowledge) and Forbidden Tome (Secrets Revealed). I'm a big fan of the ‘untranslated' assets. Most of them are relatively easy to identify or translate, and the upgrades for them tend to be well worth the effort. That said, I'm disappointed by Forbidden Tome (0). First, Forbidden Tome (0) and both its Level 3 upgrades are intended exclusively for a Big Hand style of deck. If you're not playing that style of deck, then there's no point to playing either level of Forbidden Tome. Second, Forbidden Tome (0) takes a lot more actions to translate compared with the other unidentified assets. For example, identifying either Strange Solution or Ancient Stone takes only two actions: one to play the card and one to identify it. Interpreting the Dream Diary takes three actions, while translating the Archaic Glyphs takes four. Forbidden Tome (0) is the most labour-intensive card of the bunch, since you need to take six actions to translate it. That's a lot of work unless you're playing Daisy, especially in the solo format where time is of the essence. Unfortunately, Harvey's starter deck doesn't include cards like Knowledge is Power from Union and Disillusion or Eldritch Sophist from In Too Deep, which could speed up the process significantly. There is also a small chance that you can get ‘stuck' while translating Forbidden Tome (0), since you can't remove the last secret from it unless you're certain that you'll have at least 10 cards in hand after you draw. Now this shouldn't be an issue if you're playing a Big Hand deck; however, you could end up in a situation where your hand size dips, forcing you to draw without triggering the tome for fear of getting stuck. Both upgrades for Forbidden Tome (0) are geared exclusively towards Big Hand decks. Unless you're holding 12+ cards in your hand or you play Knowledge is Power, you've got to spend 2+ actions to trigger them, and neither effect is worth more than two actions, much less four, in most circumstances. Cards that force investigators to jump through a bunch of hoops before they become useful tend to be slow and cumbersome, and the upgrades for Forbidden Tome (0) are no exception. Forbidden Tome (Dark Knowledge) lends itself to the multiplayer format. It gives Seeker investigators like Harvey a way to heal themselves or an ally while damaging an enemy at their location. There are some interesting tricks that you can pull with this tome in multiplayer. For example, if a Seeker is paired with a Guardian, they could trigger Forbidden Tome (Dark Knowledge) to move 1 damage from [SLIDE] Beat Cop (2) or Agency Backup (5) to an enemy at their location, then the Guardian could use the free-triggered ability on either card to deal another damage. Dealing 2 damage for the cost of one action is a good trade. If you need to discover clues rather than deal damage, the combination also works with either level of Grete Wagner from the Nathaniel Cho starter deck. If a Seeker is paired with Sister Mary, they could move 1 damage from Sister Mary's signature asset, Guardian Angel, to an enemy. Then Sister Mary could assign more damage to Guardian Angel, adding more Bless tokens to the chaos bag. Don't forget that you can use the tome to move damage to an enemy with the Aloof keyword, so it's another weapon against those irritating Whippoorwills that flock to investigators during The Dunwich Legacy campaign or Union and Disillusion. If my hand size dipped below 12, I'd be very hesitant to spend more than one action to trigger this effect in most situations, but never say never. I'm not sold on Forbidden Tome (Dark Knowledge) in the solo format. There's a good chance that Harvey will sustain some damage from his signature weakness, and it would be great to pawn some of it off on enemies. Unfortunately, unless the enemies at Harvey's location are exhausted (which is highly unlikely given Harvey's below-average Agility) or they have the Aloof keyword, triggering the tome will likely trigger attacks of opportunity. Harvey has quite a bit of health and sanity for an old fella but trading blows with enemies is not a position that I want to be in when I'm playing a Seeker. Forbidden Tome (Secrets Revealed), on the other hand, is a good option in either solo or multiplayer if, and this is a big if, you're playing the Big Hand deck that can maintain a 12+ card hand consistently. Spending one action to move to a connecting location and discover a clue there without making a skill test is a terrific effect that only gets better at high-shroud locations or locations with potentially dangerous effects, such as the Haunted keyword from The Circle Undone campaign. This tome has the potential to generate action advantage during a scenario since it's not limited by a predetermined number of secrets or charges. As long as you can keep your hand size at 12, you can take two actions for the cost of one every turn, which is fantastic. If my hand size dropped below 12, I might even consider spending two actions to trigger this tome. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I think there are certain situation where you could justify it because that ability to discover a clue without making a skill test is so powerful. Harvey's starter deck includes two cards that interact with tomes: Whitton Greene: Hunter of Rare Books and her Level 2 upgrade. I have a soft spot in my heart for Whitton, because she is such a powerhouse in the Call of Cthulhu LCG. That said, I haven't found the right deck for her yet in the Arkham Horror LCG. There are a couple of problems with Whitton. First, she costs four resources, which is a lot considering her +1 Intellect bonus is conditional on controlling either a Tome or Relic. Now Whitton's reaction helps you find those Tomes or Relics, but in terms of pure speed and efficiency, she simply can't compete Dr. Milan Christopher from the Core Set, who gives you +1 Intellect unconditionally. Whitton also comes up short against the other Seeker ally in the Core Set, Research Librarian, in the Tome hunt. Research Librarian cost half as much as Whitton and it fetches you any Tome in your deck the moment it hits the table. If you'd like to abuse the Necronomicon, easily the most powerful tome in the game, Research Librarian can fetch it for you on Turn 1, and you'll still have the resources to pay for it. Sadly, the same can't be said for Whitton. The other problem with Whitton is that she doesn't fit in very well with the Big Hand-style of deck, which Harvey's starter encourages you to play. Laboratory Assistant is the ally of choice in that deck, which leaves poor Whitton on the outside looking in until you can purchase Miskatonic Archaeology Funding, which is included in the starter deck, or Charisma from The Essex County Express mythos pack. Despite the strikes against Whitton, I haven't given up hope of finding her a home. Either version of Daisy seems like the obvious choice to play Whitton, but there is undeniable chemistry between Luke Robinson and Whitton, too. Admittedly it's an odd pairing, but Luke starts scenarios with a Relic in play, which mitigates Whitton's tempo issues. I've also considered ignoring Whitten (0) altogether in favour of her Level 2 upgrade, perhaps including her in a quote unquote nerdy deck built around Miskatonic Archaeology Funding. Unfortunately for Whitton, I haven't pulled the trigger on that build yet because I still wince when I look at her resource cost. I'd happily pay 4 resources if Whitton's Willpower and Intellect skill bonuses were unconditional; knowing that I need to draw and play a tome or relic before I get any sort of bonus is a tough sell. The final groups of Level 0 cards that I'm going to look at are Harvey's enemy management tools. If you needed any more evidence that the Investigator Starter Deck product was designed with the multiplayer format in mind, this is it. The Nathaniel Cho starter deck goes all in on combat at the expense of investigation because the designers expect you to pair him with an investigator who can discover the lion's share of the clues. Harvey's starter deck takes the opposite approach, going all in on investigation at the expense of combat. Again, it the designers expect you to pair Harvey with an investigator who can manage enemies, because he has only two options: Disc of Itzamna (0), a downgrade from its Level 2 counterpart in the Core set, and Occult Invocation. I'm not a big fan of Disc of Itzamna (2) in solo. It's a little pricey at 3 resources, and I feel like I'm taking a huge tempo hit whenever I spend an action to play it. All too often it seems, a dangerous enemy, such as a Yithian Observer, will spawn on top of you before you draw and/or play the Disc, at which point the Disc is basically useless. The Disc is also useless against enemies, such as the ubiquitous Acolyte from the Core set, that don't spawn at your location. The Disc might have been more helpful in these situations if it had a better spread of skill icons, but a single Combat skill icon isn't going to help Seekers like Harvey, who are notoriously weak in the Combat department. Disc of Itzamna (0) suffers from the same drawbacks as its level 2 counterpart. It's expensive and you've got to play it before the enemy spawns on you to be effective. Again, it's no help if the enemy spawns elsewhere. Automatically evading an enemy or dealing 2 damage to it isn't quite as powerful as discarding an enemy outright, but it can be functionally equivalent if the enemy has two or fewer health or it lacks the Hunter keyword. As for Occult Invocation, I've