Podcasts about Pacific Rim

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is flabbergasted by EuroSki. Donate to my brain transplant fund to make me more smarter:WhoIain Martin, founder and host of UK-based The Ski Podcast. YouTube here. This is Iain's second appearance on The Storm:Interview dateSeptember 24, 2026Why I interviewed himIf, like me, you're a U.S. American SnoSportSkier, you may find European skiing more than a little baffling. More than 4,000 ski areas spread over dozens of countries with their dozens of languages. Trams and gondolas pop skyward from every other corner in Switzerland or the Pyrenees or Slovenia, as numerous as the strip-mall vape shops and Jesus-Knows-You're-Watching-Porn billboards defecating all over America's roads. The trail markings in Europe are all different colors. Why is no one skiing off the groomers? Who stole all the trees? Why is every ski lift either a tram that looks CGI'd to transport Storm Troopers to a fictional Star Wars Cloud City or a T-bar that looks as though it was hammered together by Yohan in between sheep shearings? Why is the food good and the alcohol cheap? Why do lift tickets not cost more than a semester's tuition at Cornell? And, most baffling of all as we contemplate the growing presence of EuroSki on U.S.-based multimountain passes, why is every ski resort actually 10 or 15 or 100 different ski areas stapled together as the Valley of Grand Domaine de Les Skis?I wish I could be more helpful in answering these questions. So far, I have not been very helpful. I felt like I could get away with just pointing and laughing as Vail and Alterra added a handful of big-time European ski resorts to their rosters, but the numbers have rapidly spiraled: check out the number of Euro ski areas that have joined Epic, Ikon, and Indy since 2018:At first I tried to keep up, but I just sort of surrendered after 2025. I did manage write-ups of Epic Pass additions in Austria, and new Ikon partners in Italy and France, but I never got past more than cursory acknowledgements of Indy's massive haul of Euro partners from Turkey up through the Alps core to Scotland. And I thought, “OK how many gigantic resorts can they have over there it's gotta stop soon right?” But they just kept coming like kaijū in Pacific Rim. The pass-by-pass totals headed into winter 2026-27 are shocking:Here's a country-by-country breakdown that's a bit easier to read:And here's the detailed roster - not all the lifts are filled in because shoot me:This chart is the European equivalent of American college football rankings. It makes no sense, but it must be fun because so many people do it, right?I tried to make a map but it sorta sucks so I'm going to keep trying. I did use the map as a visual aide in the podcast, which is also and always available in audio-only. But if you want to watch above or on YouTube, our conversation will make marginally more sense as I scroll around beneath Iain's narrative.TranscriptsThere are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don't know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment. Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio.ZoomStuart Winchester: My guest today is the founder and host of The Ski Podcast, a UK-based show that just published its 327th episode.00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:56.000Stuart Winchester: He's also a freelance journalist writing for national and specialized press and the owner of a digital marketing consultancy for snow sports. Ian Martin is my guest. He is a good friend of the storm. He has been on the show before and he is here today to help us make sense of Europe. Ian, how you doing today?00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:02.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: I am really well, Stuart. It's really nice to see you, and thank you for inviting me onto the show.00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:07.000Stuart Winchester: Before we get started, what do you got lined up for this winter? When do you start skiing?00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:23.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: My personal first trip will be out to Les Des Alpes ski resort in France, which I'll be doing in early December. But I will actually be skiing not next weekend, but the one after in one of our indoor snow slopes.00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:24.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:28.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: in the UK. I'll be skiing in the snowy center, Manchester, so I'll get to get my skis on.00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:28.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool.00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:40.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, that'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, we have the one right over in New Jersey. I was supposed to go a couple of… a couple weeks ago, but I… something came up, and I wasn't able to make it. Alright, so Ian, let me set this up for the listeners.00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:42.000Stuart Winchester: And, and…00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: as a baseline for what we're dealing with here. So, US-based passes, meaning Epic, Icon, and Indy. There's also one on Mountain Collective, but it overlaps with… there's two on Mountain Collective that overlap with Icon, so I'.00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.000Stuart Winchester: So they have added a total of 61 destinations.00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:00.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Mm-hmm.00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:02.000Stuart Winchester: in 14 European countries.00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:04.000Stuart Winchester: 13 of those are on Epic.00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.000Stuart Winchester: Nine are on icon.00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:18.000Stuart Winchester: 39 are on Indy. Uh, so… some of those are unlimited on Epic, some you get 5 days, some you get 7. Icon's a pretty standard 7 days, or 5 days, even with the base pass. Indy is 2 days at each.00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:22.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, 20 of those destinations are in Austria.00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:31.000Stuart Winchester: 12 are in Switzerland. Uh, 8 are in France, and they're all over the place, but those are the countries with the most. So let me… I wanna actually…00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:33.000Stuart Winchester: Share on my screen.00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:38.000Stuart Winchester: a map that I made that could help us as a little guide, although it's not a…00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:42.000Stuart Winchester: It's not a great map, but I will…00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay. Can you, can you see the map?00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:51.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: I… can see the map, yes.00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:52.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, yeah, I couldn't figure out how to make the…00:09:52.000 --> 00:10:04.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, let me just explain this at a high level. So, I couldn't figure out how to make the text smaller, it's very much a work in progress, but, uh, blue is, uh, the names of the ski areas are by country.00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:19.000Stuart Winchester: And the names of the icons are bypassed. So when you zoom down to Austria, it's Epic, Epic, Indy. Uh, Indy's red, Icon's yellow, uh, Epic is blue. This is one where it really helps to watch the video. If not, we'll explain it, and you don't have to.00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:34.000Stuart Winchester: be watching to understand everything. So, uh, looking at this, Ian, and putting aside my, uh, crappy map design skills, and looking at the full of Europe, from above, from space, as we can do in the future here, uh, where do you even start?00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:53.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Well, firstly, I've got to congratulate you on your data. It's just amazing. When you read out all of the different resorts, and the number of countries, and the number of resorts in each country, I've got one of your spreadsheets printed out here, and it's already changed since then. So, staying up to date the whole time is really quite incredible.00:10:53.000 --> 00:11:06.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: how you manage… how you manage to do that. Um, it is, uh, amazing. In… in respect of the map, there's obviously a lot of ski areas on there, and probably this is going to be better for someone as a research tool.00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:55.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:15.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Now, you mentioned that there are 61 countries in total, 61 ski areas in total that are covered on those different passes.00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:18.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And I was thinking about…00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:34.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: what is the best way to kind of go into getting a sense for maybe which ones you should visit? Obviously, it's going to be different for everybody, depending on what kind of pass they have, and I know some people have more than one pass, but I thought that maybe a useful way to do it might be to think of.00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:37.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Let's say the hero trip.00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:41.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Then maybe somewhere you might go.00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:56.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: for a week, and then somewhere that you might visit if you were… if you were touring, or possibly if you're over for work, and you happen to be roughly in that area to give people a sense of, you know, where it might be worth doing a little side trip to while they were doing that.00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:56.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:03.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: So if you are happy with that structure, I could work from that. Okay, cool.00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:01.000Stuart Winchester: I love it.00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:03.000Stuart Winchester: Full speed ahead. Let's do it.00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Okay, cool. So, I think…00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:26.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: We've seen more Americans coming over to Europe over the last few years, and that is to do with these. That is to do with the passes. No, it's a pleasure. I mean, I talk to everybody when I'm on a chairlift or in a gondola, and if I hear someone who's from the States or maybe from Canada, I'm always interested to know, you know, why they've come over, and predominantly it's because.00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:12.000Stuart Winchester: Sorry.00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:22.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:26.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:46.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: they've got the passes. And, you know, I spent a lot of time in Chamonix last winter, and evidently you get a lot of people in Chamonix. Chamonix is one of the ones on the Icon Pass, I believe, as is Zermatt. Now, Chamonix and Zermatt are two amazing destinations. They really are fantastic. You can see them, actually, on the map that you've got in the video now.00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:54.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: They're quite close to each other. They're probably about two and a half hours by car apart. You could fly into Geneva for both of them.00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm, okay.00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:54.000 --> 00:13:01.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: They are fantastic resorts, fantastic destinations. They're my two favorites in Europe.00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:01.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:02.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:20.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But they're not necessarily going to be suitable for everyone. And the reason I say that is Chamonix is incredible. It's in the middle of a very dramatic valley. You have Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe, at 4,800 meters on one side. You can take the Aguille de Midi.00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:21.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:35.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Which is the lift that goes up to 3,800 roughly meters. And ski the Valley Blanche from there. Lots of people will have, you know, heard of that very famous off-piste run. It's incredible just to go up to the Aguirre de Midi.00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:31.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:49.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But in terms of the ski areas itself, they're very disparate. They're not connected, uh, in the same way as we might come onto the Three Valleys, uh, you know, shortly. So…00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:44.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:13:49.000 --> 00:14:00.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: you've got to put in a bit of legwork if you're going to go to Chamonix. The connections between them generally involve getting a bus, and even if you're staying right in the center of town, you've got to get a bus.00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:52.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: or maybe a train from one end of the valley to ski the five different areas that you have in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. And I think…00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:11.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And I'm not 100%, I'm not the expert on the icon passes, but…00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:26.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: The Icon Pass only covers the lifts that are in that area. There's also a couple of areas which are included on your map there, actually, Megeve and Les Contamines. You can get a lift ticket in Chamonix when I stay there that covers all of those.00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:21.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And you can ski over there as well.00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:48.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so Mijeve, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mijeve has been added to the Icon Pass, but it took me so long to sort out even what that meant when they said Mijeve, and even Icon Pass themselves didn't seem to know. We'll get to that mess in a little bit, but Mijeve is on the Icon Pass, uh, you know, along with Shamani, and those are separate buckets of days.00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:31.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh so.00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:32.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yep.00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:52.000Stuart Winchester: Then, like in Tammany, which is part of Mijav, is also on Indy.00:14:52.000 --> 00:15:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, exactly. Megeve isn't really part of Chamonix, but it is covered on that very big pass that you can buy. My point being really that Chamonix is fantastic. It's an amazing town. It has an incredible history.00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:21.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It's where the first Winter Olympic Games are in 1924. You can get really close to, uh, Mont Blanc. You could ski the Vallee Blanche. There are lots and lots of options for, uh, high mountain skiing, but for a more recreational skier.00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:27.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: it's perhaps not as good. If we look at Zermatt, another one, yes, yep.00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:39.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so let me pause one moment on Chamonix first. So, I want to point out, the Icon Pass, for whatever reason, does not cover the Algo de Midi, or whatever, I'm sure I pronounced it wrong, the big tram. How important is it to just pony up, buy that tram ride anyway?00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yes, okay.00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:47.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, I mean, we had… we stayed out there for 2 months last winter, and we had lots of friends come to visit us, and with all of them.00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:44.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:56.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: we recommended that you go up there. It really is something quite special, being so high, so close to.00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:14.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Mont Blanc itself, but also just for the type of visitors we had, who weren't really expert skiers, to get an insight into the high mountain, because you do see skiers who are heading off down the Valley Blanche, and the Valley Blanche is a relatively accessible off-piste run with a guide.00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:31.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: but other skiers who are doing much more hardcore stuff, or climbers who are up there, who are practicing their mountaineering skills. And if you go up the Aguirre de Midi, you get an insight to all of that. I mean, I met some of your American friends who were over, who were.00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:46.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Really going for it, going down the Cosmic. When I met them, going up with some friends to the Aguirre-Midi, they were on their second ascent of the day. They'd already gone up, done the Valley Blanche, come back up, and then they were on their way down Cosmic to stay in a refuge for the night.00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:48.000Stuart Winchester: Of course, yeah.00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:51.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: I really would recommend it. And yes, it is expensive.00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:03.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: it could even be worth just buying that Montblanc Unlimited ticket in advance, because it's dynamic pricing. It's one of those things where if you buy it in advance, it's less expensive than buying it on the day.00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. And Mont Blanc, just for my listeners, is, I believe, the tallest mountain in Europe.00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:14.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, highest mountain in Western Europe. I think it's 4,810 meters.00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:17.000Stuart Winchester: All right, so over to Zermatt.00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:33.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Zermatt, I worked a season there as well. Absolutely beautiful place. Zermatt Matterhorn, as it's known. The Matterhorn is the standout attraction. It is just an incredible looking mountain.00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:43.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: The village itself, in my opinion, very pretty. Lots of traditional chalets, traditional buildings.00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:55.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: they have controlled development of it. It's not full of skyscrapers. Without going into the details, there was a proposal to build, you know, one recently that really got it dampened down pretty quickly.00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:49.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:02.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: You can only get there by train. It's a car-free resort, which adds to the charm as well.00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:12.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: really, I would say, if… the only negatives are that it's quite expensive. It is one of the most expensive destinations in Europe.00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:28.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: There are a lot of, uh, visitors, a bit like Chamonix, who go there not necessarily to ski, but because they want to go and see the Matterhorn, in the same way that you could go up the Agua de Midi in Chamonix. There's a Gornergrat, uh, cog railway.00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:46.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: which will take you up, uh, to a fantastic view looking over, uh, the Matterhorn. So, I guess you're competing a little bit with the non-skiers. The ski area itself is better connected than Chamonix. It goes up high. You've also got lifts of skiing up to 3,800 meters.00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:49.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: at the Klein Matterhorn area.00:18:49.000 --> 00:19:03.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: typically they have summer skiing there as well. It's actually closed this summer for a little while because of the weather, but, you know, it's so high, and because of the glacier, they can offer skiing all year round. So, I really do love Zermatt.00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:56.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:05.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: The only negative would be…00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:16.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: it's expensive, you know, you just gotta face up to that fact if you want to go there, but it has a cachet and a feel to it that I just, uh, love.00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:11.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:34.000Stuart Winchester: And one thing this map doesn't show is it does interconnect with Turbinia, which is now on Icon Pass, but separate days. So once you cross, if you use the day of Zermatt, even if it's the same day, you cross into Turbinia, you're using another Icon Pass day. It doesn't really matter for most Americans who are visiting anyway.00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:39.000Stuart Winchester: But what do you think about Slovenia? Is it worth it to pop over there?00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:47.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, well, interesting you should mention that. So I picked Chamonix and Zermatt as the first two because they are the most well-known.00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:44.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:48.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:19:47.000 --> 00:20:02.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But it's not strictly necessary to go to those two places and base yourself there. And you mentioned that, uh, you know, Cervinia is on… did you… did you say Cervinia is on… sorry, which pass again?00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:05.000Stuart Winchester: So, it's on ICON, and the reason I didn't have it…00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:06.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah. Okay.00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:12.000Stuart Winchester: called out. It's under Valle de Oesta, Italy, so that includes, uh, Pila, it includes, uh…00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:09.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yep.00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:10.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yep.00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:19.000Stuart Winchester: Slovenia, it includes Cormier, it includes some other ones, but I made the map fast.00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:17.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yep.00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:35.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, Stuart, you are… you are very well, uh, informed. You're right. I mean, you can see it on the map that we're looking at below us. You can get from Chamonix to Courmayeur very easily through the Mont Blanc tunnel. It's actually a 22 kilometer tunnel, and we skied over in Courmayeur while we were there. Lots of.00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:24.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:30.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:33.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:50.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Chamonix, people who are based in Chamonix do go over there, because, uh, although the ski area is limited, there are more trees over there, you know, on a bad weather day, it's a really good place to ski, and it's included on the Mont Blanc Unlimited Pass. And Courmayeur is right at the top.00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:44.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:49.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:59.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: of the Aosta Valley. So where that little yellow, uh, icon is, underneath where it says Val de Aosta, is Courmayeur.00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:53.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:58.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:09.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But the Cormier… if I understand it correctly, then, all of the Aosta Valley resorts are included on the Icon Pass. So, as you say, Cormier… Cormier…00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:07.000Stuart Winchester: Correct.00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:26.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It's quite a shishi kind of resort. You'll find lots of Milanese and Turinese will go up there for the weekend. There are lots of very smart shops in the little high street there. There's some very, very good restaurants up there.00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:43.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: The ski area is not as big, probably, you know, 50km, two, three days for a, you know, a good advanced skier would be sufficient to ski a lot of it. But you can get access up to the Vallee Blanche from the Italian side as well.00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:44.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:59.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And that lift was upgraded a few years ago. And it's very, very impressive. It's much more modern than the Aguirre de Midi. And it has, you know, museums at the mid station and at the top station, which explore the history of mountaineering in the area.00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:49.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:05.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: So, I would actually say that if someone's, you know, looking to stay.00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: For a week.00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:19.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: and they have an Icon Pass, that the Ossa Valley could be a really good choice. If you had a car as well, because you can then explore Courmayeur, and then you mentioned Chavinha.00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:34.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: So, uh, slightly further down the valley, uh, and then up the hill, you mentioned that Shavinia links with Zermatt, and Shavinia is a really good resort. It's high, uh, it has.00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:45.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Quite wide pistes, quite flattering type of skiing. It has Italian cuisine, as all of the Aosta Valley does. Much.00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:55.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: more affordable than Zermatt, but you could ski over to Zermatt for the day and ski the Zermatt area, uh, as well.00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:49.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:50.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:02.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: So, Chavinha, you know, is great. There's also a smaller resort called La Tuile, uh, in the Aosta Valley as well, which…00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:09.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: it is worth a day or two. That actually links over to a French resort called La Rozier. I doubt.00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:21.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: that would be included, and I don't see it on your list. Uh, and what I do see included a bit further down, we're moving around the map quite a lot, there is an area called Monterosa.00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:22.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:28.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: which is on the Aosta Valley as well. Uh, and there's two areas there called Gressenet.00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:41.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: uh, and Alanya, and the skiing in both of those, I believe, is included, uh, within that. And, uh, you know, in Gressenet, uh, and Alanya, there's some quite advanced skiing there, up in Monterosa.00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:53.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: um, some really good, you know, off-piste, uh, challenging skiing, and in fact, you can do heli-skiing out of those areas. Heli-skiing is banned in France, but it's legal in Italy, so you can ski, and it'.00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:48.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:51.000Stuart Winchester: Oh.00:23:53.000 --> 00:24:04.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: legal in Switzerland as well, but you can ski out of Alanya, and heliski up to the mountain called Monterosa, and, uh, you know, access some amazing off-piste from there.00:23:57.000 --> 00:23:58.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:22.000Stuart Winchester: That's incredible. I, you know, for a while, Google Maps took that. I'm looking at the map here and I changed the settings so that the lifts show up. And for a while, Google Maps had taken them off and now they've added them back on. And so you can just really get to see the scale of what's going on in Europe. And I know what Americans are going to want to do.00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:29.000Stuart Winchester: when they look at Chamonix. They're going to want to take the Algomenidae up, and they're going to try to ski down into Italy. Is.00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:50.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, I mean, it is possible. Quite literally, if you did that to the Aguirre de Midi, you could ski, you'd have to ski tour up slightly, and then you could ski down. I wouldn't suggest doing that without a guide. You know, it is feasible to do it, and when last time I went up the, uh, the lift from the Courmayeur side, I saw tracks below.00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:32.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:24:50.000 --> 00:25:04.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: but it's not a straightforward route. Cormier's 1,200 meters, you know, you can get snow all the way to the bottom, but yeah, it's possible, but definitely, you know, take a guide, I would suggest.00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:11.000Stuart Winchester: Right. All right, so let's continue with the hero trip here. Where next, Ian?00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:25.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, well, again, if you're thinking about, you know, some of the great resorts in Europe, I'm actually going to pick St. Anton in Austria next, because that is listed on the spreadsheet I'm looking at as Skjalberg.00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:20.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:25.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:27.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:28.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: On the epic, on the epic pass.00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:34.000Stuart Winchester: Right. Yeah. Everything has 10 names there. That's another, that's another reason I, we needed you on here. Um.00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:33.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah. Well…00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:41.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, Ski… Ski Aalberg is… so, let's just have a look at where you are. It's gonna be slightly to the, uh, west.00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:39.000Stuart Winchester: There it is. There it is. I found it.00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:59.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, there you go, Ski Aalberg. So, Ski Aalberg… Aalberg is, like, a region of Austria that sits within Tyrol, one of the, uh, the cantons, and in fact, that is quite good, the level that you've got it at right there. You can see, just on the video that I'm looking at, uh, at the moment.00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:44.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, there we go.00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:51.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:55.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:13.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: That you've got St. Anton is sitting almost underneath where it says Ski Aalberg. It's pretty easy to get to.00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:11.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:25.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: you can get there… you can fly into either Innsbruck, or you can fly into Zurich. For, you know, I typically travel by train, but, you know, from both of those, it's about an hour and a half or so by train.00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:20.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:33.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, roughly, uh, transfer time. A really good train station in St. Anton. And St. Anton…00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:40.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: is an amazing destination. I was lucky enough to learn to ski there, you know, when I was a kid.00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:50.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And I think what… it ticks a lot of boxes. It does have, uh, maybe contrary to some people's impressions, amazing food.00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:50.000 --> 00:27:01.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: There's, like, a Michelin-star restaurant at the mid-station, just above a resort, which is, you know, well worth checking out. But lots of resorts, lots of restaurants in the town as well.00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:54.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:03.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Has legendary apres ski.00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:12.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: There are two bars located opposite each other, which some listeners may have heard of, called the Crazy Kangaroo.00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:12.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:14.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And the moose avert.00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:15.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:29.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And these are, like, legendary at the end of the day. Skiers will go there, they'll be dancing on the tables, they'll be, uh, you know, knocking back whatever they can, and then skiing down very, very carefully.00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:18.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:44.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, to the resort, the remaining, kind of, 500 meters or so. They do actually encourage people to get a bus back, uh, now, uh, if you can, because there is a little bit of a history of… of accidents, but those two, you know, have amazing apres ski.00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:34.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:37.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:45.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:44.000 --> 00:28:00.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Really good restaurants, but the ski area is fantastic. Ski Aalberg covers all of the resorts in that area. On the level of maps on at the moment, you can see over to the left, there's an area called St. Christoph. You can link over to St. Christoph.00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:08.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: you can link over to Steuben, quite easy to ski over there, and then just to the north of the map, as we're looking at it at the moment, will be Lech.00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:17.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: which is also part of Ski Aalberg. You know, you can stay in Lech. I tend to favor St. Anton, there's a lot more going on. Lech is a bit…00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:12.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:17.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:33.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: how can I put it? Posher, quite frankly. You know, frequented by the Dutch royal family and, uh, and others. You know, the British royal family historically used to go there as well. You can actually ski on Ski Arburg all the way up to that town called.00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:21.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, okay.00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:43.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Vaath, or Vaath, which is right at the top of the map. That is a very long day, and the connections to there are quite difficult. But it is a…00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:35.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, gosh.00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:38.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.000Stuart Winchester: You can ski from there to…00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:59.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, you could ski between there and St. Anton and back in a single day. You can get a certificate if you follow the whole route and do it. But it is a very large ski area. But St. Anton itself, really brilliant place to base yourself.00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:46.000Stuart Winchester: You're saying, wow.00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:48.000Stuart Winchester: Jeez.00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:52.000Stuart Winchester: Unbelievable.00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:53.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:06.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: you know, lift connections are really good, the resort is really good, and, you know, that would be one of the reasons I would suggest that.00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:14.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And just another kind of equivalent destination for the hero trip. Oh, sorry. Go on. Go on. Yes.00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:18.000Stuart Winchester: Let me just pause and ask you one question about Ahlberg. So, you know, again, Americans are…00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:34.000Stuart Winchester: And that's, I don't want to mean to speak for the whole nation, but they tend to fall into the checklist trap where they're just trying to get to everything. Would you recommend trying to ski from here to there, or would you recommend settling in, kind of enjoying a day at each, or maybe just.00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:27.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Hmm.00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:38.000Stuart Winchester: Seeing where the day takes you, not worrying about all the lifts.00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:53.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: I mean, I would only do that for a long way to go. I mean, it's quite a long way to go to Lech and back for the day. And there is a lot of really good skiing in St. Anton. I actually tend to favor the St. Christoph Steuben.00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:44.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:50.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:29:53.000 --> 00:30:09.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: area, because it doesn't get skied as much as some of the other areas, and there's a lot to ski there, so you can have peace to yourself, whereas it might be much busier closer to St. Anton. There's actually another area you can see with the lifts that you've got there going slightly south.00:29:57.000 --> 00:29:58.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:24.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: from St. Anton, that goes to an area called Rendle, which is part of the Ski Arburg area. And, you know, Rendle is another really good ski area that's often underskied. I mean, you could spend a day skiing over there on its own.00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:16.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:30.000Stuart Winchester: Is… is that… is that part of Ski Aalberg? On the Epic Pass? It is? Okay. Okay.00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:31.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's part of Schiberg as well, yeah.00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:37.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, great. All right. Anwar, you were gonna tell us about another, I think, Austrian destination.00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, I was gonna go the other… the other very obvious, I would say.00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:39.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:40.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Um…00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:44.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Big destination is Verbier.00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:47.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Which I believe is also on the Epic Pass.00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:58.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, so Verbier's in Switzerland, quite close to Chamonix. You can drive between Chamonix and Verbier in an hour and a quarter. Again, you'd fly into Geneva.00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:50.000Stuart Winchester: Ah, yeah, let's…00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:53.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Oh, there it is.00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:56.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:30:58.000 --> 00:30:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:14.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: really easy to get to from Geneva. You can actually get the train all the way from Geneva Airport direct to the town at the bottom of Verbier, which is called Le Chapelle, and then they have a gondola, which, uh… which you guys call a tram, I think, or, uh…00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:07.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.000Stuart Winchester: There.00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:25.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: it's a bubble lift, however you want to term it, that goes directly from the valley floor, connects directly out of the railway station and up into Verbier.00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:17.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:26.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:28.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And, you know, Verbier…00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:43.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Brilliant resort. Such an amazing ski area. It's actually listed on there as a Catra Valley, the Four Valleys, and that's because it also includes several other resorts as well, which are called, I think, Lazu… you can just about see them. Lazuma, Nonda.00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:30.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:37.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:48.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: and Vaesuna, which are just slightly to the north there.00:31:48.000 --> 00:32:00.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, so they're all included in that area. It's a big ski area, but Verbier has a lot going on. Uh, again, you know, good apres ski, really good, uh, restaurants, uh, but.00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:52.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Particularly for the more advanced skiers, there's some incredible off-piste there. You know, you can…00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:12.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: um… go off… off the back from the top of Mon4.00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:28.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: with a guide, just again, and there's a huge area that can open up there. You can also do heli skiing out of Verbier to access some of the other peaks around there, but you can stay in the inbounds area and still ski a lot of really good off-piste.00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:34.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It's high as well, you know, the resort itself is 1600 meters, and I think it goes up to.00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:45.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: 3… 2… I'm not 100% sure about that, but certainly high. So, you know, you have regular snow. I mean, I skied there in the last week of…00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:47.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: April last year.00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:47.000 --> 00:33:02.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: and there was still plenty of snow. Um, it's, you know, it's expensive. It's not quite as expensive as, uh, Zermatt. It doesn't have the view of the Matterhorn, but it is one of the world's best ski resorts, for sure.00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:56.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:14.000Stuart Winchester: So that's on Epic Pass, and it's, you know, Vail has purchased a couple of ski areas at Kranz, Montana, and Andermatt-Suderun, and it's also… the Epic Pass is unlimited on DeSantis, which is right.00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:23.000Stuart Winchester: contiguous with the Entermeister Druun. If you have the Epic Pass, is it worth trying to do a trip with all of those, or is Verbier enough?00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:32.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And Verbier's definitely enough for a whole week. If you had a car, Cro-Montana isn't very far away, it would probably only take you…00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:45.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: you know, an hour and a bit… I'm gonna say an hour and a quarter, perhaps, to, uh, get there. Cremontana's a big area in itself. It's, um… you know, I've skied there on many occasions, and I really like it. It's not… I've been there…00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:36.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:47.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: On a family holiday.00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:48.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Whereas…00:33:48.000 --> 00:34:05.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: I would go to Verbier because I like to ski kind of, uh, steep and off-piste, uh, you know, with a guide. And probably it's too expensive to take a family to. Cromontana is, uh, you know, a bit more, uh, affordable. I mean, it's still a very smart, uh, resort.00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:13.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But if you wanted to explore, you could go there. Amount is a bit more of a stretch in terms of distance.00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:18.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: You know, if you were on a tour, and you're an Epic Pass holder, you could take it in.00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:33.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Now, I'm also a fan of Andermatt. I've been there several times, uh, as well. Again, probably go to Zurich for Andermatt. You can get the train from Zurich in about an hour and a half, something like that. And it's a really interesting story, uh, Andermatt. You know, it used to be…00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:43.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Its location is strategically significant in the middle of several valleys. So at once upon a time, it used to be an army base.00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:55.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And then, when the army, uh, withdrew, it kind of went into decline for a long time. And it was bought by, uh, the area was brought by a property developer.00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:50.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:08.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And ultimately, he built it up, and more recently, Vale Resorts have taken that over. And so there's a lot of new accommodations, some incredibly nice restaurants. Again, more Michelin stars there. I've got a feeling…00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:14.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It might have the highest number of Michelin stars per capita for any.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:16.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: town in the world.00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:26.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, and the skiing itself, you know, again, I've been there with a guide, there's some excellent off-piste skiing, but there's, you know, a good amount of on-piste skiing as well.00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:29.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It's a really, it's really appealing area.00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:35.000Stuart Winchester: So you mentioned having a guide many times, and I think that's, you know, in…00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:33.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Heh.00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:45.000Stuart Winchester: in North America, we generally only hire guides when we're going outside of the resort, and a lot of folks don't even do it then, if they're confident in their own avalanche.00:35:45.000 --> 00:36:00.000Stuart Winchester: capabilities. In general, everything within resort boundaries in North America is considered to be patrolled and controlled, meaning they'll do avalanche work, and if it's open, you can go in it without a guide. There's a few exceptions where you need transceivers, etc.00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:13.000Stuart Winchester: That's not really the case in Europe, so just from a mentality standpoint, how should skiers approach this when they're going to some of these hero resorts you're talking about, as far as.00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:18.000Stuart Winchester: Considering a guide in essential versus a luxury.00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:36.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Okay, I wouldn't want to mislead you there. I mean, guides are just on my mind, because I like a lot of backcountry skiing, and therefore, I often, you know, go with them. In bounds, you don't need a guide, absolutely not. You know, you can download the app, or get yourself a peace map, and you can.00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:23.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:58.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: go around the place as much as you want, and, uh, you know, it is fully secured, you've got ski patrol, uh, etc, so you don't need to be concerned about that. It just happens that a lot of the places that I've mentioned so far, you know, do have some of those more interesting off-piste options, and I guess it depends a bit on the listener and, you know, what they're, uh, looking for, but you… you don't…00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:06.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: need to have a guide to show you around resorts. I mean, potentially, some of these ski areas are.00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:13.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: significantly larger than they might come across in North America, and therefore.00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:12.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:29.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: it could be a good investment to rent someone or to hire someone to show you around. I mean, back in the day, in the 90s, when I was working in the Alps, I worked for British tour operators, and part of my job was showing guests around the mountains and helping them orientate themselves.00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:38.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And that actually is pertinent, because the next resort I wanted, or area I wanted to mention, was Le Trois Vallees, Le Three Valleys.00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:40.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Which…00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:41.000Stuart Winchester: Also on Epic Pass.00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:45.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: also is on Epic Pass. Now, the three valleys…00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:53.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: probably has a pretty good awareness amongst the North American market. I mean, it is the world's largest ski area.00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:01.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: There's 600 kilometers apiece there, and I work four seasons in the three valleys, three in Meribel and one in Courchevel.00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:57.000Stuart Winchester: Peace.00:37:58.000 --> 00:37:59.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:03.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And it is.00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:14.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: magnificent in terms of scale. There is so much skiing you can do there, and, you know, I worked four winters there. Did I ski every single run, you know, during that time? I doubt it.00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:24.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, because you tend to go back and forth across a lot of them. Uh, you know, there is so much that it's gonna take you well more than a week if you wanted to, uh.00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:29.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: ski them all, but you could certainly explore the three valleys.00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:39.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: You know, I… it's hard to know exactly which of those destinations to recommend, because it depends on the individuals to…00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:46.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: put it in context, you have three valleys, literally, over, if we were looking on the map, the left-hand side, you would have Courchevel.00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:49.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: The middle, Maribel.00:38:49.000 --> 00:39:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, and the right-hand side, Val Torrens. I think as we look at the map at the moment, it's the opposite way round. So we can see on the left, you've got Val Torrens at the top. That's the highest ski resort in Europe. It's 2,300 meters itself, the resort. Not high by, like, Colorado standards or something like that, but high by European standards.00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:53.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:55.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:08.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:19.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It's above the tree line, uh, you know, it's changed a lot in recent years, but there's a lot of apartment accommodation there, there's a lot of nice four- and five-star hotels up there, uh, as well, but it doesn't have.00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:15.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:28.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Like, if you were coming to Europe for the first time, it doesn't have the kind of character, the charisma.00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:22.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:28.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:43.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: that some other resorts, let's say, like Verbier, or Zermatt, or St. Anton have, because it's modern, you know, it was built in the 1970s, so it's a purpose-built, uh, resort. Also, in that valley slightly lower down, you have Leymanduia, more.00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:47.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Prettier, you know, at the bottom, you've got a place called San Martin.00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:49.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: The middle valley, Meribel.00:39:49.000 --> 00:40:04.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: that is lots of pretty chocolate box chalets. Uh, you know, I worked 3 years there. It's brilliantly connected. Uh, the resort itself is between 1,400 and 1,800 meters, so it's pretty high.00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:39:58.000 --> 00:39:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And, you know, it's a good…00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:19.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: base, I'd still, if you were thinking about that, I'd still, you know, without wishing to offend any of my friends in Mirabal, and I have very many of them, I'd probably say if you think about a week and you wanted to base yourself somewhere.00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:21.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Maybe Verbier or Saint Anton.00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:33.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: would be a better choice for that. They both have, you know, still big ski areas, and just a little bit more accessibility, uh, you know, overall.00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:25.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:39.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Courchevel, again, a resort I love that I worked in for a season.00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:41.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: There's several different…00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:46.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: um, what the French call station, different levels within Courchevel.00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:44.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:46.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:40:46.000 --> 00:41:01.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Courchevel 1850, most people will have heard of. It's a top station. It's at 1850 meters. It is very shishy. Five and six star hotels, 13 Michelin stars.00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:58.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:00.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:13.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: you know, across the resort, it… you can't find… well, I have stayed there in a couple of budget accommodations, but there's not really budget accommodation. You know, if you want to go and…00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:31.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: to a resort where you may well end up, you know, sharing a hotel with, I don't know, Leo DiCaprio, or, you know, you might find a member of the British Royals there, or David Beckham, then that's the kind of place to go.00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:32.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:36.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But you're going to have to pay to go along with that. And it has fantastic skiing.00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:38.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But again.00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:45.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: if you're only coming for a shorter period of time, I'd be inclined to mention a couple of the other resorts I mentioned, plus…00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:54.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: I want to mention Valdezare as well, but I don't think Valdezare is on any of the collective passes, is it?00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:58.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Uh, is it part of one of these bigger…00:41:58.000 --> 00:41:59.000Stuart Winchester: Domains or.00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:05.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: No, it is not. I mean, there is a, uh… so it's not going to come up on your map.00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: But Valdisera is a brilliant…00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:24.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: uh, resort, which does give you traditional skiing, a pretty village, a huge, uh, ski area that links up to Teen, where they have a glacier, so you can kind of guarantee that you're going to be able to get skiing. Skiing goes up to 3,500 meters there.00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:10.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:41.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And I met Americans there, so Americans certainly know about it. I met a family from, you know, Florida who were in the Folly Deuce, who were enjoying themselves in the VIP area and very kindly, you know, offered us some of their champagne.00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:29.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:53.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: uh, at the time. You know, Founders Area is a brilliant resort, not covered on any of those passes. That doesn't mean that it's not necessarily going to be, you know, a good option, uh, for you. You know, lift tickets.00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:43.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:07.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: are going to be, you know, dirt cheap compared to the States, but maybe still, like, 80 euros a day, or something like that, you know, overall, but a really good ski area. So those are all… I think we've covered all of the, kind of, the bigger.00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:18.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: kind of places there, unless you've got any other questions in relation to any of them. Oh, no, hold on! We've missed one! We've missed one! Dolomitiski!00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:15.000Stuart Winchester: No. Yeah.00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:16.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:19.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:21.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: That's on Icon, isn't it?00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:35.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, well, Dolomiti Super Ski is on Icon, Skirama Dolomiti is on Epic. They each have, like, 100 ski areas, it seems like, so… yeah, this is how they're pitched to us. I don't know how you want to make sense to them on the ground… of them on the ground.00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:31.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah.00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:34.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah.00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:51.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, okay, let's talk Dolomiti superskis. That's where the Winter Olympics were last year. Milan Cortina. Cortina is in the Dolomites. And it is a huge superski area, you know, depending how you do the definitions, it's larger.00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:39.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:40.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:43.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:45.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:50.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:54.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: than L'Etoile Vallee.00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:54.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:56.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Uh, but…00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:01.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Sometimes that means getting a bus in between. Uh, it is…00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:00.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:13.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It is great. You could fly into Innsbruck, you could fly into Venice, you can combine that with a trip to Venice, or maybe Verona, or Milan. They're all about equidistance from the Dolomiti Sufski.00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:16.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: It's visually accurate.00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:31.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Absolutely stunning. The Dolomites are just an amazing mountain range. I found myself when I was skiing in Val Gardena, which we'll come to right in the middle of your map at the moment, just being distracted.00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:43.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: I'm looking at the mountains, because they're just so gorgeous. I'm skiing down this piste. You know, looking at this mountain, thinking, oh my god, this is just amazing. And then on top of that, you know, you have.00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:36.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yah.00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:58.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Italian cuisine, Italian prices, you know, yeah, Cortina's the most expensive. Again, quite a lot of, uh, you know, Milanese would go up there for the weekend, but, you know, overall, Selva, again, roughly around the middle of your, uh, map at the moment. Yeah, really…00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:58.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:06.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Really good value, you know, considering it's a really good access point for a fantastic ski area.00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:09.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And it has…00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:16.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: The Superski is not a misnomer. It is a very large ski area.00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:27.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: And there's some amazing circuits that you can do there. So I would probably recommend, if you were thinking about it, Cortina or Silva Val Gardena would be the two best places to locate yourself.00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:37.000Stuart Winchester: And do you like Superski over Vail's Skirama Dolomiti group? And again, I've dug in a little bit, but I didn't include on this map what that…00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:42.000Stuart Winchester: contains, and I dropped the pin here on, uh, Campo Carlomagno, but…00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:46.000Stuart Winchester: It includes a lot of things in, you know, almost equal.00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:58.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah, I'm gonna have to put my hand up and say I don't know that area as well. I haven't actually skied there myself. It is, to my mind, and I can check your stats because I've got it in front of me, you're saying it's roughly the same skiable area.00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:49.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:01.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Right. Was that the vertical drop?00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:01.000Stuart Winchester: That's the stats that…00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:04.000Stuart Winchester: or on the Epic Pass website.00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:04.000Iain - The Ski Podcast: Yeah.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:06.000Stuart Winchester