played it in a variety of Seeker decks, and it's a good alternative to ‘I've got a plan!' (0) if you've got the card draw to support it. Spending 2 resources and discarding up to 2 cards from your hand isa steep price to pay, but Seekers don't have that many options at Level 0 to deal damage, so beggars can't be choosers. Occult Invocation tops out at 3 damage, which is fine for spot removal of run-of-the-mill enemies with two or three health. However, it comes up short against enemies with four or five health, such as the friendly neighbourhood Ghoul Priest from The Gathering. Unless you have a follow up in your hand – which would need to be a second copy of Occult Invocation if you're playing the starter deck out of the box – then dealing those final two points of damage will be tough. Before I wrap up this video, let's talk about the upgrades that you can purchase once you earn some experience points. How you modify Harvey's deck depends a lot on whether you're playing multiplayer or solo and whether you have access to card pool at large or just the cards in the starter deck. If you're interested in taking Harvey for a spin in the solo format and you have access to the card pool at large, your first order of business should be to upgrade Harvey's enemy management tools. There are plenty of great options in the Seeker card pool, including Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor, Arcane Glyphs: Prophecy Foretold, Ancient Stone: Knowledge of the Elders, Pendant of the Queen and, last but not least, the Necronomicon. If you prefer the multiplayer format, discovering clues as efficiently as possible takes priority. Again, if you have access to the Seeker card pool at large, there are great options, including Archaic Glyphs: Guiding Stones, Deciphered Reality, Pendant of the Queen and the Necronomicon. If you are playing Harvey Walters out of the box and you're restricted to upgrades from the starter deck, then you have a couple paths that you can follow. Let's begin with the elephant in the room: The Necronomicon. The Necronomicon is the best tome in the game, period. Free-triggered abilities are amazing, and The Necronomicon gives you four that you can mix and match as you see fit. If you want to abuse the Necronomicon, purchase two copies of Library Docent (1), which can bounce the Necronomicon back to your hand so you can play it again fully recharged. The Necronomicon is flat out busted when you have access to a larger card pool. If you ignore the optional list of taboos, you can unleash the Necronomicon's terrible power repeatedly by playing it in combination with Knowledge is Power and two copies of Sleight of Hand, which Harvey can pick up by purchasing two copies of Versatile. Abiding by the list of taboos tones down the abuse a little by removing Sleight of Hand from the mix. The Necronomicon and Knowledge is Power also cost slightly more experience, which means it will take you a little longer to assemble the combination during a campaign. It does nothing to rein in its power, though. You know you've got a problem card on your hands when you can deal 9 damage to an enemy or discover 4 clues at any location without taking a single action, making a single skill test or spending any resources during your turn.   If you avoid the temptation to snap up the Necronomicon for 5 to 8 XP, depending on whether you are playing with the optional list of taboos, then you can explore some of the other options included in the starter deck. One of the first upgrades that many players purchase is Charisma, a permanent from the Essex County Express that provides an extra ally slot. Charisma was not reprinted in the starter deck products, but Harvey's deck includes an alternative in Miskatonic Archaeology Funding. It costs 1 more XP than Charisma but provides two additional ally slots as long as those slots are occupied by Miskatonic assets, such as Laboratory Assistant, Whitton Greene or Library Docent (1). The card's Forced effect prevents you from assigning more than one damage or horror to those assets when you take damage or horror, but that was never much of a concern during testing. I haven't tested a Seeker deck that assembles a small army of nerds to take on the mythos, but it seems like an interesting angle to explore. There are nearly a dozen allies with the Miskatonic trait, some of which rank among the most powerful allies in the game. I'd love to be able to work Peter Sylvestre into that build, but there aren't that many Seekers who can play him without purchasing Versatile first. If you prefer to focus on events rather than allies, Farsight (4) is a great option. As long as you have 8 or more cards in your hand, you can exhaust Farsight (4) to play events such as Cryptic Writings, Extensive Research, Occult Invocation, Preposterous Sketches, ‘I've got a plan!' (2) and Seeking Answers (2) without taking an action. You must still pay the cost of that event mind you, but if you can get Farsight (4) down on the table early, it has the potential to generate a lot of action advantage during a scenario. There are plenty of powerful events in the Seeker card pool and beyond, so the value of Farsight (4) only gets better as your collection grows. You need at least 8 cards in your hand to trigger Farsight (4), but that's a much lower bar to achieve than some of the other cards in the deck that reward the Big Hand strategy. Each Investigator Starter deck comes with an upgrade for one of the Neutral skills included in the Core set. To nobody's surprise, Harvey's deck includes Perception (2). Perception is a very good option for Harvey decks, since drawing a card with it during your turn will trigger Harvey's reaction, so he actually gets two cards. Perception (2) let's Harvey draw three cards as long as he succeeds by 2 or more during a skill tests, which shouldn't be difficult between Harvey's 5 Intellect and the 3 Intellect skill icons on the skill card. Drawing 3 cards off a successful skill test is basically the equivalent of playing a Cryptic Research for half the experience points. That's a pretty good deal. If Harvey plays Perception (2) in combination with Practice Makes Perfect, he has the potential to draw 5 or six cards using a single copy of the skill, which is amazing. Other Seeker and off-class Seeker investigators also have the potential to abuse this combination, making Perception (2) a valuable pickup if you're playing Practice Makes Perfect and a few other skills with the Practice trait. Seeking Answers (2) has the potential to be quite good depending on the scenario. First, Seeking Answers (2) let's you discover at least 2 clues for a single action, which is great from a tempo perspective. Second, it can be extremely valuable in scenarios where you need to keep moving, whether to stay ahead of an enemy with the Hunter keyword or reach an objective across the map. The ability to move past a location but still pick up the clues there is very nice indeed if you need to put some distance between yourself and the enemy. Seeking Answers (2) also pairs well a card such as Barricade or Luke Robinson, who can barricade himself in his Dream Gate and investigate other locations to his heart's content. To top it all off, Seeking Answers (2) has 2 Agility skill icons. Seekers tend to fall back on Agility rather than Combat if their enemy management options are running thin, so those 2 Agility skill icons can be invaluable. Esoteric Atlas (2) is an upgrade for Esoteric Atlas (1), which was released in the Union and Disillusion mythos pack. Extra movement can be critical to completing scenarios; unfortunately for Esoteric Atlas (1) and (2), Seekers have some of the best movement cards in the game in Shortcut and Pathfinder. Esoteric Atlas (2) is certainly better than its Level 1 counterpart since the movement is more flexible (up to 3 connections away) and it doesn't exhaust when you trigger it, so you can take a long, desperate lunge towards and objective if necessary. However, you've got to target a revealed location, which is only good if you're backtracking, like in The Doom of Eztli, or running around in circles like in Midnight Masks or A Phantom of Truth. Unfortunately, Esoteric Atlas is Harvey's only option out of the box, so do yourself a favour and purchase The Dunwich Legacy expansion and/or The Miskatonic Museum for Shortcut and Pathfinder, respectively. The final card I'm going to look at in Harvey's starter deck is Glimpse the Unthinkable (1). It's a downgrade for Glimpse the Unthinkable (5), which was released in the Before the Black Throne mythos pack. I really quite like Glimpse the Unthinkable (1). If you purchase this for Harvey, he gets to draw at least 2 cards for free It also has fewer restrictions that a card like, says, Preposterous Sketches. Then Harvey gets to draw X more cards, depending how many cards from his hand he reshuffles into his deck. That has the potential to be quite powerful if you're looking for answers buried deep in your draw deck Glimpse the Unthinkable (5) is probably a better option if you're playing a Big Hand Harvey deck since he draws until he reaches his maximum hand size plus one, but 5 XP is quite a commitment when there are so many fantastic Seeker upgrades and purchases available. Besides, unlike its Level 5 counterpart, Glimpse the Unthinkable (1) isn't removed from the game so Harvey has a chance to see it again if he draws through his deck. And before I forget, it also has the Insight trait, so you can pack it in Joe Diamond's Hunch deck. MFL

This week Jake and Sky watch episode 26 of the Mighty Ducks animated series, Duck Hard. There is an attempt to make this episode almost sort-of kinda like the movie Die Hard. It is not very successful. We discuss if Sky could punch a seagull, Jake isn't familiar with the term "non Euclidian", Phil decides to buy suits for Grinn and Nosedive, and apparently the ducks put a f**ing nuclear reactor under their hockey stadium. 

Happy Valentine's Day! This week on the pod, Milo and Dave are falling head over heels for some facts about the words and symbolism around love and its patron holiday. Along the way they learn about non-Euclidian angels, Davy Crockett's love life, and lobsters in love.

Happy Valentine's Day! This week on the pod, Milo and Dave are falling head over heels for some facts about the words and symbolism around love and its patron holiday. Along the way they learn about non-Euclidian angels, Davy Crockett's love life, and lobsters in love.

The narrator recalls his experience with ghosts on a winter night in a decaying English mansion that was built in the seventeenth century. He has been arguing with his brother over the existence of such supernatural creatures and defiantly offers to stay up all night to confront the ghosts that his brother claims haunt the house. The narrator drinks several cups of strong tea to stay awake and smokes cigars to stimulate his senses. He fully expects to see ghostly figures but firmly believes they will be figments of his own imagination. At midnight a group of male and female ghosts appear dressed in the costumes of Jacobean aristocrats. Evidently they are former owners of this mansion and their relatives. The ghosts sit down, ignoring the narrator. Then a pack of “black creatures” bursts into the chamber. Although hideous monsters, they behave like devoted hounds. The narrator realizes that these creatures are “the filthy, immortal sins of those courtly men and women.” Each beast goes up to its master, who is forced to acknowledge the secret sin symbolized by the face-licking animal ghost. Several human ghosts have more than one nightmarish creatures competing for attention. The narrator suggests that one of the female ghosts is guilty of murder and that two others, a lady and a courtier, may be guilty of adultery. Otherwise he does not name any specific sins but suggests through his descriptions of the monsters that the sins they represent are of the most vile deeds of which human beings can be guilty. Suddenly one of the creatures scents the narrator’s presence and leads its companions in search of him. A number of the horrible creatures swarm over the narrator and begin clawing him. As their claws touch his body, he is overwhelmed by fiendish desires, such as the idea that he should murder his own brother. He sees how easy this would be. He could pretend that he thought his brother was a ghost and thus fire his revolver in self-defense. Afterward he would dress the body in a sheet and put flour on its face to make it appear his brother had been trying to frighten him. As the narrator is about to succumb to this temptation, he tries to shut out his wicked thoughts by working out geometry problems in his head. He succeeds in proving the validity of a Euclidian theorem. At this point, logic and reason re-establish themselves and the monsters disappear. It seems inconceivable to the narrator that he has actually contemplated murdering his own brother. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/hmphaudiobooks/support

“I sometimes ask myself,” said Albert Einstein, “how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about the problem of space and time. These are things which he has thought of as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.” About five weeks ago, Dr. Henry Zepeda was a guest on this podcast talking about Euclidian geometry:  points, lines, planes, angles, and solids. Euclid described the world as we see it today, the way we typically consider the true way of seeing it. In 1905, however, a young man named Albert Einstein proposed something different. Euclid, he said, hadn't taken into consideration motion and time. Once you do that, he reasoned, geometry needs to be taken as a branch of physics.  Dr. Michael Bolin who teaches Einstein's Special and General Theories of Relativity to Wyoming Catholic College seniors talks more about that.