A conversation with Ada Palmer about building the future with humility, the process of creating a science fiction world, and many spoiler-heavy deep dives into the world of Terra Ignota. Mentioned in this episode Books and works. Ada Palmer, Terra Ignota — Too Like the Lightning, Seven Surrenders, The Will to Battle, Perhaps the Stars · Ada Palmer & Jo Walton, Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy · Ada Palmer, And Loki in His Prison (forthcoming) · "Somebody Will" (song) · Bill Bryson, At Home · Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists · Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea · Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet · Boccaccio, Decameron. People and places. Tyler Cowen · Teresa Nielsen Hayden · Johannes Gutenberg · Francis Bacon · Michelangelo · Villa I Tatti (Florence) · Worldcon · the Terra Ignota Discord. Transcript Ada: Stop telling stories about a thing as if one person did it. Tell the story of how a whole team of people did this. And when we look at the major innovations of the past, recognize their plural and often anonymous origins and shapers — and ask: will we be content if we end up being the anonymous contributor to future generations having this wonderful thing? Introduction [00:00:26] Ben: Today I'm excited and grateful to share my conversation with Ada Palmer. Among many other things, Ada is a professor of history at the University of Chicago and the author of several books, including the science fiction series Terra Ignota, which now lives rent-free in my head. In the words of the inimitable Tyler Cowen, this is the conversation that I want to have — which means the vast majority of it is an extremely nerdy, extremely spoiler-heavy discussion of the Terra Ignota series. The spoiler warning comes around the one-hour mark, but rather than making you stop then, I'd recommend stopping right here, going and reading the entire series, and then coming back. We'll still be here. A podcast about the unwritten workings of a fictional future is a vaguely legitimate segue to noting that I've brought Idea Machines back after a very long hiatus, for a fairly specific reason. I'm still going to dig into the people and systems that turn ideas into reality, but with a particular focus on knowledge and stories that are in people's heads and aren't yet written down or recorded anywhere. Even in the age of the internet and LLMs, there is so much that can only be discovered through conversation — and that, I think, should be the point of podcasts. So with that, here's my conversation with Ada Palmer. "Somebody Will," and making peace with not seeing the end [00:01:57] Ben: This is actually a very selfish question. Your song "Somebody Will" is one of my favorite songs. Ada: I had to practice for six months before I could sing it without crying while singing it. It still requires great concentration. Ben: I sometimes cry a little when I listen to it. If you're listening to this and you haven't heard the song, you should stop and listen to it, because it's amazing, and we will be here when you get back. Okay — assuming everybody has now listened to the song. I think it captures the fact that ambitious projects take many lifetimes and the labor of many people who are only contributing indirectly, in a way that I feel nothing else does. And that fact feels very at odds with the cultural milieu today, where — at least for me — it feels like you personally need to be working on the thing, and if you can't get it done within your lifetime then you're a failure. So how do you internalize that personally? I constantly feel this tension: I believe the message of "Somebody Will" is true, and at the same time I cannot feel satisfied with it. And how would you get more people to internalize it? I feel like the world would be better if more people did. Ada: I have the advantage, as a historian, of being used to thinking on century and multi-century timeframes — of looking at how many of the things we celebrate or think of as important were multi-generational projects, and how few people, even among the ones we talk about as if one person achieved the thing, actually saw that achievement bear fruit, or even near-full fruit, within their lifetime. Lately I've been asked about Gutenberg a lot. From Gutenberg's perspective: I invented the machine, I used the machine, the machine worked great, the sales didn't, I went bankrupt, and I died in poverty. In the later part of his life he got to see other people starting to build printing presses and trying to print — and also going bankrupt. The books were starting to circulate, and everyone was saying, "I don't know about these new weird books, they're different from the old ones." So if he judges himself on his lifetime achievement, he judges himself negatively. The ongoing effects of the Gutenberg revolution mostly happen well after his death, and after the deaths of his first generation of apprentices, in the mid-1500s and moving toward the 1600s — and there are stages of it still happening in the 1700s as it democratizes access to knowledge, which is something one could anticipate it would do, but not see. So many of our best and biggest projects are like that. In fact, you very rarely have a project that comes to fruition within its beginner's lifetime. But it requires us to look at history to feel that. Another factor is that we're so often pressured not just to look short term, but to look very short term. My friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden, a brilliant editor, has a very apt saying that I think about a lot: we always overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, but underestimate what we accomplish in five years. If you look at yourself and ask, "What did I do this year?" you'll always judge yourself harshly and be disappointed. But if you make the list of "What did I do in the last five years?" you'll say, "Oh, wow, I accomplished a lot" — even though each individual year felt like you didn't meet your own standards. And another part of it is that yes, there is a melancholy to "Somebody Will." It's about a kind of surrendering acceptance: that you will not be there to enjoy the thing, that you are working on something so that others will enjoy it in the future. That requires remembering that the same is true of the people in the past who worked to give us what we enjoy — that there is a teamwork across the diaspora of time, in which we all have to love the future generations we are helping and accept that they will get benefits we will not. Because otherwise, what are we doing? Ben: Let me poke at this one more time — and the answer might be that it's impossible. How do you get to serenity with the fact that we're working on a very long-term project that needs many people who are not going to be the person remembered for the thing, and that this is important and worthy? What actually goes on in your head? Ada: Again, there is a mournful side to it. And we therefore need to encourage a culture that celebrates all the contributors. Stop telling stories about a thing as if one person did it. Tell the story of how a whole team of people did this. And when we look at the major innovations of the past, recognize their plural and often anonymous origins and shapers — and ask: will we be content if we end up being the anonymous contributor to future generations having this wonderful thing? Because what matters to me isn't that I get thanked for X. What matters to me is that I helped make sure X happens. That separation of credit is important. I remember thinking vividly about this after reading a book called At Home — by, I think, Thomas Madden, although I may have the name wrong [it's Bill Bryson] — which is a fun popular history about all the objects in your house and how they developed. The history of the table knife, and the chair, and the chest of drawers, and the kitchen; how houses were originally one room and came to be subdivided into multiple rooms, and what the front hall is. It's a really fun, light history, essentially a string of delightful anecdotes. But I noticed that he would sometimes talk about the inventor of something we have — the inventor of the egg whisk or whatever — and then, if the inventor of this useful thing didn't end up rich and famous as a result, he described that as a tragedy. His definition of tragedy was: somebody contributed something that benefited the human race, and they didn't become rich and famous as a result; they lived an ordinary life as X, Y, or Z. Ordinary life was the tragic outcome. I snagged on that. What are we doing if living the life that most people live, having also contributed to the sum total of human happiness, is your definition of tragedy? He had this very strong sense that it was an injustice for someone's name not to travel with their invention, and for someone not to become rich as a result of their invention. And it was such a narrow portrait of what it could mean to contribute to human thriving — one that assumes only the inventor contributes, and not the hundreds of thousands of people involved in the distribution and manufacture and improvement of the egg whisk, who also bring things that help our daily lives. It felt so un-Baconian and unscientific. Bacon, when first arguing for the scientific method, says there is no greater act of charity and love than to do something that helps every human being after you live a better life. In its original articulation, that is its own reward. But the idea that it should be a ladder to fame and social rise, as opposed to something one achieves and is proud of — I think that's where we get snagged, and where we get these stresses. To contribute to humans reaching the stars is to contribute to humans reaching the stars. It is not to be the name that becomes famous. Whose labor counts [00:11:27] Ben: It's an open question to me how you make more of a culture of that. Ada: Part of it is that we have to start evaluating contributions more equally, because we have a really unfair way of thinking about labor, where some types are celebrated and high status and others are low status. This goes way back. It's true in the Middle Ages: any job you do with your hands is low status, and any job that is intellectual work is high status. This is why Michelangelo's father was absolutely rabid against Michelangelo being a sculptor. They came from a banking family, and Michelangelo's father did intellectual work — banking — and it would be a shame upon the family for his son to work with his hands and be an artist. The outcome of this over the course of the Renaissance, via things like Vasari's Lives of the Artists, is that they make the argument for art being intellectual labor — for an artist like Michelangelo to shift status from being thought of as manual labor, like a carpenter, to being thought of as intellectual labor, a peer of a doctor or a scholar. And we now consider art to be a high-status intellectual occupation. But we still have these horrible terms like "unskilled labor." Go watch anybody doing so-called unskilled labor for an hour and you think: holy moly, this person is really good at this. The speed and the elegance with which they have optimized this set of skills is incredible. It takes many kinds of labor to do something. But at an academic institute, we do not celebrate the people maintaining the site or preparing the food in the kitchen as contributors to the thing — even though it's absolutely essential, and without it the thing can't happen. That is a terrible problem. And more and more I see people talking about the world as if only a tiny elite are serious contributors and everyone else is just a dot moving around. An NPC. I was being interviewed about the singularity — this idea of trying to maximize the computing power that Earth produces in order to speed up how quickly we create an AI god. The interviewer asked what one thing would contribute most to maximizing Earth's computing power. And I said: well, obviously it would be UBI, or another way of solving poverty. Because right now the majority of computing power on Earth is human brain cells, which vastly outnumber the computational power of computers. And a large share of that computing power belongs to people living in poverty, whose capacity is being diminished and sidelined onto worrying about where tomorrow's meal is going to come from. When you provide a safety net at a reasonable standard of living, so that people don't have the anxiety that poverty causes, people become way more creative and generative, and start new businesses. All of our UBI experiments show outpourings of art, discovery, entrepreneurship, increased generation — all of which contribute, second order, to Earth advancing. And the crowd who thinks about this was just blown away by thinking of, A, the human brain as computing power, and B, poverty as the largest drain upon the computational powers of the Earth. Ben: People don't think about second-order effects enough, period. Ada: There is no symphony hall without its janitor. There is no symphony hall without the workman in addition to the architect. And we celebrate one of these arbitrarily and not the others. Why is that? Is it because the construction worker is doing something athletic and manual? Well, we celebrate sports people, and they're doing something athletic and manual. It's a totally cultural construction, which of these occupations are celebrated and which are not. Ben: So we just need to celebrate everybody. Ada: Celebrate ninety percent of the occupations — and identify the ten percent where it's actually, this is a waste of a human being. Ben: This is a waste of a human being, and we should not have a human being doing this. That's where we bring in a robot. Ada: Right. But there's all this discussion of "let's have the robots replace everything everyone is doing." No — when human beings are doing things that are stimulating and creative and make them happy, leave it alone. But if we have a robot that cleans out the gutters, that would be great, because nobody is stimulated by cleaning out gutters. Ben: Or does boring paperwork. Ada: Oh, that's the dream. Where the Hives came from: a lunch table in Florence [00:16:44] Ben: Shifting toward Terra Ignota — but not yet to the spoilers. You spent a lot of time in Italy. How did that affect the creation of the Terra Ignota world? Ada: A lot, specifically via Villa I Tatti, an institute owned and run by Harvard but quite independent, in the outskirts of Florence. It's not on the hill where the Decameron takes place; it's on the hill next to the hill where the Decameron takes place — to anchor it in literary geography. It has fellowships, so scholars from all over the world come there, about two dozen a year, for a year-long residency. And one graduate student at a time. I was the graduate student. You're sort of there as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed mascot. Ben: So it's a bunch of senior scholars and you? Ada: A lot of them are postdocs — they're starting their careers, they've finished their PhDs recently. There are usually two or three senior scholars resident, and then two dozen who are at the next stage from where you as a PhD student are, and from whom you can learn exciting stuff. Some are later career. And they're from all over the place — and they've usually gone all over the place, on similar postdocs and for research. I remember vividly being at a group lunch. There was a married couple there having a conversation with a couple of other people. The mom was Australian and the dad was Spanish. They had two kids, one of whom had been born in the US and another in the UK. They'd lived in France while the kids were little, and now the kids were medium-sized and in Italy, attending a polyglot school. And the parents were discussing the different citizenships the two kids were eligible for, and the benefits and drawbacks of each. "You get this with a UK citizenship, but you can't have that. You can have UK and then US, but you can't have US and then UK. These benefits versus those benefits. And if the kids have two different citizenships, is that bad for them relative to each other? Does it make them feel envious, or unspecial, or special compared to their sibling?" It was such a buyer's-market conversation about citizenship. They were strategically sitting down and asking: which ones do we want to apply for, which ones do they already have, what are the utilities of each one, how do we feel about the governments and the values that they advance? And it made me think: what if everybody had that conversation? What if it were normal, when you're coming of age, to sit down, think about all the citizenships in the world, decide which ones you think are best, and choose — rather than having it fall upon you by accident of birth? It made sense to me using the EU, where people have free movement, as the model. When you're in the EU, you may have been born in France, but your family is Polish and you feel Polish because you grew up with them and visited family and learned the language — or you don't, and you feel French, and that's up to you. That freedom of movement, where who you are isn't where you live, it's what group you identify with, felt so plausible for a future in which technology means mobility is getting faster and more natural, and we choose jobs and homes based on location rather than being limited by geography. Plotters, pantsers, and the tyranny of past you [00:20:42] Ben: I don't know that I've ever heard you talk about your writing process in any detail. Fiction writers — some are plotters, some are pantsers, some are in between. Where do you fall? Ada: I have an essay on Tor.com arguing that the difference is less binary than it feels. For those listening who don't know the definitions: a plotter is somebody who plans ahead, outlines, has a whole plan for the story before they start writing it. A pantser is somebody who plunges in and figures out the story, or the characters, or the details, as they're writing. Here's my argument that these are less different than they sound. If you're a plotter, you're spending extra time planning at the beginning — making your outline, revising your outline, thinking about order and structure, rereading the outline, getting a sense of how it flows and fixing that. Then you implement it, and you do comparatively less revision at the end. Whereas a pantser will plunge into writing six months earlier, figure out those structure questions as they go, get to the end, and then often do more revision — doing to the manuscript the revisions that the plotter would do to the outline. So you're doing the same steps, you're just doing them in a different order. Everybody still does the "hmm, let's think about the pacing; this character has too many chapters where they appear all together and then they don't appear for a long time; I have to think about the balance of that." Everybody does that step. But do you do it before you write the first draft or after? That's the real difference. And you can have a very meticulous story where you figured it out as you went and then went back and put things in earlier to make it all work. I am at the far extreme end of planner. I world-build for at least five years, and then I spend six months doing the outline before I sit down to write the first sentence. I outlined the entire series — chapter by chapter, all four books — and had a complete plan for the whole thing before I wrote the first sentence of the first chapter of the first book. I then followed that outline incredibly precisely. Often when I'm writing I'll get to a point and think, maybe this bit of the outline is wrong, maybe I should do this other thing instead. And I'll start doing the other thing, and work on it, and get more and more frustrated, and wonder why it's going wrong, and whine to my bash'mates about it. And then I'll go back to the outline and realize: oh, of course. Past me is always correct. And I repent of having strayed from the outline. Because past me was in the middle of six months of being zoomed out, looking at the whole structure, really understanding everything being set up short term and long term. Whereas present me, in the middle of writing something, is very immersed in that one chapter and its valences and its emotion, and can lose sight of the work it's doing to continue things from five chapters ago and set things up for five chapters later. I was fully aware of all that when I did the outline, and I might be less aware of it in the act of writing. Which is why the version of me that was outlining is always more correct about what the chapter needs than the version of me sitting down to write the chapter. That's what the outline is for. Five years of worldbuilding, mechanically [00:24:18] Ben: What do you actually do, mechanically, for the five years of worldbuilding? What does that entail? Ada: A lot of it is that I'll have a notion. I'll be sitting at that table at Villa I Tatti listening to the conversation and think, wouldn't that be neat — that would be a really cool thing to explore in a story. I will then take the worlds I'm building, because I'm always building several at once, for several successive series. I'm currently doing the worldbuilding for the series after the series after the series of which the first book comes out next summer. Ben: That's so cool. Ada: I've already fully done the worldbuilding for this series and the series after it, and I'm worldbuilding the series after that, and a couple of others. They're sort of on a conveyor belt: the most assembled, the medium assembled, and the less assembled, as they move forward. I'll take the notion and go to my most assembled world, the one I intend to do soonest, and ask: does this notion fit? Does it combine well with the other stuff I already have in this world? Do they synergize? Are they compatible with each other? And if they are, I'll plop that new idea into the world. So I'll be working on a world where the key ideas are the flying car network, and voluntary citizenship, and a kid who can bring toys to life with a touch, and a revival of eighteenth-century ideas about gender. And then I'll independently get the notion of somebody being a professional living doll. And I'll ask: could that happen in that world? Yes, it could. What would that mean? Well, celebrity culture in a global world would have neat characteristics; the stuff I'm doing with gender would intersect with it in nifty ways. Neat. That notion, totally independent when I came up with it, can live in that world. Or I might have another idea, look at it in that world, and say: you know what, this isn't compatible with this world. The society of Terra Ignota — it doesn't fit. I'm going to take this idea and move on to the next world. And the first world it can go in is where that idea then lives. So worlds accumulate multiple different seeds. You'll notice that it's not that the living doll is derived from the other stuff — it's an independent idea. But once put in, the two connect to each other, the way trees in a forest develop shunts that send sugar to each other and keep each other alive and support the entire forest ecosystem, even though they began as individual and indeed competitive trees. The whole world develops from multiple different central seeds. Ben: Sorry, I'm very interested in the details of this. Are you writing these down on index cards? Ada: A lot of it will just be in my head. I also use OneNote, where I'll jot things down. There will be notes in OneNote that are sometimes a whole table with a chronology that develops over time, but also just a list of words I found evocative, or a reminder note to myself. I also email myself ideas so that I remember them, and there they are, searchably, in my email. I also sometimes write them on Post-it notes and leave them around the house. Sometimes something came to me and felt evocative from a picture — a work of art, or a postcard, or an image. Ben: You have your mood board. Ada: I'll put those by my bed, or in other places, and they'll make me chew on those ideas over time. But the majority of this will be in my head. Nobody could reconstruct the world from those notes. The notes are chaos, until I get to the late pre-outlining stage. I was probably working on the Terra Ignota world for four years before I started writing down the chronology. I do have a long timeline of events, from the present to the completion of the terraforming of Mars, with the dates of when everybody was born, when different cultural movements happened, when this or that historical war that's mentioned began and ended, and so on — a long, color-coded timeline. I'll probably share it at some point, but it's in OneNote, which is hard to export. I also have a custom Google Map which shows the Hive majorities in every major city on the globe, so you can see the distribution of the population. One thing I did deep into the worldbuild, preparing to think through the latter half of the series, was go through all the cities with a population above — I think it's ten million — that exist on Earth now, to figure out the future of each one, and then create several new cities that would be above that threshold by then. Making sure I wasn't skipping any cities. That I did Africa. That I did the Pacific Rim. That I had a global plan for this and not a non-global one. OneNote lets you combine text and note-taking with images, so for example there's one page that is a map of ancient Rome with my own notes on what is in each building in the reconstructed version of Rome in Romanova, where so many events take place. So the note-taking is extensive, but chaotic in my case. Ben: That is incredibly cool. I feel like there's a through-line in great artists and makers of things, where the thing that you see is the tippy-tip of an iceberg. Ada: It has to feel like that — especially for a built world. It has to feel real, it has to feel deep, it has to feel like it has all those things. Big beats, connective tissue, and the management of mood [00:30:35] Ada: Another thing about outlining, briefly. A word I've known a number of authors to use, that I kind of use too: when you're developing the story, there will often be a point at which you know what the big beats of the story are. Let's imagine we're outlining Romeo and Juliet. A big beat is when they meet. A big beat is when they get together. Then there's a sort of midpoint crisis, when the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt result in crisis and Romeo has to be kicked out. And then there's the dramatic ending in which they die. And then you ask: okay, what other stuff do I want in this story? Well, I need to develop the characters of Mercutio and Tybalt, and that has to happen before the midpoint. And I need some comedy scenes — this is Shakespeare — so I need to put those in at some point. So you can imagine Shakespeare saying: I know what the big beats are. Where am I going to fit the Mercutio characterization scene? Should it be right before his death, or earlier, so that we're invested in his character for a while? I want a comedy scene between this sad major serious beat and this sad major serious beat, to vary the mood. Who can be in that scene? I need a lighter scene between Romeo and Juliet meeting and Romeo and Juliet getting together — what can I put there that will change the mood, so we don't have two passionate romantic sequences in a row? So you figure out the big beats, and then you figure out the in-between connective tissue. And sometimes you'll be aware that there must be a speech: I have this idea for Mercutio making this passionate, weird speech about Queen Mab, it's a lot of fun, where do I put it? There's some flexibility — it can be at any point before his death. It can be early, it could be at the beginning, it could be just before his death. How does the audience — or in my case the reader — feel about Mercutio's death differently if we've just come to love him right before, versus if we came to love him really early on and we like him almost more than Romeo because he had more character for half the play before this crisis comes? Many technically-pantser authors I know have figured out the big beats before they start, and then are filling in and improvising the in-between stuff, and might move it around at the end. So if Shakespeare were a pantser, he might have been writing along, and then: Mercutio's dying soon, I get to give him a speech — oh, this speech is so awesome, I want to move it earlier. And he'd move the Queen Mab speech from right before his death to substantially earlier, so that we care about this character for a longer period of time. That's exactly the kind of revision that a pantser does, and that I would do at the outline level, where I have everything on screen in front of me and I'm thinking: these three Mercutio scenes are really all in a cluster. Do I want that? Do I want a character who gets introduced and then, the moment we love them, they're gone? Or do I want to stretch this out, so this is a character with whom we have a longer emotional relationship? So that's core to the outlining process. We have these big beats. At some point we need to meet Saladin — when do we meet Saladin? Is it before or after the revelation of what Mycroft really did? How does it feel if it's before? How does it feel if it's after? Let's settle that. Because many things that happen in a story are not causally related. Some are: Romeo committing murder has to be before the Romeo banishment scene; those can't be reversed, because one causes the other. The "Juliet is sad because Romeo has been banished" scene follows from those. Those have to be in an order. But Romeo meeting Juliet versus the Queen Mab speech — those can be reversed. They aren't causally related. They're independent, except inasmuch as they both have to be early. And then the author gets to think through which is first and which is second, and what the effects of that are. So a lot of the outlining process is putting in the big beats, figuring out what has to be before and what has to be after, and what can go at any point, and then situating it in the right place — and also realizing when mood needs to alternate. One principle of reading is that we notice changes in mood and tension much more than we notice the absolute level. If you write a book with five super-high-stakes action chapters in a row, the reader gets tired of super-high-stakes action. It all feels homogeneous. It doesn't feel exciting anymore. The beginning will feel exciting, but it will then flatline experientially. Whereas if you have a high-paced action sequence, and then a low-mood piece where people are relaxing and something silly happens, or we cut away to the cooks preparing the banquet who are not at all invested in the action that's going on — then when we return to that high-stakes thing, it feels high-stakes again. You need to alternate sad with happy. You need to alternate tense with relaxed. You need to alternate fast-paced with slow-paced, so that people feel all of them more, compared to having a homogeneous mood. So sometimes I'll be going along and think: we've just had three or four chapters in a row where Mycroft, our narrator, is freaking the heck out and overwhelmed and in despair. We need a nice, calm Martin Guildbreaker chapter here, where he's patiently investigating something and explaining his investigation, because that will let us escape the mood — so that when we return to it, the grief being experienced by our narrator is vivid and exciting again, because we had a break. And also so that the complexity of trying to understand what the hell this narrator is actually saying is enjoyable again, in a puzzle-box way. If you do a puzzle box, you want to then coast and not do a puzzle box next — have something as a break, and then do the next puzzle box. I don't want to give you nothing but puzzle-box chapters in a row. I'm also going to give you a nice linear fidget-toy chapter, where you're enjoying manipulating the thing but there's not a puzzle challenge goal. Ben: Noticing the change in mood rather than the mood itself — I see that across many areas of how people notice things. People notice a thing changing more than the absolute level. Ada: You notice color in places where there is very little color. You notice beauty in places where there's very little beauty. Ben: Or changes in prices. People don't go around thinking "ah yes, this is expensive" all the time while the price stays the same. But all of a sudden a price changes and people react. Ada: Exactly. We very much operate logarithmically, and notice the change — the integral rather than the absolute amount, or the absolute speed at which something's moving. Designing the Hives [00:38:20] Ben: Related to worldbuilding — and if you've talked about this somewhere and I missed it, I apologize — how did you come up with the Hives in the first place? They feel so specific. Ada: When I had this idea at Villa I Tatti of "what if you choose your citizenship," I was thinking about it as deriving from transit — transit becoming easy. And then I thought: okay, what kinds of organizations would these be? If transit is suddenly really easy, if you can go anywhere on Earth in two hours, people are not going to want to put up with the frustrating, slow passport system. They're going to want that streamlined. I was thinking about the Global Entry program. This is a thing you sign up for, and it vets you, and it's trusted, and it's a third party but semi-governmental and semi-not, and it facilitates you being able to go much faster through the border. What if one of those became even more so, so that when you're a member you really can skip everything and zip around the Earth really easily? Well, if one of those developed, competitors would develop. What other kinds of focuses might a transit thing have? One of the things people would want to travel for is sports matches — people already do that. So there would be something whose whole shtick is: do you want to go see that game on another continent? We will facilitate that so it's easy. I also thought about CouchSurfing, which — I think people do it less now — but you sign up to say "I've got a couch," and others sign up to say "I'm traveling to a place," and the thing itself facilitates being friendly, and there's trusted-person vetting. And that idea became the Cousins: the idea of having a cousin in that town, who you may never actually have met, but they're not going to be too weird, because they're your cousin. You have this slight bridge of trust. So what if there was a company that stepped in to capitalize on what CouchSurfing is, but make it more formal, and called itself the Cousins network, and its motto was "what if you had a cousin in every town — we will hook that up"? I could see that company having started out more like CouchSurfing, where it's about where you're staying, and then branching into facilitating your ticket. And then Gordian being the one that really was just like Global Entry — a simple profit-seeking company that would do this. And then when the moment of the Great Renunciation comes — this is all background to the book, of course — these suddenly become political associations, when they had just been memberships. The way you might have a membership in Costco. The European Union is already this. But if people have a membership in Costco, often that means they have certain values, as well as desiring to buy cheap bulk things. So you could imagine that if suddenly there were a major global crisis, and Costco said, "Okay, everybody who has a Costco membership — we kind of trust you, and we believe you share our values of paying people a living wage and making sure things flow. Do you want to transition to being a politically active group?" And everybody who has a Costco membership would say, "Well, actually, yeah. In fact, it does make sense at this weird juncture in human history to transition my Costco membership into being part of a political association that's in favor of a living wage and making sure people eat." And you could see Costco transforming itself in a real crisis into a big series of pop-up mutual aid and new community kitchen things. That could totally happen. Ben: They already make a lot of hot dogs. Ada: The infrastructure is there, and the number of people with a connection to this thing is there. So it's the sort of thing that in the moment of the Great Renunciation could do that. And I imagined lots of other Hives being born like that. And then I asked: what new ones would be born, when suddenly this is political? Well, one of them would be the Masons — because there's always this sort of "oh no, I'm not in any of these groups, I feel left out," among the large slice of the population that feels drawn to strength and claims of tradition and claims of strong authority. And here are all of these legends about this being that. So if somebody cunning steps in and mobilizes it, they could make the Masons be born at that moment. And meanwhile, science fiction nerds are really well connected with each other. We all have community groups that organize Worldcon and all of this, and authors who can speak up and say, "Hey, all my fans — this thing, it's time to act." So it was plausible to me that Utopia could form very quickly in that moment of crisis as well. So part of it was: what groups and corporations and things that already exist could do this? And I remember wanting a really corporate one — this is the Mitsubishi in the end. What kinds of things last over time? The obvious choice would have been to be like Google or something. But when you look over time at corporations that really last multiple centuries, they tend to do very plural things. They tend to be consortia of multiple corporations rather than one. And they tend to be defined around a market or a world ethic rather than a product. Look at IBM, which has not become one of the giant Earth-owning corporations, but has sure steadily existed and never had a crisis. A big part of that is that IBM defines itself as: we make products for corporations. Whatever new thing needs to be made for corporations, we will start making that. If people develop a completely unprecedented new technology, that is what we will do, and we will orient it around having an established, clear relationship with corporations. So even if the computer ceased to matter economically tomorrow because it was replaced by the genetically modified super-eggplant, they would transition into corporate-focused genetically modified super-eggplants. And they would make that transition fine, in a way that Apple — which defines itself as an electronics company — would have struggled with at the time. Though Apple now is also a media and entertainment company, which is broader. So the Mitsubishi Group, which is not one corporation but dozens and dozens of corporations that make a wide variety of things and are a consortium with each other, is a corporate structure that's likely to withstand multiple multi-decade, multi-century tech tumults and still be coherent. That's why I picked that. Ben: Were there any Hive ideas that got the chopping block? Any that almost made it in? Ada: None got the complete chopping block, because of course one of the structures of this is that there have been fewer over time and they've merged. So the other ideas are the ones that are mentioned briefly as existing — like OBP, which stands for One Big Party. Ben: Which merged with the Humanists. Ada: They merged with the Humanists. But that was globe-trotting so that you could go to concerts and parties and get-togethers, rather than sports matches. There's enough overlap between those ideas — because you're traveling to enjoy an event — that it makes sense those two could merge, with a focus on both sports and art, concerts and performances: a focus on wanting to go enjoy and behold a human being doing something excellent. So you could see how they'd share a compatible ethic. Similarly Greenpeace, merging later with the Mitsubishi — but not fully yet. Would there be a group that would form centered on environmental custodianship, and wanting to take care not of people but of baby elephants? What would that be like? What countries would it have — not just a bunch of enthusiastic members, as it would anywhere, but massive, systemic, big cultural buy-in as opposed to small cultural buy-in? In the same way that sports fandom is bigger in some countries than others, or science fiction fandom is bigger in some countries than others even though it's present everywhere, personal investment in land and the value of land and land custodianship varies a lot. I was interviewing friends from all over the place, and it sounded, from talking with them, like India was the place where people had a very strong cultural investment in land. One interesting quality of India in the international world is that people in India are much more reluctant to sell land to a foreign owner than in most cultures. There is lots of land in India owned by corporations, but they're Indian corporations much more so. And people are likely to turn down a foreign buyer making an offer on property — whether it's large-scale property or even just a house or a bungalow — because of this sense that India's land should belong to India's people, which is stronger than in many other cultures. And this isn't a "we don't want foreigners dwelling here." We'll happily rent to a foreigner. It's the idea that the land should stay in the hands. I thought that would be an interesting place for Greenpeace's big nest of power to be centered, as it values land and land custodianship. And then I was thinking through: in this global future, who inherits all the national parks? If the nation-states are giving way to successor states, do the national parks dissolve, or does one of these say, "We're going to be the one" — and have what become global parks, and a huge portion of the unpopulated world in their ownership and custodianship? [Sponsor break — Seedhouse. "Buying a house is a big decision. Planting one isn't." Seedhouse grows carbon-negative homes from a single architect-designed seed: choose your floor plan, check your soil, and in twelve weeks you're ready to move in. The house faces the morning sun — and also turns toward the morning sun, which takes some getting used to. Need another bedroom? Order the right clipping, graft it, and wait. Visit seedhouse.com and use code IDEAMACHINES for a free guesthouse acorn. Seedhouse: put down roots. Literally, quite extensive roots.] The fandom, and the people who stop after book one [00:49:24] Ben: Last unspoiled question. How do you feel about the Terra Ignota fandom? Ada: It's great. I've never had anything but the most positive interactions with readers, and I love discussing the big meaty questions. A story that is as big and meaty as this one means really thoughtful, interested, eager people who want to chew on ideas. Ben: It feels like it's really touched something in the zeitgeist that even other good science fiction has not. Ada: I think it holds up an example of a future worth having and worth living in, with lots of exciting things one can push for. And a future of strong and respect-worthy values. One of the things about Terra Ignota is that, with very few exceptions, all the characters are philosophically self-examined and noble and have good ideals — ideals worth fighting for. And even though people come into strong conflict with each other, you respect and love both sides, because these are great people and they're fighting for great things. Ben: It's not a "there's a bad guy," which is so common. Ada: It's a neat vision of the future: what if everybody, even the people we fiercely disagreed with, was awesome, and we were disagreeing about important implementation or values — but underneath that, everybody was great? What if we have this high portrait of what humanity is and could become? Because one metric of progress is how rich we are, and another is how long we live. But what if another metric of progress is how excellent our conflicts are — so that we only have conflicts when it's about some really important, worthwhile cause? We don't have conflicts about grievance, or oil, or profit, or moral panic. We have conflicts about important philosophic principles and fundamentals. Wouldn't that, even though there's still conflict, be a form of progress? Ben: Peace is one form of progress, but moving to "this is a war worth fighting" is another form of progress. That's fascinating. Ada: And "I respect my enemy" is a form of progress. I love when Terra Ignota readers embrace and really want to live by some of these principles. I do sometimes feel like we could organize into a political advocacy group and crowdfund a lobbyist who advanced the values of this. Ben: Let's do it. I think that would be really cool. Ada: I would love to see it happen, because there are very important values in it — including the "what if we love the future and work for the future, but aren't vain about it, and do so with humility?" Now, one thing I sometimes run across— Ben: No, say what you were going to say first. Ada: No, I want to hear yours. I'll say what I was going to say anyway. Ben: Okay. The thing that also almost surprised me is how it really has something for everybody — there's a Hive that everyone feels kinship with. The obvious opposite would be Harry Potter, where of course you want to be in Gryffindor; Gryffindor is awesome, maybe Ravenclaw, but everybody else is kind of meh. When I interact with other people who love Terra Ignota — I'm a Utopian, and at first I assumed everybody else who likes this is going to be a Utopian. But no. I've run into people who identify with every Hive. Ada: And also sometimes people who say they would be a Graylaw, or who say "my religious identity is so core to me, I think I'd live in a reservation." I do run into that as well. And — great, there's space for you in this cool world. The world needs to respect you too, and have room in it for that, and needs that population, and needs to interface with them more as the narrative unfolds. I worked hard for there to be breadth. And I worked hard to think through: if these Hives were the Hives that formed from other Hives merging with each other, if there used to be dozens and now there are seven— Ben: What's the spanning set? Ada: Exactly. And what bigger and bigger ideas came together under umbrellas? Ben: Okay — what was the thing you were going to say? Ada: I sometimes run into people who say, "Oh, I'm a big fan of Too Like the Lightning," and who haven't read further. It's a little perplexing to people who are completionists and read the whole thing, but there's a not insignificant swath of people who read book one and haven't read the rest, who are very excited by the glimpse it shows of this future, but didn't continue on to see the way it then critiques the imperfections in this future — and shows the future recognizing its own problems and critiquing itself and becoming dynamic, and by the end being on the path to incremental improvement. I find it interesting talking with people like that, a lot of whom are Silicon Valley people. When you're an author, one thing that's the case is that you can log into Amazon and it'll show you this little map of America with how many copies of your book have sold in each region. So I know how many copies of Terra Ignota have been bought in New York City versus Arkansas versus elsewhere. For practically all books, the largest sales are New York City — New York City is very big, very populous, and they read a lot of books — and usually Silicon Valley is second. With Terra Ignota it's the other way around. So it is disproportionately popular among a world of people who see their technology transforming our lives and want an apparatus for thinking about what its future will be — one that is not just yet another cautionary tale about how the thing they're making could be used by a dystopia to make the world worse, but also how it could be used by a positive future to make the world better. I love that it's popular there, and I love talking to tech people who are eager to talk to me about it. But every so often I'll get this chilling thing, where one of the things in the world-build that for me is definitely negative and should be raising your alarm bells, they will have seen as positive. Ben: I'm sure you know the meme: "Ah yes, we have built the Torture Nexus from the book, Do Not Build The Torture Nexus." Ada: Yes. With its much-needed sequel, No, I Meant Don't Build the Torture Nexus. I had a conversation not long ago with a person who said they loved how Terra Ignota was basically a world without crime — an interesting thing for them to observe, because of course we know that's not the case— Ben: That's not the case, and that's not the mechanism by which it's not the case. Ada: And this was, in their reading, because of the trackers and universal surveillance: that it was an exploration of how universal surveillance could be great and could cause the end of crime. And I said: well, firstly, there is crime. But secondly, the reason the universal surveillance isn't that bad in Terra Ignota is that the governments are so good — because the buyer's market for citizenship holds governments to great degrees of accountability. If they misused this data, there would be public outcry, and then a mass movement against the government that did it, as citizens switched to other Hives. That accountability means that when the data is misused — as indeed it is, as we see over the course of book two — there is a consequence, speedily, for that misuse. The governments, being accountable, cannot abuse it. And the person just looked really sad. Because clearly, to this person who worked for a surveillance tech company, this was a hope that a surveillance tech future could be good, not bad. They hadn't thought through that it's the political change and the levels of political accountability that make it plausible that in such a future, surveillance tech would not do the harm it can do in a future where governments have a lot of power and not a lot of accountability. So I always find it interesting to see people who see a particular thing they're looking for in a future in Terra Ignota — at least in book one — and then didn't follow that journey forward to be challenged by it. But I love the people who read all of the books and followed me through the journey of: what if we have this future, and it's a great future, but it's not a perfect future, and it recognizes that, and it has to go through growing pains and work to become even better? Because one of the things about a utopia in the classic sense is that it's static. It's achieved this perfect state and it's unchanging. A book that is a true classic utopia basically feels like you have arrived in the city and they say, "Hello, stranger! Would you like to learn about our perfect public transit system? Now would you like to learn about our perfect public education system?" Welcome to Finland — we would like to lecture you on the superiority of all of our social and technological institutions. And you're like: actually, Finland, you're really great at all these things, and I wish we could elect you to rule the world and implement all of these things in most of our countries in many ways. But it feels weird getting these tours of perfect worlds that then aren't also self-examining and dynamic. So Terra Ignota is a hopeful future, but not a utopian future, because it has flaws. I remember when the first book came out, a lot of the initial discourse — the first blog posts of its earliest readers — was arguing about whether it was a utopia or a dystopia, trying to put it in one bucket or the other. "It has to be a utopia, everyone's happy, the lifespans are long." "No, it has censorship and surveillance, it has to be a dystopia." People would talk with each other before thinking through that it's an in-between. It has a lot of things that are better than our present and a few things that are worse than our present, and a lot of great achievements and a lot of stuff that still really needs to change. And a realistic future is one that is still changing. ⚠ The spoiler line [01:00:44] Ben: I'm going to transition us to speak about that realistic future. So — this is the spoiler warning. Anybody listening after this point: we expect you have read all the books. You will learn what happens in them. We will not explain anything. This is the part I'm very excited about. Also, sidebar: the fourth book is actually my favorite one. Ada: It's the best one. I needed all the other stuff before I could do that. Ben: The speech about the Trunk War, and the in-path and the out-path — that got me. Ada: Like the composer of a symphony, I needed to introduce all the leitmotifs and establish everything so that I could then do the final movement, in which everything happens at once. So I do setup, and I do more setup, and I do more setup — and then I have the full resources of those three books' worth of background, so that I can jump in and do things with an enormous complexity and depth that can only work when you have built that far. How the economy works [01:01:51] Ben: Something you don't talk about very much in the books, but that I assume exists in the giant iceberg: how does the economy work? There are little hints — clearly there are still black markets, clearly there's some form of buying and selling — but beyond that it's really not explained. And we get hints that it works a little differently for different Hives. Ada: We also know that the Hives resolve police conflicts with each other: when a member of one Hive has committed a crime against a member of another, the Hive that the person in the wrong came from pays the other Hive, and then punishes their own person by their own techniques. So a Mason receives the punishment a Mason normally gets, which might be much harsher than what the Cousins would normally do — but the Cousins get a certain amount of money that is standardized for the crime. So money is used among the Hives to balance out their frictions. That means Hives are incentivized to discourage crimes by their members against other members, because it costs them a certain amount of money. But they're not super-mega-over-the-top incentivized. They would never spend half their budget on policing, because it's resolved. Within that, the economy works quite differently for different Hives. The Mitsubishi and Humanists are on a very capitalist, more corporate model. The Utopians are space communists. Everything you earn goes to space, and you receive back what you need to live. The constellations process things around, and there is enough for everyone to live in comfort, but you do not have private assets and private income. It's set up the way a monastery runs. If you have a job and are a monk, this is just true: if you're a monk and you also have a professorship, your salary goes to the monastery, and you still receive the same meals and support and housing and stipend that any other monk does. It doesn't matter whether you're in a high-profit or low-profit job — you're doing a worthwhile job, therefore the Hive supports you, or the monastery supports you. So they're fully space communists: everything goes into the Hive and comes back out. The Cousins have much more of a safety-net thing, where everybody has a guaranteed income, but you can also have additional income on top of that. And if you do have earned income, the Cousins take a very large slice of it in taxes, because they pay for so many services which both you and the world benefit from — and you feel good that, in a charitable way, you have funded schools and hospitals all over the world in a massive transformation. So that also appeals to somebody who, if they had supplementary income, would choose to give a lot of it to charity. You're sort of signing up in advance to have your income largely routed to charity, while you keep enough to live on and some more, so there's an incentive to earn more, but not a huge one. The Masons have a complicated thing — this is why it's not in the book. It's calculated: the value of your contribution to the empire. How valuable a subject are you to Caesar? A number is put on that. And if you have a job or occupation that earns less than that, then you receive a stipend from the empire in credit for the services you've done to the empire. And if you're working directly for the empire, as the Guildbreakers do, then you receive a stipend from the emperor. What it means is that a lot of Masons will fluctuate during their lifetime between "100% of my income is coming from a salary" and "now half my income is coming from a salary and half from the fact that I am a Masonic traffic guard, or whatever it is, working for Caesar." So Caesar pays this slice of my income, and my salary for something else pays another slice. And it's a point of pride to have more and more of it be your value from the empire — because then you're serving the empire better and doing more. Though there's also a point of pride in having a hundred percent from salary, so that you're not draining Caesar's purse. Ben: I bet there are the two different groups of people — the one high status and the other high status — and they beef a little bit. One currency, and the currencies underneath it [01:07:06] Ben: All of that implies some kind of single cross-Hive currency. Ada: You'll notice all the prices are in euros throughout the book. Whenever any price is named, it's in euros. And the presumption is that Romanova administers a kind of central bank — and that the Censor's office is key to the administration of that central bank. The Censor's office is fundamentally doing economic analysis as well as social analysis. Ben: Which sort of implies that Hives cannot operate like a lot of modern governments, where they print their own currency. Ada: They can and they can't. You can still do currency exchange with the reservations, which are very intentionally not discussed very much in the first three books, so that we're sort of curious and slightly alarmed. And then they become so vividly present at major key moments in the last book, and you have this sort of backwards — I've been thinking of this as the marginal barbarians. Wait a minute, that's the United Nations. That's me. We are those marginal remnants — that's the evolution of the way we live now. The other thing is that Hives can create internal fiat currencies of different sorts, that are tradable only among them and that only they would really care about. So for example, the Mitsubishi have this: you get one vote for owning different amounts of property. Property and votes move together, and there's a unit which is one vote's worth of property — a significant value of a thing. And the Mitsubishi pay a lot of attention to those circulating. So it's not a small currency, in that you would never buy a sandwich with it. It's a currency in which the smallest unit is $300,000 or $200,000, because it's the value of a condominium, basically. But people pay a lot of attention to it, care about it. They can't just generate more without building architecture — but they can generate more by the act of building architecture or buying property. And if Mitsubishi buys property, that transforms it from a thing that has cash value to a thing that has cash value and a vote's worth. And then it moves around. So it operates in a complex way, like a non-fiat currency — a currency where there is a real thing attached to this unit of currency — but they only change hands for big deals, not small deals. And then people commit their vote to a voting bloc, which supports a higher voting bloc, so you're delegating your voting power rather than exercising it independently. The campus system [01:10:26] Ben: I feel like I could talk about this for a very long time, but I have more spoiler questions. How does the campus system work? Ada: A campus is referred to a number of times but never really explained. It's not quite a university, because it's a cluster in one area of multiple educational options. A campus might have a major research university, and three different colleges with different focuses, and several trade schools. So you might choose to go to that campus to attend a research university. Or you might choose to go to that campus to get a trade school degree as an artisan and be a master glassblower. Or you might choose to go there and say: I like the mood of this campus. This is the Romanova campus, so everybody who goes here really cares about politics — but they want to do different things in politics. Some want to go to journalism school, some want to be lawyers and complete law school, some really want to be politicians, some really want to observe, some might want to be architects but are interested in political thought and how it informs architecture, so there's an architecture school there. And you might be going for different lengths of time, because you might be doing different successive degrees. You might say: I really love political thought, I want to be in the city where it happens, I want to be in the community of other people where all my fellow students are into politics. So even though I want to be a doctor, I'll choose to go to medical school there, and make friends with somebody who's there to do architecture, and another friend who's there to get a polylaw degree and wants to be a polylaw. But we get to mix and mingle and enjoy debating and discussing and observing politics, united by that shared ethic for my bash'. And then I made another place that's like: this is a campus designed for people who really love water sports. We're going to have fifteen different educational options — there will be a medical school, and a law school, and small liberal-arts-focused colleges, and a large research university here also — but all of them are structured around a bay that has really good surfing and where there are lots of boats. So if you're somebody who loves that kind of thing, and you think you probably want to have a bash' with people who share that passion, then you might choose to go to that campus. You choose based on the campus and its mood, not based on which school is best for law. You can choose any campus and get a law degree there. So it's more about expecting that this is a personally formative phase of your life, in which you're going to find your bash' and find your bash'mates. So you go to the campus where you expect shared interest with those bash'mates. And there are a few campuses that are dominantly Masons, where you go — you grew up a Mason, you're expected to be a Mason, you want all of your bash'mates to be Masons, and they do Masonic things, and probably you're going to join a hereditary Masonic bash'. But you still do need to go about finding your bash'. You might therefore choose to go to one that's dominantly Masons. But you could also go to the Romanova campus and be in the college that's a Masonic college at the Romanova campus, where one part of your social world is mostly Masons and another part is very mixed. Ben: Administratively, are they all one organization, or just a bunch of co-located organizations? Ada: Co-located organizations, with a central organization that maintains the campus as a whole. That organization doesn't do the admissions, or decide who's there, or what programs there are. But they collect money from all of the schools that benefit from the presence of this campus, and use that to maintain the grounds and the infrastructure and the safety and the boats. Or, in the case of the Romanova one, to have lecture series where they bring in statesmen to talk to the students. So the central organization organizes the infrastructure and incentives that make the campus desirable, but it doesn't run the individual universities and schools. Those are still independent. When a new campus is formed, it buys up a bunch of land and then either sells or leases that land to individual schools that want to develop there. Most often the format would be a hundred-year lease. And then after a hundred years we'll evaluate whether this school actually still is a major contributor to the thing or not — so that it's not constantly uncertain. There's a symbiosis between the campus umbrella organization and the individual schools, but the individual schools are themselves separately run. Ben: I love that. Ada: There are already parts of the world where there are three or four colleges really near each other — like Cambridge, Massachusetts, where there are people from Harvard and people from MIT mixing with each other, and one of the things the two schools do is benefit from each other. And the more your educatio