Beginning the second semester of freshman year, Wyoming Catholic College students begin studying Euclidian geometry. Students prepare for each class carefully waiting to be called to the board to demonstrate one of this week's propositions. Euclid wrote his Elements in about 300 BC. Beginning with the definitions of a point and a line, he constructed the geometrical principles we still use today. And our students work their way from “On a given finite straight line to construct an equilateral triangle” to “construct an icosahedron and comprehend it in a sphere” to Book XII, Proposition 17, popularly known as constructing The Death Star. Why Euclid? Our website puts it this way, “Euclid's Elements is the foundational text of mathematics in Western civilization.” Dr. Henry Zepeda began this interview by explaining how that's the case.

Barnabas Smith is an Australian musician, teacher, and independent researcher. He holds a PhD from the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide, with a thesis focusing on the construction and application of a research model to study the music of contemporary open-world video games. A recipient of the Naomi Cumming Prize, Barnabas is also the founder and President of the Ludomusicology Society of Australia. In his paper, Barnabas expresses that the Game & Watch version of Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1982) omits the former’s bass ostinato, Dragnet theme excerpt, and melodically-driven action music that can be found in the arcade game. In an echo of the original Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981), however, it significantly contains a tonal coherence comprising sound effect ‘beeps’ centred in E minor (or a microtonal approximation thereof). Aeolian tonic triad tones and occasional chromaticism reinforce the disconcerting and frightening affectivity associated conventionally with the minor tonality. As Barnabas suggests, a paramount significance is a persistent rhythmical matrix comprised of metronomic E (I) beeps, yoked to the descending movement of death-bringing barrel obstacles. Exteroceptive inculcation via quartz oscillations supports the player’s timekeeping while controlling ‘Mario’. Linearly navigating the on-screen bi-dimensional Euclidian plane, each JUMP solicits a B (V) beep, and each step a G (iii). It is argued that the fixed minor totality, poco a poco accelerando tempo, and other extant musical characteristics serve to corroborate the a posteriori conclusion that Donkey Kong’s ‘beep’ sound effects constitute a musical framework Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21685169)

The Art + Science Reading Group is now a virtual gathering of thinkers, researchers and the incurably curious. Organised by PhD candidates Amelia McConville (School of English and Institute of Neuroscience) and Autumn Brown (School of Education and Science Gallery Dublin) and supported by Science Gallery Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub, the series will explore the evolutionary and revolutionary kinship between two approaches to understanding the universe and our place within it. During the discussion Dr Moriarty reference images which you can view here while listening. https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/assets/documents/Mathsartandscience.pdf Last week we navigate the swerves and curves of Euclidian geometry, the language of primary colours, and some truly vicious smackdown poetry. Leading us into the deep dark world of satire and maths is philosopher extraordinaire Dr Clare Moriarty. Clare will provide an introduction to Euclid's geometry through the eyes of an Irish mathematician and rabble rouser, Oliver Byrne. Described as the 'Matisse of Mathematics', Byrne ascribed primary colours to geometry diagrams in his gorgeous edition of Euclid's Elements (link below). Byrne was a contentious fellow (firearms enthusiast trained in close hand combat) and sought to further the work of another conspicuous and disruptive mathematician, George Berkeley. Bishop Berkeley discusses the nature of a line as “breadthless length” and attempts to upend our understanding of basic geometry. We'll be examining Byrne's diagrams in contrast to the paintings of Piet Mondrian exploring the parallels between their use of primary colours, their transgressive treatment of lines and geometrical realities.

Our panellists have a lively discussion on Ouspensky’s nuances of language whilst debating the concepts presented on mathematics, Euclidean and Non-Euclidean geometry and the original proposition that the three-dimensional world is confined to our receptive apparatus, to our psyche. Ouspensky’s tearing down of his scaffold of analogies in brilliant style does not go unnoticed and as always, although we love Ouspensky we are not going to let him get away with a single thing! Ouspensky discusses how mathematics does not sense dimensions and proposes that this is possibly because dimensions don’t exist as ‘separate units’ per se because if they did mathematics would be able to define this. This chapter is the last chapter where Ouspensky uses his analogies to describe the experiences of different dimensions and explores the concepts of Euclidian and non-Euclidean geometry to explain our concepts of dimensionality. However he comes back to the original hypothesis which proposes that our experience of the three-dimensional world is confined to our receptive apparatus, to our psyche. This is a short chapter but ends spectacularly with the only ‘Ouspensky rant’ to be found in the book where he tears down the value of analogy to finding the complete answer to the enigmas of the world noting that analogy has been useful to getting us thus far on the journey but now we must continue on a different path. To listen to an audio version of the chapter reading, see Part 1 of this episode.

Part 1 of Episode 8 is the audio version of Chapter VII of Tertium Organum by P.D. Ouspensky read by Alice Flanagan. Ouspensky discusses how mathematics does not sense dimensions and proposes that this is possibly because dimensions don’t exist as ‘separate units’ per se because if they did, mathematics would be able to define this. This chapter is the last chapter where Ouspensky uses his analogies to describe the experiences of different dimensions and explores the concepts of Euclidian and Non-Euclidean geometry to further explain our concepts of dimensionality. However he comes back to the original hypothesis which proposes that our experience of the three-dimensional world is confined to our receptive apparatus, to our psyche. This is a short chapter but ends spectacularly with the only ‘Ouspensky rant’ to be found in the book where he tears down the value of analogy to finding the complete answer to the enigmas of the world noting that analogy has been useful to getting us thus far on the journey but now we must continue on a different path. To listen to the panel discussion of this chapter, see Part 2 of this episode.

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Anchor (podcast): https://anchor.fm/thedissenter Dr. Daniel Conroy-Beam is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He uses an evolutionary perspective to understand how mate preferences are linked to actual mating outcomes. Specifically, he is interested in how mate preferences are integrated with one another computationally in order to make mating decisions. His work combines agent-based modeling of mate choice evolution with studies of real couples to compare and explore candidate algorithms for how people select their mating strategies, evaluate potential mates, and regulate their relationships. In this episode, we focus on human mating. We talk about some of the most well-established mate preferences. We then get into how people choose mates based on these same preferences, and we focus mostly on Euclidian algorithms, as explored by Dr. Conroy-Beam in his work, and all of the phenomena that we are able to study and understand through them. We specifically address things like relationship satisfaction, mate switching, and mate retention tactics. We also talk about studying sex differences using multivariate analyses, opposite-sex friendships, and mysteries in human mating that we have yet to answer. We end up by talking about some limitations in traditional evolutionary psychology, and how things are expected to progress in the near future. -- Follow Dr. Conroy-Beam's work: Faculty page: http://bit.ly/2Z5cWvP Personal website: http://bit.ly/2NjYCZq Articles on Researchgate: http://bit.ly/2PlP5nt Relevant papers: Euclidean Mate Value and Power of Choice on the Mating Market: http://bit.ly/2HgrOwA Friends with Benefits: The Evolved Psychology of Same- and Opposite-Sex Friendship: http://bit.ly/2zeZ9mY How Sexually Dimorphic Are Human Mate Preferences?: http://bit.ly/2MpCjBT -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JERRY MULLER, FRANCIS FORDE, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BRIAN RIVERA, ADRIANO ANDRADE, YEVHEN BODRENKO, SERGIU CODREANU, ADAM BJERRE, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, AIRES ALMEIDA, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, BO WINEGARD, JOHN CONNORS, ADAM KESSEL, AND VEGA GIDEY! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, ROSEY, AND JIM FRANK!

So unlike my usual solo rants, I have a guest with me this time! This guy is weird and wonderful and we talk about stuff like structure, triangles, Euclidian spaces and other things I quite don't understand! Yay!

Absolute Bunts is the podcast in which two men who know nothing about baseball talk about baseball. In the inaugural episode for the Absolute Bunts podcast, Jon and Henry talk about why it is that they love baseball before rapidly going on to talk about things that aren't baseball: Euclidian and non-Euclidian geometry, the meaning of life, and Henry's previous life in the police force. They do talk about baseball a bit too: Jon talks about his six-month stint sharing a bed with a man he was not romantically attached to and reveals the plot to his baseball movie idea, while Henry talks about men dressing up. There is also in-depth discussion of the "Rules of the Game - Section One - The Objectives of the Game" and we learn all about Batting Average and the Mendoza Line. We hope you enjoy it!

In the latest episode in the Yoga Renaissance, I checked in with Jules Mitchell in the midst of a demanding teaching tour. She had just submitted the manuscript for her book (out in October) Yoga Biomechanics: Stretching Redefined, and was putting the finishing touches to a long form article due later that day.  As she reflected on her current experience in teacher training workshops, Jules emphasized the value of embracing uncertainty as part of being really open to a scientific approach to how we practice and teach yoga. I asked her about how she frames this uncertainty for teachers who find it really disorienting, and even threatening in terms of what they have learned in the past from authority figures. We talk about evolving model of how we think about yoga postures, movement, injury,  through the lens of biomechanics and anatomy —but also how this is influenced by genetics, environment, psychology; the biopsychosocial context, and the truly puzzling questions in pain science. I also asked Jules to weigh in on the topic I have been everyone about —the concept of "alignment" in yoga... is it a complete fabrication, or is it based on something substantial?! This led to discussion of Serena Williams, Olympic power lifters, Iyengar, Krishnamacharya, and whether or not our bodies know Euclidian geometry... In a surprising twist, she calls into question the catchphrase that "all movement is good," and also offers an illuminating critique on the current available research data about specific yoga postures, and the underlying (and unproven) assumptions still based in an outdated model that are often evident on closer inspection. Great to get some thought-provoking notes from the field!

You know what they say about non-Euclidian angles....

Brandon is originally from Oklahoma, where there are generally only two accepted ways in which a man may express himself: silence or rage. Brandon studied violin at the U of KS. Yes. Violin. He lives in KC, KS, in a tiny apartment that doesn’t adhere to normal Euclidian geometry. Brandon likes to drink beer, smoke cigarettes and play role-playing games. He is one of the last of the old time film projectionists, plus he has a really cool collection of robot and spaceship toys, which you are not allowed to touch. He spends his nights writing poems and stories while listening to the strange old man that lives above him play the violin. Brandon is the author of Thieves, Pharaohs, and Mexican Daredevils (Spartan Press, 2015) and is featured in several poetry collections. His is one of the organizers of the KC Small Press Poetry Fest, formerly the KC Poetry Throwdown. Learn more at www.facebook.com/KCPoetryThrowdown/ Find him performing at select poetry events across the country, and in “Project 4000.” Buy Brandon’s Books by emailing KingInYellow.BW@gmail.com