The Asian Strategic Map has fallen into the hands of a super villain. Can 4 picked heroes utilizing only their bravery, pluck & martial arts bad-assness save the Pacific Rim from destruction? All hands on deck…it’s Death Code: Ninja!

Welcome to the session zero for our new Daggerheart Actual Play - The MechanolithThe Mechanolith, an ancient dwarven construction, encircles the World Mountain on the lowest layer of existence, the hellscape known as Zadumir. Long ago Nalana, goddess of protection and strength, entrusted the dwarven people with the eternal defence of the World Mountain against the foul forces of the dark god Throx. This mechano-fortress thousands of leagues long has a vast array of defences that turn away the forces of evil, including Realm Defenders, automatons so huge they may battle the greatest of creatures that Throx might throw against it. Since the Age of Formation it has stood protecting all the layers above, but now cracks have begun to emerge. In a Mechanolith campaign, you'll play heroes who are tasked with investigating faltering defences, strained alliances, insidious infiltrators, and potential traitors all with the goal of preserving the Mechanolith. TONE & FEELAdventurous, Dramatic, Epic, Hot, Political, Serious, SweepingTHEMESComplacency vs Incompetence, Ends Justify Means, Greater Good, Holding Back Hell, Personal SacrificeTOUCHSTONESAttack on Titan, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Mortal Engines, Pacific Rim, Minas TirithPlease consider supporting the channel:Drivethrurpg Affiliate link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?affiliate_id=1602765Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/garblaggamesPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/garblaggamesDiscord: https://discord.gg/DPgQjr7FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/GarblagGamesFB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/222308675068378Twitter: https://twitter.com/GarblagGamesPodcast: https://feeds.transistor.fm/garblag-games-rpg-podcastRPG Products: http://bit.ly/Garblag_DriveThruRPGMerch: https://www.redbubble.com/people/garblag

*This a preview of the newest episode of our Patreon show, Film's Cool* We continue our summer of Del Toro with his homage to all things anime, mecha, and kaiju, 2013's Pacific Rim!Fair warning: We talk about MUSE for the first 7 or so minutes. See 'em live if you get the chance!Join our Patreon and get access to our Patreon exclusive show "Films Cool!" for as little as $3 a month!https://www.patreon.com/twodustyboysEmail us at twodustyboys@gmail.comDon't forget to rate, review, and leave a comment for us on the platform of your choice. Thanks! We love you!Content warning: Not Safe for work or children... unless they're coolSupport the show

Today we bring you a prophetic update on unprecedented earthquakes across the Pacific Rim and worldwide, connecting natural disasters with a coming move of God. We are warning against fear-driven speculation about the immediate return of Christ, urging believers to "occupy until He comes," and sharing a vision pointing to a major event around 2034 that will require divine intervention. The episode calls listeners to prepare spiritually, build the kingdom, and expect revival and transformation even amid global shaking.