What follows is an edited transcript of my conversation with Emily Hamilton about land use regulations' effects on affordable housing. Petersen: My guest today is Emily Hamilton. She is a researcher at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Emily, thanks for being on Economics Detective Radio. Hamilton: Thanks a lot for having me. Petersen: So, Emily recently wrote a paper titled "How Land Use Regulation Undermines Affordable Housing" along with her co-author Sanford Ikeda. The paper is a review of many studies looking at land use restrictions and it identifies four of the most common types of land use restrictions. Those are: minimum lots sizes, minimum parking requirements, inclusionary zoning, and urban growth boundaries. So Emily, could you tell us what each of those restrictions entail? Hamilton: Sure. So, starting off with the first, minimum lots sizes. This is probably what people most commonly associate with zoning. It's the type of Euclidian zoning that separates residential areas from businesses and then within residential areas limits the number of units that can be on any certain size of land. And this is the most common tool that makes up what is sometimes referred to as Snob Zoning, where residents lobby for larger minimum lots sizes and larger house sizes to ensure that their neighbors are people who can afford only that minimum size of housing. Petersen: So it keeps the poor away, effectively. Hamilton: Exactly. And then parking requirements are often used as a tool to ensure that street parking doesn't get too congested. So when cars first became common, parking was really crazy where people would just leave their car on the street, maybe double parked, or in an inconvenient situation near their destination. And obviously as driving became more and more common and that was just an untenable situation and there had to be some sort of order to where people were allowed to park. But street parking remained typically free or underpriced relative to demand. So, people began lobbying for a parking requirement that would require business owners and residential developers to provide parking that was off streets so that this underpriced street parking remained available. But that brought us to today where we often have just mass seas of parking in retail areas and residential areas, which are paper focuses on. Parking substantially contributes to the cost of housing, making it inaccessible in some neighborhoods for low income people and driving up the cost of housing for everyone who has been using the amount of parking that their developer was required to provide. Petersen: So that's one where you can really see the original justification. And it makes sense, if you have a business and a lot of people are parking and it spills over onto the street then maybe that's an externality. And it seems reasonable for you to have to provide parking for the people who come to your business, especially if a lot of them are driving there. But we push that too far, is what I'm hearing. Hamilton: Exactly. Yeah, it does seem reasonable but the argument in favor of parking requirements tends to ignore that business owners have every incentive to make it easy to get to their business. So, in many cases there's not necessarily an externality because the business owner providing the parking has the right incentive to provide enough to make it easy for their customers to get there. The externality really comes up when we think about street parking and Donald Shoup---probably the world's foremost expert on parking---has made the argument that pricing street parking according to demand is a real key in getting parking rules right. Petersen: So, on to the next one. What is inclusionary zoning? Hamilton: Inclusionary zoning is a rule that requires developers to make a certain number of units in a new development accessible to people at various income levels. Often inclusionary zoning is tied with density bonuses. So, a developer will have the choice to make a non-inclusionary project that is only allowed to have the regular amount of density that that lot is zoned for. Or, he can choose to take the inclusionary zoning density bonus which will allow him to build more units overall including the inclusionary unit and additional market-rate units. Typically, units are affordable to people who are making a certain percentage of the area median income, so people who might not have low income but who are making not enough to afford a market rate unit in their current neighborhood. Petersen: Okay, so that's sort of forcing developers to build affordable units that they then will probably lose money on, so that they can build the market rate units that they can make money on. Hamilton: Exactly. That's how cities make inclusionary zoning attractive to developers is by giving them that bonus that can allow them to build more market rate housing. In other cities, however, inclusionary zoning is required for all new developments so it really varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction how it's implemented. Petersen: So the fourth land use restriction you mention is urban growth boundaries. What are those? Hamilton: So Oregon is the most famous example in the US of implementing an urban growth boundary. And what it is, is basically a state law that requires each city to set up a boundary around its edges, where for a certain amount of time no housing can be built outside of that boundary. And the idea is to gradually expand the city's footprint over time to allow the suburbs to expand a little further, but to restrict that suburban development using the boundary for some time period. Other examples like London's urban growth boundary I believe are permanent, so there are certain areas that can never be developed. Petersen: So I believe we have something like this in Vancouver. We have farmland in the metro Vancouver area which---for context this area is one of the most overheated high-priced housing markets in the world---and we have this land that's just zoned for farms. And a lot of the time people don't even bother to plant crops, they're just holding the land for the day when eventually it can be rezoned into housing. So I looked it up before we went on and some of these plots are $350,000 an acre, which of course is not reflective of just how productive they are as farmland but of how productive they would be when they are eventually rezoned. Hamilton: Exactly. Yes, very similar to Oregon's program. And a lot of empirical studies have been done on Portland's growth boundary because researchers can easily look at the block that are selling on either side of the boundary to see whether or not it's affecting land prices and several studies have found a very clear effect of the boundary in driving up the price of the land. Petersen: And in Vancouver, the city is very reluctant to rezone. So, people are constantly applying and being denied but you know it's like winning the lottery having your bit of useless farmland rezoned to super high value housing. And people are just holding on to those dead lands in the hopes of winning that lottery which is kind of---it's a bizarre outcome. Hamilton: It is. And urban growth boundary supporters often frame it as environmental regulation that's going to protect this open space. While encouraging people to live in more dense and transit and walkable friendly neighborhoods, but it's not as if Portland is free of other types of zoning rules. So at the same time it has this urban growth boundary it also has a lot of traditional zoning rules that limit the potential to build up while the growth boundary is limiting the potential to grow out. So it's coming from both directions. Petersen: So, just how costly do economists think these regulations are? What kind of estimates do they have? Hamilton: So, I think some of the most compelling estimates look at the macroeconomic effect of these rules. Because typically the most binding zoning rules are also in the most productive cities, where there's the highest level of demand for people to live. Because these are where the best jobs are as well as the best urban amenities, a lot of people want to live here. One study looking at this macroeconomic effect found that the three most productive cities which are New York, San Francisco, and San Jose---I should clarify; this is just looking at the effective growth within US---if those three cities lowered the burden of their land use regulation to that of the median American city it could result in a 9% increase in the level of US GDP. So, these rules are having just an enormous effect on economic growth. Not to mention the very substantial effect they have for individuals and making it difficult or impossible for people to afford to live in their desired location. Petersen: So, you know, San Francisco that's where Silicon Valley is. And so we think of it as a place with super high productivity---tech workers working at Google---and yet with their housing market being one of the most restricted. So not only is there the loss from the housing market itself, that you could sell a lot of housing there and that would increase GDP by itself, but also there are people living in less productive areas doing less productive jobs, who could come and work for Google. But they can't because they've been priced out of the market. Is that where most of the effect comes from? Hamilton: That's right. Yeah, I think the effect is also certainly at that top-end of the market where we're seeing all kinds of blog posts and articles about a person making six figures at Facebook who can't afford the Bay area. So those people might choose to go live in say Denver, or Austin, or a city that still has plenty of great jobs but isn't as productive as San Francisco or San Jose. But then we also see this down the income spectrum, where people who are in the service industry, say waiting tables, could make much more in San Francisco then they can in Houston, or wherever they happen to live. But their quality of life is much better in some of less productive cities because of the cost of housing and other areas of consumption that higher real estate costs drive up. Petersen: One thing I've heard about a lot of these Californian coastal cities---I think it was Palo Alto---where not a single member of the Palo Alto Police Department lives in Palo Alto because you just can't live there on a policeman's salary, so they all have to commute in every day and then commute out every night. Hamilton: Yeah, and for some of these hugely important needed services it just makes the quality of life of the people in those industries so much worse than it would be if they could afford to live closer to their job. Petersen: Right. So, to summarize the labor market mobility of the United States in general has been greatly restricted by these land use restrictions. Even though the land use restrictions are local, this has an effect on the national economy. Hamilton: Exactly right. And we can see this in the data where income convergence across areas of the country has greatly slowed down since the 1970's when these rules really started taking off. Petersen: You argue that the costs of these restrictions fall primarily on low-income households so can you talk through how that happens? Hamilton: Sure. It happens in two ways. First off, you have the low income people who are living in very expensive cities and these people might have to endure very long commutes---you talked about the police officer in Palo Alto who can't live anywhere near his job. Not that police officers are low income, but just as an example that illustrates the point. Or they have to live in very substandard housing, perhaps a group house that's just crammed with people maybe even illegally, in order to afford to live anywhere near where they're working. Petersen: Yeah, I was going to say I thought those group houses were illegal from these very same land use regulations, but I guess people get around it. Hamilton: Yeah, a lot of US cities have rules about the number of unrelated people who can live in a house. And certainly those rules are sometimes broken. That, I think, is clear to anyone who's spent time in an expensive city. You know, people have to live in these less than ideal conditions and waste too much of their time commuting in order to make that work. But the unseen version of it is the person who lives in a low-income part of the country and would like to improve their job opportunity and quality of life by moving to somewhere more productive, but they simply can't make it work so they stay in that low-income area without meeting their working potential. Petersen: There was a study by David Autor---I think I cited it in a previous episode and got the author name wrong but it's definitely David Autor---and it was looking at the shock, the trade shock that hit United States when it opened up trade with China in the early 2000's. And it basically showed that a lot of parts of the country just never recovered. So, if you worked in particular industries---I think the furniture industry was one that was basically wiped out---and if you worked in a town next