The San Andreas Fault is under more pressure now than it has been in the last 1,000 years. That's according to new research from seismologists who study earthquakes along the Pacific Rim. With recent earthquakes in Japan, Colombia and Venezuela making headlines, we look at the latest science, how prepared California is for “the Big One” and why we still can't predict earthquakes. Guests: Katherine Sharer, geologist, U.S. Geological Survey Wendy Bohon, seismic hazards and earthquake engineering branch chief, California Geological Survey Brian Strong, chief resilience officer, San Francisco Office of Resilience and Capital Planning Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hard News on Friday with Tara Green and Rama Arjuna and guests Lion's Gate, New Energy, and the Call for Peace on Earth Rainbird, Tara, and Rama open Hard News on Friday with sacred-fire meditation, Mayan-calendar guidance, Lion's Gate energies, donation support, current-event commentary, Kryon and Mother Sekhmet readings, NESARA hopes, planetary transformation, and a closing Era of Peace message about abundance, ascension, and humanity's awakening. Sacred Fire, Galactic Directions, and the Opening Field This episode of Hard News on Friday, broadcast on August 7, 2026, opens with Rainbird setting a meditative and ceremonial tone. The corrected transcript identifies Rainbird as leading the sacred-fire meditation, Mayan-calendar and galactic-direction segment, weekly energy overview, housekeeping, donation instructions, and the passing of the talking stick, while Tara and Rama respond and continue the episode's spiritual and current-events commentary. Rainbird invites listeners to breathe into the heart space, gather with guides, ancestors, spirit teams, and healing teams, and form a virtual circle around a council fire before calling in the seven galactic directions in the Mayan tradition. Mayan Calendar Energies and the 8/8 Lion's Gate Rainbird then moves into the Mayan-calendar reading for the day and week ahead, beginning with 7 Imix, the red resonant dragon and a portal day. The segment emphasizes creation, nurture, birth, trust in the universe, clarity of mind, and releasing any illusion of lack of support. Rainbird then looks ahead to the Lion's Gate portal, describing the next day as an 8/8 energy point connected to co-creation, unity with spirit, truth, dreamtime, abundance, protection, timing, transformation, forgiveness, and healing. The weekly overview also highlights a coming eclipse, new moon energy, and the sense that the week is filled with unusual energetic alignment. Housekeeping, Donations, and Listener-Supported Radio The program includes an extended housekeeping section in which Rainbird explains that Hard News on Friday is listener-supported and gives donation instructions. Rainbird says the program needs weekly support for BBS Radio, as well as help for bills, basics, and cat litter for Tara and Rama. The donation segment includes directions for finding the show on BBSRadio.com, making donations through the show listing, contributing through PayPal, sending checks or money orders, and visiting RainbowRoundtable.net for more information about NESARA and related resources. Rainbird frames these requests with gratitude and invites listeners to give from the heart. Tara and Rama on Lion's Gate, Peace, and Current Events Tara and Rama receive the talking stick and respond to the 8/8 Lion's Gate energy, describing the moment as a tremendous time of transformation, inclusion, and planetary change. Their commentary moves through spiritual themes, current events, earth changes, solar flares, volcanic activity, diversity and inclusion, public figures, peace, and the expectation that NESARA is near. They emphasize that peace must come first and repeatedly encourage listeners to send love, good vibrations, and higher energy into difficult situations rather than feeding vengeance or violence. Kryon Reading: New Energy, Dimensional Shift, and Cellular Communication Rama introduces and reads or channels a Kryon message about cellular communication, consciousness, dimensionality, and the “new energy.” The reading says humanity has moved through a long shift from an older, lower-consciousness planetary cycle toward a new dimensional field. It frames enhanced intuition, synchronicity, and the ability to “read the field” as signs of higher consciousness becoming more accessible. The Kryon message also teaches that the human body and DNA have multidimensional aspects, and that people may now be able to communicate with their cellular structure more clearly as the planet moves into this new energetic landscape. Mother Sekhmet Message: Ascension, Fire, and Planetary Peace The episode then shifts into a Mother Sekhmet channeled message centered on Lion's Gate, the new moon, ascension, peace, and planetary energies. The message says vengeance is not the answer and urges humanity to sit down and talk about peace. It connects NESARA with divine governance and a system intended to benefit all living beings, including animals, plants, minerals, and humanity. The message also speaks of violet fire, emerald green ray, sapphire blue ray, platinum ray, volcanic activity, Kilauea, the Pacific Rim of Fire, Mother Gaia's ascension, cellular transfiguration, bliss, love, and the idea that people are not going crazy but being resurrected into higher energy. Era of Peace Reading and the Fifth-Dimensional Lion's Gate Later, Rama reads an Era of Peace-style message about the fifth-dimensional Lion's Gate and the intensified energies of August 8. The reading says humanity, the elemental kingdom, and Mother Earth are being prepared at atomic and subatomic levels to receive higher frequencies of light, including what it calls God's infinite abundance. It describes the Lion's Gate as guarded by two lions representing yesterday and tomorrow, and says passing through the portal is a movement beyond control from the past or future into the eternal now. The message presents 2026 as a year of major shifts, with more people able to rise above outer chaos and hear intuitive guidance from the I AM presence. Abundance, Awakening, and Closing Gratitude The final reading focuses on divine abundance, financial freedom, and a free Era of Peace e-book titled It Is Time for You to Be Financially Free. The message frames poverty, lack, and limitation as fear-based miscreations rather than God's will, and encourages listeners to reclaim abundance by changing behavior patterns and opening to divine flow. The show closes with gratitude, references to Lion's Gate, a brief attempt to play or share additional material, and closing phrases of peace, blessing, and farewell. Throughout the episode, the hosts blend spiritual ceremony, metaphysical readings, current-event commentary, donation support, and a recurring call for peace.

Hop into the Way Back Machine as this week on GENZ/X™, JM & Braxton take us to 2013 for the cinema classic Pacific Rim, directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Idris Elba and Charlie Hunnam. Then, we travel back to 1989 for the pop-culture giant Road House, starring Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliott, and Kelly […] The post 018 GENZ/X | Don’t Get Cocky, Be Nice appeared first on The LEFT Show.

What does it take to spend more than two decades creating creatures, monsters, and makeup effects for Hollywood before finally stepping behind the camera to direct your own feature film?In this episode, legendary special effects artist Hiroshi Katagiri shares his remarkable journey from moving to Los Angeles as a teenager from Japan to working on films like Pacific Rim, Cabin in the Woods, Green Lantern, The Time Machine, and countless other productions. Along the way, Hiroshi reveals how practical effects shaped his understanding of storytelling, why independent filmmakers should focus on what they can control, and how years of experience creating creatures prepared him for directing his first feature-length horror film.The conversation dives deep into low-budget filmmaking, visual storytelling, practical effects, storyboarding, horror filmmaking, crowdfunding, and the realities of building a career in Hollywood. Hiroshi explains why aspiring filmmakers should stop waiting for permission and start creating immediately, how he produced award-winning short films with almost no budget, and why his passion project Gehenna became an eight-year journey of writing, planning, and persistence. For filmmakers, horror fans, and creative entrepreneurs, this episode is a masterclass in turning expertise into opportunity and passion into action.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

What does it take to spend more than two decades creating creatures, monsters, and makeup effects for Hollywood before finally stepping behind the camera to direct your own feature film?In this episode, legendary special effects artist Hiroshi Katagiri shares his remarkable journey from moving to Los Angeles as a teenager from Japan to working on films like Pacific Rim, Cabin in the Woods, Green Lantern, The Time Machine, and countless other productions. Along the way, Hiroshi reveals how practical effects shaped his understanding of storytelling, why independent filmmakers should focus on what they can control, and how years of experience creating creatures prepared him for directing his first feature-length horror film.The conversation dives deep into low-budget filmmaking, visual storytelling, practical effects, storyboarding, horror filmmaking, crowdfunding, and the realities of building a career in Hollywood. Hiroshi explains why aspiring filmmakers should stop waiting for permission and start creating immediately, how he produced award-winning short films with almost no budget, and why his passion project Gehenna became an eight-year journey of writing, planning, and persistence. For filmmakers, horror fans, and creative entrepreneurs, this episode is a masterclass in turning expertise into opportunity and passion into action.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

The Chino and Homeboy Podcast returns for another chaotic Sacrilegious Sunday, opening with “Tism the Season” energy before immediately spiraling into soaking, ghost nuts, Mormon loopholes, Kegels, and fake bedroom science. The crew turns every bit into a full debate, jumping from penis union contracts to mouth logic, modern dating, TikTok “looksmaxxing,” and why charm still beats looks.From there, the episode moves into shower hygiene, hot water pressure, face towels, and the possibility that white people showers might secretly be human power washers. The crew then reacts to a clip about body count, relationship standards, and whether someone should seriously date a person who “smashed the homies,” eventually coining “trick-or-treating” as a new term.The second half shifts into earthquake season, with Venezuela, Japan, Cuba, California, the Pacific Rim, the San Andreas Fault, undersea volcanoes, liquefaction, and possible kaiju all getting folded into the madness. After that, the show gets more serious with veterans benefits, VA disability cuts, tinnitus, sleep apnea, military housing allowance scams, and diversity in the military.The episode closes with more disaster updates, LaVar Ball jokes, disability and relationship talk, the “Deadpool” segment covering recent deaths and near-deaths, horror movie talk, national treasure shoutouts, Elon Musk losing trillionaire status, soccer, Messi vs Ronaldo, World Cup talk, and the usual chaotic sign-off.18+ comedy podcast. Viewer discretion advised.CHAPTERS00:00 Intro / Sacrilegious Sunday / “Tism the Season”00:02 Soaking, ghost nuts, Mormon loopholes, and Kegels00:10 Fake science, mouth logic, and penis union contracts00:20 Dating, looksmaxxing, TikTok failures, and having game00:23 White people showers, hot water, pressure, soap, and exfoliation00:31 Body count clip, “smashed the homies,” and relationship standards00:36 Double standards, kids, marriages, money, crime, and attraction limits00:48 Earthquake season begins: Venezuela, Japan, Cuba, California, and the Pacific00:55 Kaiju prophecy, San Andreas Fault, undersea volcanoes, liquefaction, and AI-looking footage01:21 Veterans benefits, VA disability, tinnitus, sleep apnea, and mental health care01:25 Military housing allowance scams and Uncle Sam's money01:30 Diversity, unity, and military leadership01:37 LaVar Ball, divorce, amputation, disability, diabetes, and loyalty jokes01:50 Deadpool segment: recent deaths, near-deaths, crashes, and public figures02:10 Horror movie talk, national treasures, Elon Musk, soccer, Messi, Ronaldo, and sign-off#ChinoAndHomeboy #ComedyPodcast #LatinoPodcast #FilipinoPodcast #Looksmaxing #OnlyFans #PodcastClips #DarkComedy #InternetCulture #18PlusComedy #Drake #BadBunny #TaylorSwift #FilipinoCulture #SpiderFighting

Our series following the films directed by Stuart Gordon continues with ROBOT JOX (1990)! After three horror films in a row this is certainly a left turn for the man best known at the time for inventive, darkly humorous gore. The intended audience for this one is very different as the film aims for a broader appeal without quite so much blood and dismemberment. Instead, we get giant robots fighting for territory in a post-apocalyptic world. You know – family friendly! Other than the drinking and brief nudity. And we should issue a spoiler alert as we talk about nearly everything up to the end credits. John Hudson and I gather around his dinner table with Troy Guinn joining us in a brand-new way. Next time we may have to use a Quija board! We discuss the production of the film and the hardships encountered in crafting the special effects. The cast and their backgrounds are part of the conversation with Gordon regulars getting shout outs for their welcomed return. We talk a little about screenwriter Joe Haldeman and recommend a few of his excellent science fiction novels. The obvious similarities to PACIFIC RIM (2013) are discussed along with another key comparison to director Guillermo Del Toro's career. So join us for dubious Russian accents, stop-motion animation and men beating each other to death for the joy of the soon to be squished crowd. Oh – and a very suggestive chainsaw! Whew.   If you have any comments about the films of Stuart Gordon or anything else we've covered on the show thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send them. Thank you for listening and we'll be back soon!

Folks, we did it! We finally got back returning Champion/guest Hobert Thompson to discuss a monster movie we've been putting off which could only be described as a dudes rock classic of Kaiju films: Pacific Rim. Some fun talking points include It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cameos, how this is essentially a Micahel Bay film and a surprising turn during the reviews.

Tonight on a very special edition of the Carolina Weather Group, we are pull off a broadcasting first and tracking breaking news from every corner of the globe!

This week we're talking about Incog XL, IG-88, Q The Winged Serpent, and Pacific Rim. Show music by HeartBeatHero and OGRE. Support the show! Get up to 2 months free podcasting service with our Libsyn code OZONE

Ask Us A Question!For decades, Guido Rahr has traveled some of the wildest and most remote corners of the planet in pursuit of one mission: protecting the last great salmon and steelhead rivers on Earth. As President and CEO of the Wild Salmon Center, Guido has helped safeguard more than 35 million acres of critical habitat across the Pacific Rim — from Alaska and British Columbia to Kamchatka, Japan, and beyond. Along the way, he has witnessed both the astonishing resilience of wild salmon and the sobering reality that many historic runs have disappeared within a single human lifetime.  In this episode of Waypoints, host Jim Klug sits down with Guido for a wide-ranging conversation that spans conservation, travel, adventure, and the future of wild fish. They discuss the concept of salmon strongholds, the ongoing battle to protect places like Bristol Bay, the challenges facing rivers in Russia and the Pacific Northwest, and what anglers can do to make a meaningful difference. From helicopter flights into remote wilderness rivers to lessons learned across decades of conservation work, Guido shares stories, insights, and reasons for optimism that every angler should hear. This is a fascinating conversation about wild places, global exploration, and one of the most important conservation stories of our time.  Waypoints is brought to you by PatagoniaTo bring their gear to life, Patagonia is motivated by relentless curiosity and a passion for the wild. They evaluate hundreds of materials, build dozens of prototypes and spend seasons punishing them in the world's most extreme conditions. The work is the guide, and Patagonia never tires of exploring, learning and improving. For the past two years, the Yellow Dog Flyfishing travel team has worked closely with Patagonia to test and refine the all-new Patagonia River Salt Wading Boots II in destinations ranging from New Zealand to the Seychelles. Featured throughout the Yellow Dog Field Reports series, these boots have become the go to choice for our team thanks to their Vibram® Megagrip soles, durable quick drying construction, speed to get on and off, and support built for both freshwater and saltwater environments.- Follow us on Instagram- Follow us on Facebook- Check out our YouTube Page- View the official Yellow Dog w...

GIMME THAT STARFOX MOVIE! - Super Mario Galaxy Full Movie Watch Along:   / thereelrejects   The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Animated Movie Reaction & Breakdown with Greg Alba, Andrew Gordon, Jon Maturan, and John Humphrey! With the absolute massive box office success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie setting up a fast-paced multiverse, Nintendo, Universal Pictures, and Illumination Studios Paris have returned to the cosmos for the biggest event of the Super Mario Bros. 40th Anniversary celebration: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ In this full Super Mario Galaxy movie reaction, the Reel Rejects crew dives deep into the incredible, fast-paced world building and jaw-dropping computer graphics of Illumination's latest video game adaptation masterpiece. We break down the massive ensemble cast, including Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lego Movie) returning as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen's Gambit, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) as Princess Peach, and Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Pacific Rim) reprising his role as Luigi. We also check out the massive new cast additions, including Brie Larson (Captain Marvel, Room) as outer-space princess Rosalina, Donald Glover (Atlanta, Solo: A Star Wars Story) bringing the iconic Yoshi to life, and Benny Safdie (Oppenheimer, Uncut Gems) as the unhinged, approval-seeking Bowser Jr. Our hosts break down all the chaotic, sensory-overload action sequences, the mind-blowing transitions from 2D tribute animation back into full 3D models, and the amazing orchestral score by composer Brian Tyler. From the introduction of the Boomsday weapon and Bowser Jr.'s paintbrush mechanics to the unforgettable Star Fox crossover sequence featuring Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You) as Fox McCloud flying the Arwing, this movie gave our hosts plenty to unpack. We also discuss the unexpected father-son dynamics between Jack Black's (School of Rock, Kung Fu Panda) King Bowser and Bowser Jr., the pixel pinñata party, the Honeyhive Galaxy run featuring Issa Rae (Barbie) as the Honey Queen, Luis Guzmán (Wednesday) as Wart at the GameCube roulette casino table, and that incredible Terminator 2 homage ending with Lava Bowser becoming the Skull King. As we dissect the mixed critic reviews versus the massive audience score, we're asking: is The Super Mario Galaxy Movie better than the first film? Does the bare minimum of storytelling work when a movie completely understands its experiential assignment? And are we officially getting a full-blown Super Smash Bros. cinematic universe? Let's talk in the comments! Follow Andrew Gordon on Socials:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MovieSource Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/agor711/?hl=en Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Agor711 Follow Greg Alba:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ Twitter:  https://x.com/thegregalba Follow Jon Maturan: https://www.instagram.com/jonmaturan/?hl=en Intense Suspense by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/reelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Music Used In Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For six years, Sophos fought a secret cyber war against a state-backed hacking group targeting its firewalls. This forced Sophos to drastically change tactics to properly secure their firewalls.Was it ethical? Was it effective? They disrupted nine zero-day attacks, exposed who was hacking them, and forced the hackers to change tactics. But at what cost?You have to listen to one of the most audacious corporate cyber defenses ever conducted.SponsorsSupport for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.This show is sponsored by Meter, the company building networks from the ground up. Meter delivers a complete networking stack - wired, wireless, and cellular - in one solution that's built for performance and scale. Alongside their partners, Meter designs the hardware, writes the firmware, builds the software, manages deployments, and runs support. Learn more at meter.com.Support for this show comes from Drata. Drata is the trust management platform that uses AI-driven automation to modernize governance, risk, and compliance, helping thousands of businesses stay audit-ready and scale securely. Learn more at drata.com/darknetdiaries.Sources https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2024/10/31/pacific-rim-timeline/ https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/seven-hackers-associated-chinese-government-charged-computer-intrusions-targeting-perceived https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/guan-tianfeng

This week Gary and Iain review and discuss, Pacific Rim (2013) by Director, Guillermo del Toro. Starring, Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi. For more Off The Shelf Reviews: Merch: https://off-the-shelf-reviews.creator-spring.com https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWxkAz-n2-5Nae-IDpxBZQ/join Podcasts: https://offtheshelfreviews.podbean.com/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/@OTSReviews Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OffTheShelfReviews Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OffTheShelfReviews Support us: http://www.patreon.com/offtheshelfreviews Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/offtheshelfreviews Discord: https://discord.gg/Dyw8ctf

In this episode, we dive deep into the icy, post-apocalyptic world of Impact Winter, Audible's hit audio drama created by writer and world‑builder Travis Beacham. You may know Travis from his story treatment that became Pacific Rim and his work as writer and co‑creator of Carnival Row. Now he's turned his imagination toward a world plunged into darkness after a catastrophic impact event—one where vampires rise and humanity fights to survive. We explore how Impact Winter blends horror, survival, and character‑driven storytelling, and how the audio format lets Travis build tension and atmosphere in ways screen media can't. About Impact Winter Set seven years after a meteor strike blots out the sun, Earth has become a frozen wasteland where vampires thrive in the endless dark. At the center of the story is Darcy, a fierce and determined vampire hunter navigating this new world of shadows. As she protects her small band of survivors, Darcy must confront not only the monsters outside but the shifting loyalties and secrets within her own group. Support My Walk To Fight Pancreatic Cancer  

"Our newly formed Joy Luck Trio  brings together pipa, erhu, and piano in a one‑of‑a‑kind ensemble, performing music written especially for us. As three Chinese musicians, we delve into beloved Chinese folk songs and folktales alongside Western classics, infusing each piece with our own distinctive voice. Our sound is lyrical, colorful, and deeply personal, bridging cultures while telling stories that feel both timeless and new."Gao Hong is an internationally acclaimed pipa virtuoso, composer, improviser, and educator, recognized as a 2025 Hall of Fame Artist by the Transglobal World Music Hall of Fame for her profound artistry and global impact. April 3, 2022 was proclaimed “Gao Hong Day” in St. Paul, Minnesota by the city's mayor, honoring her milestone concert celebrating 50 years of music-making.https://chinesepipa.com/Karen Han-Ottosson is an internationally renowned erhu virtuoso, composer and vocalist.  Her major solo recording accomplishments include the Oscar-winning films The Last Emperor, The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Detroit, The Passion of Christ, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Pursuit of Happyness, Mulan, Mulan 2, The Joy Luck Club, Anna and the King, Pirates of Caribbean: At World's End, Kung Fu Panda (1, 2 & 3), Star Trek, Men in Black 3, 2012, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, Monkey King, Transformers 4, Penguins of Madagascar, and the video games Minecraft, Riot, Call of Duty, and Disney MGM's short film Mickey & Mouse and the recent Disney films Turning Red and Babylon, the latter of which will be released in December 2022. https://karenhan.com/Donna Weng Friedman is an award-winning pianist, producer, filmmaker and creative visionary. Her distinguished career spans dynamic performances, innovative projects, groundbreaking collaborations, and a steadfast dedication to advancing the arts through innovation, education and mentorship.Donna was selected as one of Musical America's Top 30 Professionals of 2024 for her outstanding contribution to the performing arts. https://www.donnawengfriedman.com/Make sure you SUBSCRIBE to Crushing Classical, and maybe even leave a nice review! Thanks for joining me on Crushing Classical! Theme music by DreamVance.I help people to lean into their creative careers and start or grow their income streams. You can read more or hop onto a discovery call from my website.  https://jennetingle.com/work-with-meI'm your host, Jennet Ingle. I love you all. Stay safe out there! Join me for a free workshop on April 20, 2026 - What's in Your Portfolio (career)? We'll look at your portfolio of activities and see what you could improve, optimize, or STOP doing. Where is the low-hanging fruit in your career?You deserve to THRIVE and your artistry MATTERS.Sign up for free at https://jennetingle.kit.com/portfolio 

Anna Danylchuk has been creating a war diary since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. Anna Danylchuk aims to tell the truth about Ukraine and Russia's war and cut through the noise and propaganda. Anna is passionate about the beauty and independence of her country, and communicates this powerfully in her videos, in a clear and honest way.----------LINKS:https://www.youtube.com/@UCiVefOT4TGW3pOqW6AxmlBQ ----------ACTIVE CAMPAIGN:We are raising funds for 5 of 15 Vampire DronesSilicon Curtain for Kupiansk Vampires. Dzyga's Paw, together with Jonathan Fink, is joining forces to raise $40,000 to provide the Khartiia Brigade with Vampire Drones.https://dzygaspaw.com/silicon-curtain-for-kupiansk-vampiresThese heavy bombers are designed to destroy manpower and equipment, as well as for remote mining. The Vampire UAV, manufactured by Skyfall, has proven itself to be one of the most effective weapons in the Kupiansk direction. Skyfall is one of Ukraine's largest defense tech companies, producing Vampire bomber drones, various modifications of Shrike FPV drones, P1-SUN, Shahed drone interceptors, communication systems, and components.----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/scaling-up-campaign-to-fight-authoritarian-disinformation----------Steven Moore is a political strategist, who spent seven years as a chief of staff and senior leadership aide in the United States Congress, developing relationships with senior policymakers across the United States and around the world. He worked on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives mostly as chief of staff for former Rep. Pete Roskam (R-Ill.), the former chief deputy GOP whip. In that role, Moore was one of the most influential staff members on the Republican side of the aisle. ----------FAITH UNDER SIEGE FILM: WEBSITE: https://www.faithundersiege.com/TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftGtdC-aO3kFILM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E4gJWdsyAACHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@UCx-2kTPvk4Z505gS2ZEch-A REVIEW: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35428172/----------THE TEAMColby Barrett, JD, PE - PRODUCER, EXEC. PRODUCERColby Barrett is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, and former U.S. Marine Corps Captain who led infantry and scout/sniper platoons in the Pacific Rim and Middle East. Steven E. Moore - EXECUTIVE PRODUCERFormer chief of staff in the U.S. House of Representatives who has spent most of his time in Ukraine since day five of the war. He leads the Ukraine Freedom Project (UFP), which has delivered 250 tons of food, medical supplies, body armor, and other critical aid to the front.Anna Shvetsova - EXECUTIVE PRODUCERAnna Shvetsova is the COO of the Ukraine Freedom Project. Raised near the Russian border, she frequently visits the front lines and has engaged with over 100 Congressional offices as an expert on U.S. policy in Ukraine.----------LINKS:https://x.com/MooreUSAhttps://x.com/UKRAINEFREEDOM7https://www.ukrainer.net/ukraine-through-the-eyes-of-steven-moore/https://stevenmoore.substack.com/https://substack.com/@steveninkyiv----------PLATFORMS:Substack: https://substack.com/@siliconcurtainTwitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSiliconLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm----------

Ben Hodges is a retired United States Army officer, who became commander of United States Army Europe in November 2014, and held that position for three years until retiring from the United States Army in January 2018. Until recently he was the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies, at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, specialising in NATO, Transatlantic relationship and international security. ----------ACTIVE CAMPAIGN:We are raising funds for 5 of 15 Vampire DronesSilicon Curtain for Kupiansk Vampires. Dzyga's Paw, together with Jonathan Fink, is joining forces to raise $40,000 to provide the Khartiia Brigade with Vampire Drones.https://dzygaspaw.com/silicon-curtain-for-kupiansk-vampiresThese heavy bombers are designed to destroy manpower and equipment, as well as for remote mining. The Vampire UAV, manufactured by Skyfall, has proven itself to be one of the most effective weapons in the Kupiansk direction. Skyfall is one of Ukraine's largest defense tech companies, producing Vampire bomber drones, various modifications of Shrike FPV drones, P1-SUN, Shahed drone interceptors, communication systems, and components.----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/scaling-up-campaign-to-fight-authoritarian-disinformation----------Steven Moore is a political strategist, who spent seven years as a chief of staff and senior leadership aide in the United States Congress, developing relationships with senior policymakers across the United States and around the world. He worked on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives mostly as chief of staff for former Rep. Pete Roskam (R-Ill.), the former chief deputy GOP whip. In that role, Moore was one of the most influential staff members on the Republican side of the aisle. ----------FAITH UNDER SIEGE FILM: WEBSITE: https://www.faithundersiege.com/TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftGtdC-aO3kFILM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E4gJWdsyAACHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@UCx-2kTPvk4Z505gS2ZEch-A REVIEW: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35428172/----------THE TEAMColby Barrett, JD, PE - PRODUCER, EXEC. PRODUCERColby Barrett is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, and former U.S. Marine Corps Captain who led infantry and scout/sniper platoons in the Pacific Rim and Middle East. Steven E. Moore - EXECUTIVE PRODUCERFormer chief of staff in the U.S. House of Representatives who has spent most of his time in Ukraine since day five of the war. He leads the Ukraine Freedom Project (UFP), which has delivered 250 tons of food, medical supplies, body armor, and other critical aid to the front.Anna Shvetsova - EXECUTIVE PRODUCERAnna Shvetsova is the COO of the Ukraine Freedom Project. Raised near the Russian border, she frequently visits the front lines and has engaged with over 100 Congressional offices as an expert on U.S. policy in Ukraine.----------LINKS:https://x.com/MooreUSAhttps://x.com/UKRAINEFREEDOM7https://www.ukrainer.net/ukraine-through-the-eyes-of-steven-moore/https://stevenmoore.substack.com/https://substack.com/@steveninkyiv----------PLATFORMS:Substack: https://substack.com/@siliconcurtainTwitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSiliconLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm----------

Show DescriptionJoe Levy is the CEO of Sophos and a 30-year cybersecurity veteran who has held technical and executive roles across some of the industry's most recognizable brands. In this episode, we dig into a stat that should reframe how the entire industry thinks about its mission: out of roughly 359 million businesses worldwide, fewer than 32,000 have a CISO. That's less than one in 10,000 organizations with a security strategy leader — and it's a number Joe worked with Cybersecurity Ventures to quantify for the first time.We explore what that structural gap means for how vendors build products, why the cybersecurity market is a 40-year-old market failure where spending goes up every year but outcomes don't improve, and how Sophos is betting that agentic AI can deliver CISO-level intuition to the hundreds of millions of organizations that could never conceive of hiring one. Joe breaks down where AI is genuinely delivering in security operations — and where the industry is overselling — drawing from Sophos's experience running the world's largest MDR service with 36,000 customers.We also get into Sophos's Pacific Rim disclosure, a five-year engagement with a Chinese nation-state actor targeting their firewalls that Joe calls the highest form of threat intelligence sharing. He walks through the calculus of going public with that story, including the kernel-level monitoring they deployed on a handful of devices to stay one step ahead of the attacker. Plus, we discuss the SecureWorks acquisition, the CTO-to-CEO transition, competing with hyperscalers like Microsoft, and what the next chapter looks like for a billion-dollar PE-backed security company approaching maturity with Thoma Bravo.Show NotesThe cybersecurity poverty line quantified: out of 359 million businesses worldwide, fewer than 32,000 have a CISO — less than one in 10,000 — and this leadership gap compounds with the skills shortage and what Joe calls an "AI-enhanced market for lemons" where information asymmetry between buyers and vendors is getting worseThe real problem isn't missing technology — most organizations already have endpoints and firewalls — it's misconfigurations, ignored alerts, undeployed agents, and no SOC to respond, which is why secure-by-default design and hybrid product-service models like MDR create more predictable outcomes than tools aloneAI in the SOC is overhyped but not hype: Sophos runs 36,000 MDR customers and says the vast majority of Tier 1 (triage, false positive management) and Tier 2 (investigation, response) can now be performed by agents — but the industry lacks standard vocabulary for metrics like MTTR, letting vendors be "intentionally opaque" about what "response" actually meansJoe introduces the concept of "humans as the accountability API" in an agentic world — AI can approximate analyst intuition, but someone still needs to be held accountable for remediation decisions, and a fully autonomous SOC may just be "a protection product with a very long data pipeline"The Pacific Rim story: Sophos spent five years engaged with a Chinese nation-state actor targeting their firewalls, deployed a kernel implant on fewer than a handful of attacker-controlled devices to observe exploit development in real time, and concealed targeted fixes among 150 other patches to avoid tipping off the adversarySophos's CISO Advantage program aims to deliver the intuitions of a skilled security leader to the hundreds of millions of organizations that could never hire one — Joe calls it fixing a 40-year-old market failure and says they're shipping it this year

On this episode, Jared goes over his 7 most recent watched movies including: Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim Uprising, Gladiator, Buried, Requiem for a Dream, Pitch Perfect, and Dead Man Walking.

In this special bonus episode of Deep Left Field, we take an in-depth look at the Blue Jays first real foray into the Pacific Rim, the signing of six-time NPB all-star Kazuma Okamoto to a four-year, $60 million (US) contract. Who is Okamoto and what does he bring? How does his signing affect the Jays' roster - who goes where? And, of course, what about Bo Bichette? The answers to all these questions, plus a dip into the mailbag at deepleftfield@thestar.ca, are all here for you on our first special bonus episode of 2026!

Get in the Jaeger, it's time to kick some kaiju butt! We're cancelin' the apocalypse with Guillermo del Toro's love letter to the mecha and kaiju genre. But is the film entirely drift compatible? Or are we easily impressed by practical effects, intricate cinematography, and big space swords? Joining this monster mash is Sean Childers (Big Mecha But Not Huge; Toku For Two), ready to swing an oil tanker at any kaiju that crosses his path.And thank YOU all for being a part of the team! Follow on patreon.com/campkaiju, leave a rating and review, follow on Instagram, send an email at campkaiju@gmail.com, or leave a voicemail at ⁠⁠⁠(612) 470-2612⁠⁠⁠.We'll see you next time for our SPECIAL SEASON 6 ANNOUNCEMENT!TRAILERS Pacific Rim (2013; Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie (1995); Robot Jox (1989); Toonami G-Gundam TV Spot; The Raven (1963)SHOUT OUTS & SPONSORSSubstack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Film Criticism by Matthew Cole Levine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Plays by Vincent S. Hannam⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Zack Linder & the Zack Pack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Big Mecha But Not Huge podcast with Sean ChildersCamp Kaiju: Monster Movie Podcast. Pacific Rim (2013) Movie Review. Hosted by Vincent Hannam, Matthew Cole Levine, Sean Childers © 2025 Vincent S. Hannam, All Rights Reserved.

We throw around words like visionary but Guillermo del Toro is a real one. He joins Josh to talk about his ultimate passion project, FRANKENSTEIN, and everything from his lost JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK film, to the time Tom Cruise almost starred in PACIFIC RIM. UPCOMING EVENTS Walker Scobell 12/19 in NYC -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tickets here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when a genre you would normally dismiss gives you a personal all-time favorite movie? Join Jeff, Dave, Steve, and John as they kick off a series of shows talking about movies that are "guilty pleasures" with Guillermo del Toro's freaking awesome Pacific Rim!

If any of the following makes you uncomfortable, be warned: blood, sex, Christopher Walken, philosophy, and more. But actually, this vampire film is rather serious and may challenge your sensibilities. We welcome Frank Olson back to help us take a bite out of it. Now grab your garlic and dust off your Nietzsche - we're going back to school. Vampire school. Thanks for listening, friends! Follow on patreon.com/campkaiju, leave a rating and review, follow on Instagram, send an email at campkaiju@gmail.com, or leave a voicemail at ⁠⁠⁠(612) 470-2612⁠⁠⁠.We'll see you next time for Pacific Rim, with returning guest Sean Childers!TRAILERS The Addiction (1995); Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992); Interview with the Vampire (1994); Blade (1998); Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)SHOUT OUTS & SPONSORSSubstack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Film Criticism by Matthew Cole Levine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Plays by Vincent S. Hannam⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Zack Linder & the Zack Pack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Camp Kaiju: Monster Movie Podcast. The Addiction (1995) Movie Review. Hosted by Vincent Hannam, Matthew Cole Levine © 2025 Vincent S. Hannam, All Rights Reserved.

Happy belated Thanksgiving! We're back! Today we're very excited to talk about Guillermo Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN! Guillermo is a filmmaker we've admired for a long time, from Blade II to Pan's Labyrinth, from Pacific Rim to The Shape Of Water, his films are something truly special and have his unique signature all over them. Most of his films deal with monsters and their beauty within, and the hidden monster within power, so in many ways all of his films have led to the ultimate monster-movie: Frankenstein. It's an apotheosis of sorts, which further explores themes he has touched upon in other films, but... is it redundant? How does this film stack up to other Frankenstein adaptations? Always a great time to discuss this amazing artist's work! ...If only he had directed The Hobbit...• • •TRIAD Of The FORCE is a STAR WARS+ podcast hosted by Gus, Nani, & Chase—Puerto Rican and queer creators sharing deep dives, and heartfelt conversations from a galaxy far, far away. Featured on the STAR WARS CELEBRATION Podcast Stage (2022 & 2023), we explore STAR WARS, fantasy, comic books, and other POP-culture media honestly. We engage in inclusive commentary across film, TV, books, comics, and beyond with humor, critical analysis, and cultural perspective (without the toxicity).Follow TRIAD Of The FORCE at:BlueSky: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bsky.app/profile/triadoftheforce.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/triadoftheforce/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TriadoftheForce/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠If you like us, get some merch and help the channel:TeePublic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/user/triad-of-the-force⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• • •Acknowledgement: The Intro and Outro music is the Triad of the Force Theme, composed and performed by Grushkov with full permission for use by Grushkov (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/Grushkov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).• • •This channel is not affiliated in any way with Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC, The Walt Disney Company, or any of their affiliates or subsidiaries.