to a furniture factory and that was your job, not only did you lose your job, you lost all the value in your home because the one industry in the town is gone. And you can't afford to move to one of the booming industries like Silicon Valley or in another part of the country because they've so greatly restricted the elasticity of their housing supply. And that's not all, Autor's paper basically just shows that it took a very long time to recover from the shock and a lot of places didn't recover at all. But I really think that housing is part of that picture if you're trying to figure out why the US economy can't respond to shocks like it used to in the 20th century. That has to be a big part of the picture. Hamilton: Definitely. And that trend, as far as people being able to leave these depressed or economically stagnant areas, this also comes out in the income's convergence as we talked about earlier. Petersen: So, the other part of that, I saw in your paper, was not only are poor people hurt but rich people who already own homes have seen those home prices rise. So it's affecting inequality at both ends of the spectrum, correct? Hamilton: Right, Bill Fischel at Dartmouth has done a lot of work on why it is that people lobby so hard in favor of rules that restrict development. And he terms it as the Homevoter Hypothesis, where people who own homes have a huge amount of their wealth tied up in their home and so they are in favor of rules that protect that asset and prevent any shocks such as a huge amount of new development that could result in a decline in their homes value. I think you talked about that in your episode with Nolan Gray on trailer parks. Petersen: Yeah, we talked about William Fischel's Homevoter Hypothesis. So the essence of that is that people vote in local elections, and they lobby to restrict the supply of housing in their neighborhood, and that increases their wealth by, you know, increasing the land values in that area. How do you deal with that when there's such an entrenched special interest everywhere to push up land prices? Hamilton: I think that's the hugely difficult problem. And at the same time as we have the challenges with the Homevoter system that Fischel plays out, we have a lot of federal policies that encourage homeownership as not just a good community-building tool but also as an investment. So people are programmed by the federal government to see their house as an investment in spite of economic challenges that it presents. David [Schleicher]---a law professor at Yale---has done some really interesting work on ways that institutional changes could limit the activity of homeowners and lobbying against new development. One of his proposals is called a Zoning Budget. And under a zoning budget, municipalities would have to allow a certain amount of population growth each year. So, they could designate areas of a city that are going to only be home to single family homes, but within some parts of the city, they would have to allow building growth to accommodate a growing population. Petersen: How would that be enforced, though? Hamilton: It would have to be a state law, or perhaps a federal law, but I think much more likely a state law that would mandate that localities do that. Massachusetts recently passed a law that requires all jurisdictions within the state to allow at least some multifamily housing. So it's kind of a similar idea. The state government can set a floor on how much local government can restrict development. Petersen: So, what I'm hearing is that different levels of government have different incentives with respect to restrictions. So, at the lowest level if I'm just in a small district or municipal area and I can restrict what my neighbors build on their property, that really affects my home price and that's the main thing that I'm going to lobby for at that level of government. But if I had to go all the way to the state government to try to push up house prices in my neighborhood, it wouldn't go so well. The state government has incentives to allow more people to live within their boundaries. Is that the gist of it? Hamilton: Yeah, that's right. It's easy to imagine a mayor of a fancy suburban community who simply represents his constituents' views that the community already has enough people, you know, life there is good and so nothing needs to change. But, I don't think that you'd find a Governor that would say "Our state doesn't need any more people or economic growth." So the incentives are less in favor of homeowners, local homeowners, the further up you go from the local to state jurisdiction. Petersen: Right. I guess a big issue is that the people who would like to move somewhere but live somewhere else don't get to vote in that place's elections or in their ballot measures. And so there's this group that has an interest in lower housing costs because they might move to your city or your town, if they could afford it, but they're not represented politically in that city or town and so they can't vote for more housing and lower prices. But then when you go to the whole state level and people are mobile within a state, those people do have a say or they are represented and pricing them out of the places they'd like to live really is bad for politics, bad for getting their votes. Hamilton: Right. So the Palo Alto police officer can't vote to change Palo Alto's policies but he can vote to change California policy. Petersen: Right, because he still lives within California. So one of the other policy recommendations I saw in your paper is tax increment local transfers or TILTs. What are they and how can they impact land use restrictions? Hamilton: That's another idea that comes from David Schleicher and I think it's another really interesting concept. The idea behind TILT is that a new development increases the property tax base within a jurisdiction. So, if you have a neighborhood, say a block full of single family homes that is allowed to be sold to a developer in order to build a couple of large apartment buildings, each apartment is going to be less expensive than the previous single family homes, but overall the apartment buildings will contribute more to property tax. And the idea behind a TILT is that part of this tax increment---which is the difference between the new tax base and the previous smaller tax base---could be shared with neighbors to the new development to kind of buy off their support for the development. So, those people who are in some sense harmed by the new buildings, whether in terms of more traffic or a change in their neighborhood's character, also benefit from the new building financially. So they're more likely to support it. Petersen: So economists talk about Potential Pareto Improvements, where you have a situation where some people are made better off while other people are worse off, but you could have a transfer to make everyone better off. And what I'm hearing with TILTs is you actually do that transfer, you actually pay off the losers with some of the surplus you get from the winners. So everyone can be better off when you make this overall beneficial change. Hamilton: Exactly. And sometimes communities do use community benefit as a tool to try to get developers to share their windfall and build a new project with the neighborhood. So they might say, "you can build an apartment building here, but you also have to build a swimming pool that the whole neighborhood can use at this other location," and in a way that achieves the end goal of buying off community support for new development. But it also drives up the cost of the new housing that the developer can provide. So TILTs have the advantage of keeping the cost of building the same for the developer, but still sharing that financial windfall of the new development with a broader group of people. Petersen: Yeah, I really like these policy recommendations. It would be so easy to just say "land use restrictions are bad, let's not have those anymore." But these really have an eye to the political structures that we currently have and towards making progress within the structure we have. So I like that approach to policy or to policy recommendations. I think economists should maybe do that more often. Hamilton: Yeah, looking for a win-win outcome. Petersen: The one other one that I don't think we've talked about is home equity insurance, which sounds like a business plan more than a policy proposal. But how can home equity insurance help to reduce the costs of land use restrictions? Hamilton: That proposal also came from Bill Fischel a couple of decades ago following on his work of the Homevoters theory. He proposed the idea that the reason home owners are so opposed to new development is often because they have so much of their financial wealth tied up in this house that they're not just opposed to a loss in their investment, but even more so, opposed to risk. So they want the policies that they see will limit the variance in their home equity and he proposed home equity insurance as a financial goal that could lower this threat and provide homeowners with a minimum amount of equity that they would have regardless to the new development. I think it's a really interesting concept but it's unclear, would this be a private financial product? Obviously the market isn't currently providing it, or would it be some kind of government policy? And while I do think it's very interesting, I think that we should be somewhat leery of new government policies that promote homeownership as a financial wealth building tool. Petersen: Well, the funny thing is that usually with insurance, if you have fire insurance you want to minimize the moral hazard of that, you don't want people to say: "Well I've got fire insurance so I don't have to worry about fires anymore." But with this, you sort of want that, you have insurance on the value of your home and then actually your goal is to make people less worried about the value of their home so that they will be okay with policies that reduce it. It's almost the opposite of what you want with insurance most of the time. In this case you want to maximize moral hazard. Hamilton: Yeah that's a great point and I think that's why it could only be a government product. Petersen: Right. Because if the private sector was providing home price insurance to homeowners then the company that provided the insurance would now have an incentive to lobby against upzoning the neighborhood. Hamilton: Exactly. Yeah it would create a new a new group of NIMBYs. Petersen: Yeah, at first I thought 'Oh great!', well this is something that we can just do, without the government. You can just get a bunch of people together, who have an interest in making cities more livable and they can provide this financial asset. But that seems like there are problems with it that are hard to overcome within the private sector. So overall do you think the tide might be turning on the NIMBYs? Are people becoming more aware of this issue and of land use restrictions and their effects on housing prices? Hamilton: I do think awareness is growing. There's a group popping up called YIMBY which stands for "Yes In My Backyard" as opposed to the suburban NIMBY to say "Not In My Backyard" to any sort of new development. And these YIMBY groups are gaining some traction in cities like San Francisco and lobbying in favor of new development to counter the voices that oppose new development. I am somewhat pessimistic, I have to say, just because from a public choice standpoint the forces in favor of land use regulations that limit housing are so powerful. But in spite of my pessimism, I'm seeing since the time that I started working on this issue several years ago, much more coverage of the issue from all kinds of media outlets, as well as much more interest in on-the-ground politics from people who aren't in the typical homeowner category. Petersen: Yeah, and I am hopeful too. But I often see people blame other factors for high home prices. They blame the speculators. The speculators are always the ones that are pushing up home prices. And rarely, I think, do people blame restrictions, although the YIMBY movement is a happy exception to that. Hamilton: Yeah, I think way too often real estate developers are framed as the enemy in these debates because they're the ones who make money off building new housing. But it's really the regulations that are to blame both for the inordinate profits that developers can make in expensive cities, and for the high costs of housing. Petersen: Do you have any closing thoughts about land use restrictions? Hamilton: I think that it's just really important to try to spread the message about the costs that these regulations have. Not just for low-income people but for the whole country and world economic growth. That's obviously a cause that I would think everyone would be behind: creating opportunity for people to live in the most productive cities where they can contribute the most to society and to the economy. Petersen: My guest today has been Emily Hamilton. Emily, thanks for being part of Economics Detective Radio. Hamilton: Thanks a lot for having me.  