In this episode, Pake and Daphne are joined by special guest 2022 Olympic Gold Medalist Vincent Zhou to discuss Pacific Rim, directed by Guillermo del Toro and released on July 12, 2013.You can follow Vincent on Instagram @govincentzhou.Send us your thoughts via text message.Website: http://www.runforyourlivespodcast.comEmail: runforyourlivespodcast@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/runforyourlivespodcastTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/rfylpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/runforyourlivespodcastYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/@runforyourlivespodcastRFYL Spotify Music Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/71Bsx083ldVuGwSgJKKEwr?si=0yB3Zq4iTeaMU_cBk6yAlw

In this episode, we welcome Dennis Berardi. Dennis is a top VFX Supervisor who has worked on films including Frankenstein, The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, Ad Astra, Hellboy, Crimson Peak, Pacific Rim, Tron: Legacy, Resident Evil: Retribution, Dawn of the Dead, The Cell, and Fight Club. In our chat, he shares about his career path, longtime collaboration with Guillermo del Toro, and about the making of Frankenstein. Dennis also offers recommendations for up-and-coming visual effects artists and creatives.“The Making Of” is presented by AJA:ICYMI: AJA's biggest product releases in 2025From multi-channel HD and 4K/UltraHD IP video solutions, to Mini-Converters for bridging between resolutions, connectivity types, protocols, and codecs, a Mini-Converter frame, and a high-capacity 12G-SDI router, AJA announced several new products in 2025 that address emerging workflow needs across broadcast, production, post, and proAV. Get the full rundown hereVimeo Austin Event: Dec. 9th | AFS CinemaA night of inspiring Vimeo Staff Picks + live filmmaker commentary!6:30pm Doors7:30-9pm Films + commentary 9-11pm Reception (complimentary drinks + bites)Free RSVP here.Seats are first come, first served.Shoot. Store. Secure. Smile.The OWC Guardian is a bus‑powered, portable NVMe SSD featuring 256‑bit AES OPAL hardware encryption and a color touch‑screen for intuitive, secure access. With up to 1,000 MB/s real‑world transfer speeds, platform‑agnostic operation (Mac, PC, iPad Pro), and a rugged anodized aluminum enclosure, it's built to protect audit‑sensitive media and projects anytime, anywhere. Learn more hereMeet Stream Deck Studio:Meet Stream Deck Studio, the ultimate control surface designed for professional broadcast and live production environments. Built on the iconic Elgato hardware and powered by Bitfocus software, it offers a hyper-customizable experience that simplifies even the most complex workflows. With compatibility across hundreds of devices from the industry's top vendors, Stream Deck Studio gives you complete command over your production setup, making it easier than ever to create seamless, high-quality broadcasts. Call Videoguys at 800-323-2325 to learn more and take your production control to the next level today! Learn more hereAdvertise in “The Making Of” newsletter and reach 250K film, TV and video professionals each week. For more information, please email mvalinsky@me.comPodcast Rewind:Nov. 2025 - Ep. 105… Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe

Clifton Collins Jr. is an American film and television actor. He is a Primetime Emmy Award, Independent Spirit Award, Satellite Award, and four-time ALMA Award nominee, and a Screen Actors Guild Award winner.After various small parts, he gained attention for his performance as a gangster in the crime drama One Eight Seven (1997). He then played featured parts in the major productions Traffic (2000) and The Last Castle (2001), and gained further recognition for his co-starring role as Perry Edward Smith in the biographical film Capote (2005) of which he shares personal stories in this interview. His subsequent films include Babel (2006), Star Trek, Crank: High Voltage (both 2009), Pacific Rim (2013), Knight of Cups (2015), The Mule (2018), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and Nightmare Alley (2021). He won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for his performance in the independent film Jockey (2021).You can see him in recent projects such as Ari Aster's Eddington (2025) and Clint Bentley's Train Dreams (2025) which have garnered high praise from many audiences and critics around the world.Follow Clifton Collins Jr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrwupass/?hl=enSubscribe for more acting content!: https://www.youtube.com/@anytownactorslab8898Anytown Actors LAB Services: https://www.anytownactorslab.com/Master the Art of Acting: https://stan.store/anytownactorslab/p/acting-mastery-programFollow Anytown Actors LAB on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@anytownactorslabFollow Anytown Actors LAB on Instagram: instagram.com/anytownactorslab/

Sandy shares writing advice from Guillermo del Toro, a talented director, screenwriter, producer, and artist whose incredible work spans horror, fiction, and fairy tales. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1964, del Toro's passion for film and horror blossomed during his childhood. His unique style beautifully blends genres, often finding grace in the grotesque, and draws inspiration from anime, manga, and Japanese TV. Del Toro has brought to life impressive big-budget movies like Blade II, Hellboy, Pacific Rim, and The Shape of Water, along with Netflix's captivating Frankenstein.  

Od bardzo dawna zabieraliśmy się za temat filmów, których wyniki finansowe dowodzą, że jako ludzkość nie zasługujemy na dobre rzeczy. To dzieła, które w kinach straciły pieniądze, a potem zyskały status kultowych klasyków. Niektóre są prawdziwymi arcydziełami, inne po prostu były na tyle pomysłowe, że żałujemy, że nie wzbudziły większego zainteresowania. Rozmawiamy o tym, do których z nich warto wrócić.Wspominamy o filmach (w tym honorable mentions):- „Dredd” (2012)- „Pacific Rim” (2013)- „Jupiter: Intronizacja” („Jupiter Ascending”, 2015)- „Matrix Zmartwychwstania” („The Matrix Resurrections”, 2021)- „Tylko kochankowie przeżyją” („Only Lovers Left Alive”, 2013)- „Na skraju jutra” („Edge of Tomorrow”, 2014)- „Trzy tysiące lat tęsknoty” („Three Thousand Years of Longing”, 2022)- „Blade Runner 2049” (2017)- „Luca” (2021)- „The Flash” (2023)- „Robin Hood: Początek” („Robin Hood”, 2018)- „Król Artur: Legenda Miecza” („King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”, 2017)

In this episode of Need Some Introduction, host Victor is joined by Darren to dive into a variety of film and TV show discussions. They review the new Predator film, discussing its themes and technical achievements. They also explore Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein adaptation on Netflix, dissecting its artistic elements and impact. Lastly, they delve into the third episode of Welcome to Derry, analyzing its storyline and connections to Stephen King's IT. The episode also includes a brief discussion on other current shows and movies, providing audiences with recommendations and insights. mailto:needssomeintroduction@gmail.com   00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview 00:40 Discussion on 'Welcome to Derry' and Related Shows 01:34 Listener Feedback and 'Pluribus' Coverage 07:01 Recommendation: 'Death by Lightning' on Netflix 16:47 Review of the New 'Predator:Badlands' Film 26:45 Review of the New 'Frankenstein' Adaptation 37:12 Del Toro's Attention to Detail and Design 40:36 Digital vs. Film in Gothic Romance 41:09 Frankenstein's Overpowered Strength 41:30 Set Design Critiques 44:19 Del Toro's Filmography Rankings 47:21 The Devil's Backbone and Blade II 48:10 Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth 50:04 Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak 51:01 The Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley 55:45 Pinocchio and Final Thoughts on Del Toro 59:06 Welcome to Derry: Episode 3 Review 01:08:02 Upcoming Reviews and Final Remarks

BT & Sal discuss the surprising reaction to their interview with actress Sydney Sweeney, noting the massive text frenzy from listeners but also the severe lack of enthusiasm from their wives. Sal's wife gave his exciting news a simple "thumbs-up" tag—a sign of ultimate indifference—while Hoff's wife was disappointed they didn't get more "controversial" and ask about her jeans commercial. Sal defends their decision not to turn the spot into a "perv spot" or get political, arguing they stuck to the movie with the short 11-minute window, though Donnie Baseball remains the most elusive guest. The conversation shifts to a caller's theory about why the Yankees fail to sign top Japanese talent, suggesting they miss a key "Pacific Rim operations" liaison, tying into the Ohtani/Dodgers effect.

The annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, or APEC, starts October 31 in South Korea. Leaders from the twenty-one Pacific Rim economies are expected to attend. In this episode of The Current, two Brookings senior fellows talk about the aims of the summit and what's at stake for the U.S. and other participants. Ryan Hass directs the John L. Thornton China Center and Mireya Solís directs the Center for Asia Policy Studies. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Today, more than half the world's population live in cities – and as our numbers swell, so will our cities, especially those around the Pacific Rim, where it's predicted our largest megacities of 10 million plus will be situated. And herein lies an opportunity: 60% of the buildings needed for 2050 are not yet built.Could we shape our cities into places that are good for the climate and also good for our mental health? Can we design buildings and infrastructure that make green decisions easier and also help us deal with stress or depression?In a programme first broadcast in 2024, Jordan Dunbar hears about examples in the Netherlands and Egypt. Are there win-win options out there that can help the world deal with two of its biggest challenges?Contributors: Houssam Elokda -Urban Planner, with Happy Cities, Vancouver Sally Nabil - BBC Arabic Egypt Correspondent, Cairo Anna Holligan - BBC Correspondent, The Hague, NetherlandsProduction Team: Graihagh Jackson, Octavia Woodward, Brenda Brown Sound Design: Tom Brignell Editor: Simon WattsGot a question? Email us: theclimatequestion@bbc.com

Originally Aired October 20, 2020The Wildlings are south of the wall, the robots are rising up, Seventh Kavalry's on the move, and two percent of the world's population has vanished. Time for another edition of Strong TV Songs!This time around the focus is on HBO, a network that has defined much of the broader TV landscape over the past couple of decades. So let's dig into a bunch of great music from a bunch of good shows, with themes for Dothraki raiders, Alethiometers, robot farmgirls, nuns with guns, monstrous moguls, and lost souls.Special thanks to the key of C minor for making this episode possible.REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:“Woke Up This Morning” by Alabama 3 from Exile on Coldharbour Lane, 1997“Six Feet Under” by Thomas Newman, 2001“Deadwood” by David Schwartz, 2004“Way Down In The Hole” by Tom Waits from Franks Wild Years, 1987. Performed by Waits, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, DoMaJe, and Steve Earle“Game of Thrones” by Ramin Djawadi, 2011"Game of F***in' Thrones" by Anamanaguchi, 2012“Pacific Rim” by Ramin Djawadi feat. Tom Morello from Pacific Rim, 2013“Doom Patrol” by Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner, 2019“His Dark Materials” by Lorne Balfe, 2019“Westworld” and “Sweetwater” by Ramin Djawadi, 2016“Ezio's Family” by Jesper Kyd from Assassin's Creed II, 2009"How The West Was Really Won,” “Nun With a Motherf***ing Gun,” and “Children of Krypton” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, 2019“Succession” by Nicholas Britell, 2018"Kiss from Daddy" by Demi Adejuyigbe, 2019“The Departure” and “Dona Nobis Pacem” by Max Richter from The Leftovers, 2014OUTRO SOLOIST: Luke PriceThis episode's outro soloist is Portland fiddle player Luke Price. When he's not working as a side man in a variety of killer bands, Luke joins his wife Rachael to form the excellent songwriting duo DEAN!. You can follow them on Instagram and listen to some of their stuff on their website, wearedean.com.----LINKS-----

For this week's very special episode on Rational Security's 10th anniversary, Scott sat down with a slew of co-hosts emeritus, each of whom brought their own topic to discuss.Shane Harris flagged the connections between online radicalization and the young men behind many recent public acts of gun violence, including the alleged perpetrator of the Charlie Kirk killing;Benjamin Wittes insisted we are STILL not talking enough about Russian drone incursions and other forms of gray zone warfare in Eastern Europe;Quinta Jurecic brought some statistics about the success (or not) of the Trump administration's federalization of law enforcement in D.C. (and elsewhere) that are worth contemplating; andAlan Rozenshtein asked how it can still be true that no one but him seems to care about the Trump administration blatantly disregarding the TikTok ban.In object lessons, Shane is basking in the glory of HBO's “Somebody Somewhere”—partly because his buddy Jeff Hiller just won an Emmy for his role in it. Ben praises Adam Boehler—and even Donald Trump—for helping secure Elizabeth Tsurkov's release. Alan is definitely not using this opportunity to use Pacific Rim for his object lesson—really—instead recommending fantasy mystery “The Tainted Cup,” by Robert Jackson Bennett. Scott takes us into orbit with Samantha Harvey's “Orbital,” a lyrical meditation on life and reflection in space. And Quinta dives into the future with “Empire of AI,” by Karen Hao, a deeply reported look at OpenAI and its role in shaping the technology's trajectoryLast call to help us celebrate Lawfare's 15th anniversary! Get your tickets now to join us this Friday, 9/19, to hear from some of your favorite Lawfare people past and present, take a look back on the key moments that have shaped our first 15 years, and get a sneak peek into what's coming next.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this week's very special episode on Rational Security's 10th anniversary, Scott sat down with a slew of co-hosts emeritus, each of whom brought their own topic to discuss.Shane Harris flagged the connections between online radicalization and the young men behind many recent public acts of gun violence, including the alleged perpetrator of the Charlie Kirk killing;Benjamin Wittes insisted we are STILL not talking enough about Russian drone incursions and other forms of gray zone warfare in Eastern Europe;Quinta Jurecic brought some statistics about the success (or not) of the Trump administration's federalization of law enforcement in D.C. (and elsewhere) that are worth contemplating; andAlan Rozenshtein asked how it can still be true that no one but him seems to care about the Trump administration blatantly disregarding the TikTok ban.In object lessons, Shane is basking in the glory of HBO's “Somebody Somewhere”—partly because his buddy Jeff Hiller just won an Emmy for his role in it. Ben praises Adam Boehler—and even Donald Trump—for helping secure Elizabeth Tsurkov's release. Alan is definitely not using this opportunity to use Pacific Rim for his object lesson—really—instead recommending fantasy mystery “The Tainted Cup,” by Robert Jackson Bennett. Scott takes us into orbit with Samantha Harvey's “Orbital,” a lyrical meditation on life and reflection in space. And Quinta dives into the future with “Empire of AI,” by Karen Hao, a deeply reported look at OpenAI and its role in shaping the technology's trajectoryLast call to help us celebrate Lawfare's 15th anniversary! Get your tickets now to join us this Friday, 9/19, to hear from some of your favorite Lawfare people past and present, take a look back on the key moments that have shaped our first 15 years, and get a sneak peek into what's coming next.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

- Earthquake and Tsunami Impact (0:00) - Tsunami Warnings and Evacuation Efforts (4:13) - Potential Weapon System and Geopolitical Implications (6:27) - Preparedness and City Living (9:37) - US Military Readiness and Global Conflict (30:24) - European Leaders' Motivations for War (1:02:12) - Breaking News and Final Preparedness Tips (1:21:49) - Inventory Issues and Health Benefits of Cherries (1:22:51) - Introduction to Dennis Kucinich Interview (1:29:20) - Dennis Kucinich on Russia and China (1:31:54) - US Moral High Ground and International Relations (1:35:17) - Impact of US Foreign Policy on Global Relations (1:40:18) - Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza and US Complicity (1:46:18) - Health and Nutrition in the US (2:02:22) - Legal Immunity for Pesticide and Herbicide Manufacturers (2:17:51) - The Role of the Constitution in US Governance (2:28:51) - Conclusion and Call to Action (2:29:18) For more updates, visit: http://www.brighteon.com/channel/hrreport NaturalNews videos would not be possible without you, as always we remain passionately dedicated to our mission of educating people all over the world on the subject of natural healing remedies and personal liberty (food freedom, medical freedom, the freedom of speech, etc.). Together, we're helping create a better world, with more honest food labeling, reduced chemical contamination, the avoidance of toxic heavy metals and vastly increased scientific transparency. ▶️ Every dollar you spend at the Health Ranger Store goes toward helping us achieve important science and content goals for humanity: https://www.healthrangerstore.com/ ▶️ Sign Up For Our Newsletter: https://www.naturalnews.com/Readerregistration.html ▶️ Brighteon: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/hrreport ▶️ Join Our Social Network: https://brighteon.social/@HealthRanger ▶️ Check In Stock Products at: https://PrepWithMike.com

Wednesday on the News Hour, a massive earthquake off Russia's coast triggers tsunami warnings across the Pacific Rim. The economy grows more than expected despite continuing concern over President Trump's trade wars. Plus, a look at pronatalism, the growing movement encouraging families to have more children. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

E.Z., Mark, and Oscar set out on a journey to retrace Ray's footsteps in evangelism, beginning in Tahiti. Though Tahiti is often viewed as an exotic getaway, the guys were reminded that it's a land in spiritual need. On their first day, they encountered a group still out from the night before, and E.Z. boldly shared the gospel. Though one man started the conversation with a flamboyant demeanor, a visible change came over him as he listened. The guys emphasized the biblical principle of giving the law to the proud and grace to the humble. They stressed that salvation belongs to the Lord; their role is to remain faithful. From Tahiti, the journey continued to Fiji. Mark recalled starting to evangelize, only to be told by security guards they couldn't evangelize there. The guys crossed the street and quickly found someone open to the message—Oscar shared the gospel with a man named Peeta who immediately began weeping and asked how to follow Jesus. Oscar encouraged him to start by sharing with his nearby family. Peeta, living near a local chief's home, brought the guys there, leading to a touching moment where the chief's wife teared up hearing the gospel. E.Z. was deeply moved by the humility and openness they encountered. Next, the team traveled to Australia, where they balanced fun—like visiting a zoo—with the challenges of open-air preaching. Mark used a heckler as an illustration, while Oscar encountered initial rejection from two women who eventually agreed to talk when he appealed to their values. By leveraging cultural touchpoints, they found ways to engage in meaningful gospel conversations. In New Zealand, the guys visited where Ray was saved and began evangelizing. For Mark, walking through Ray's past was especially moving. They preached, connected with locals, and visited Ray's childhood home. The trip concluded in Hawaii, where even more opportunities to share the gospel arose.During a final Q&A, the guys addressed topics like how The Way of the Master began, the importance of redeeming downtime, and practical evangelism tips. Ray encouraged solo open-air preaching if done safely, and the team emphasized using time wisely. They affirmed that women can and should share the gospel, citing biblical examples like the woman at the well and Mary Magdalene. For those sharing with atheist family members, they advised appealing to conscience and loving boldly, noting that prayer is vital in evangelism. They concluded by addressing feelings of unworthiness, reminding listeners that grace covers all, and it's not about us—it's about Christ. Send us a textThanks for listening! If you've been helped by this podcast, we'd be grateful if you'd consider subscribing, sharing, and leaving us a comment and 5-star rating! Visit the Living Waters website to learn more and to access helpful resources!You can find helpful counseling resources at biblicalcounseling.com.Check out The Evidence Study Bible and the Basic Training Course.You can connect with us at podcast@livingwaters.com. We're thankful for your input!Learn more about the hosts of this podcast.Ray ComfortEmeal (“E.Z.”) ZwayneMark SpenceOscar Navarro

Join us as Ray Comfort teaches us how to share the Gospel with family members, which can be some of the toughest conversations we will ever have. We will also discuss some of the common objections to Christianity and hear about Ray’s upcoming Pacific Rim trip. Don’t miss a minute of this conversation.Become a Parshall Partner: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/inthemarket/partnersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join us as Ray Comfort teaches us how to share the Gospel with family members, which can be some of the toughest conversations we will ever have. We will also discuss some of the common objections to Christianity and hear about Ray’s upcoming Pacific Rim trip. Don’t miss a minute of this conversation.Become a Parshall Partner: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/inthemarket/partnersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.