Every time I fly into Chicago at night, I’m amazed by the grid I see out of the portal: those hundreds of thousands of almost identical lots, 25 by 125 feet, that are made visible by the city’s 250,000-odd street lights, block after block, all sprawling westward out of the darkness of Lake Michigan like a dream of Euclidian order. I’m amazed because it’s so unnatural, so not the way we make sense of the places where we live our everyday lives. The grid is the living image of an abstract ideal: that a place can be quantified, cut up, understood, and settled. The truth is very different, especially in a city like Chicago. Places are wild. Their pasts rear up and reveal themselves; their foundations give way. In all their layered complexity, contradiction, and intractability, places are about as quantifiable as people, a fact Barrie Jean Borich makes explicit in her new book, Body Geographic (University of Nebraska Press, 2012). Borich sets out to map not only the city of Chicago and the other places she and her family have lived, but also to discover the hidden geographies in her own skin–the personal and collective histories, the experiences and desires, that make her who she is. The result is a book that’s insightful, lyrically beautiful, and uncompromising in its search for a self as rich as the cities in which she lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every time I fly into Chicago at night, I’m amazed by the grid I see out of the portal: those hundreds of thousands of almost identical lots, 25 by 125 feet, that are made visible by the city’s 250,000-odd street lights, block after block, all sprawling westward out of the darkness of Lake Michigan like a dream of Euclidian order. I’m amazed because it’s so unnatural, so not the way we make sense of the places where we live our everyday lives. The grid is the living image of an abstract ideal: that a place can be quantified, cut up, understood, and settled. The truth is very different, especially in a city like Chicago. Places are wild. Their pasts rear up and reveal themselves; their foundations give way. In all their layered complexity, contradiction, and intractability, places are about as quantifiable as people, a fact Barrie Jean Borich makes explicit in her new book, Body Geographic (University of Nebraska Press, 2012). Borich sets out to map not only the city of Chicago and the other places she and her family have lived, but also to discover the hidden geographies in her own skin–the personal and collective histories, the experiences and desires, that make her who she is. The result is a book that’s insightful, lyrically beautiful, and uncompromising in its search for a self as rich as the cities in which she lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript: Newton viewed both time and space as smooth, absolute, and Euclidian. Newton’s gravity law is an inverse square law, so the gravity of every object diminishes with the square of the distance. However it never reaches zero because one over the square of a large number is a very small number but not zero. Newton believed in an infinite universe, which means that in an infinite universe filled with objects, stars or galaxies, the gravity is infinite too. This was a problem for Newton’s theory of gravity and for his understanding of cosmology. He could not solve this problem at the time. Newton also did not understand what was the nature of the force of gravity that could act across the vacuum of space. As he said, “I frame no hypothesis.”

Transcript: Pythagoras was one of the most influential thinkers in history. This Greek philosopher and mathematician came up with the idea that numbers were the basis of everything. There is no written record, and nothing about Pythagoras survives in writing. He essentially ran a secret society of mathematicians, and later in his career his entire group was hounded by the authorities of Greece and had to leave the Greek mainland. In cosmology he believed that numbers were the basis of everything that happened in the celestial sphere. On Earth he derived things as important as the Pythagorean theorem. The statement, “A-squared plus B-squared equals C-squared,” is a fundamental statement not just of geometry but of algebra, and it’s also a statement of the geometry of space. The Pythagorean Theorem is only true in the space described by Euclidian mathematics. Pythagoras was impressed enough with his discovery of his theorem that he sacrificed a hundred oxen to the gods. Pythagoras discovered the rules of musical harmony by dividing a string and listening to the notes that emerged, and he actually believed in the harmony of the spheres, that sounds could be heard by enlightened people from the heavens due to its fundamental basis in number and harmony.