text:
Note: this piece was originally intended to be published in early 2013 as a two-part entry at Rhizome magazine online. For reasons that were never communicated to me, only the first part was ever published. Sadly, I've only recently become aware of this, and hopefully publishing the complete version below will compensate for the previous oversight.
The 'Apollo' game center near Abeno Station in Osaka is indistinguishable from dozens of others scattered throughout urban Japan, yet is no less compelling for this fact: as far as total sensory environments go, there are few things like it, and the over-abundance of loudly competing sound sources makes it is easy for one to get 'lost' in here even with an easily understood floor plan. To that end, the game consoles in this establishment are organized by genre in their own compact micro-districts or "functional clusters" of three or four (an organizational strategy that is seemingly carried out on a much grander scale by Japan's urban planners.) Slinking gradually from the main entrance to the rear of the establishment, I first have to navigate past a throng of uniformed high school students watching intently as one of their representatives dances for his life on the one-man stage of a Dance Dance Revolution spinoff. Similar dramatic scenes play out on the nearby musical instrument simulators, with wide-eyed and spiky-maned boys proving themselves to their peers by banging stacatto rhythms on replicas of wa-daiko drums, or shredding away on pushbutton-powered guitars. The crowd noticably thins out as I reach a room separated from all this energy expenditure, where an older and more sedentary gaming constituency - either oblivious or indifferent to the hyperactivity in the adjacent room - sits tranquilly in front of tooth enamel-white game consoles housing mah-jongg simulations, or nostalgic arcade hits from the country's sorely missed "bubble" decade. They languidly go about their business while enjoying canned coffees and Seven Stars cigarettes, huddled in close proximity yet effectively isolated in their private capsules of shuddering screen glow.
However, their disaffected behavior - which, coupled with their standard dress of pressed white shirts and loosened mono-chromatic neckties, makes their leisure time here seem like just an outgrowth of their office workdays - is somewhat misleading: tucked away in their refuge are some of the most nerve-wracking, blood pressure-inflating electronic games yet devised, known in Anglophone fan circles as "manic shooters" but known locally by the more colorful sobriquet danmaku [弾幕、"bullet curtain".] With their provenance in the Tokyo game workshops of ToaPlan and Cave (the latter rising from the ashes of the former almost immediately after its 1994 declaration of bankruptcy), the games' common objective is simplicity itself: players, in a single or double configuration, navigate their personal spaceship icons through virtual battlefields of progressive complexity and difficulty while destroying enemy war machines, collecting both points and weapons upgrades for their efforts, and making sure to dodge the considerable amount of enemy fire.
Despite this apparent banality, a minute's worth of patience will reward the player with an aspect of these games' visuality that is, in fact, highly unique - even if that uniqueness is merely a matter of taking some familiar visual elements to an extreme of saturated perception. Namely, the "enemy fire" in question greets the player as an amorphous mass of flickering color that seems to take on a life independent of its releasing entities: in the danmaku game, orb- or arrow-shaped projectiles form the atomic units of pulsating, multi-hued latticeworks and arabesques. Sometimes these designs will manifest as screen-swallowing circles with equidistant radii or spokes, or will wheel across the entire screen space in the form of undulating tendrils, or on other occasions will rain down like multi-colored confetti streamers. They will coalesce into individual strands of menacing webs, or spin wildly in double helix formations. In worst-case scenarios, such as the final battle of Cave's 2004 hit Mushihime-sama [虫姫さま、"Insect Princess"], an uncountable number of angry magenta orbs settle into an oppressive rolling fog, with seemingly no gaps through which to escape.
A teasing, moderately difficult 'period of emergence' generally lures players into these more challenging moments: they may be required to fight through a couple of preliminary game levels for the dynamic variation in such patterns to become truly impressive, with the more superlative moments of danmaku exhibition being reserved for one-on-one confrontations with hulking end-of-level "boss" characters (e.g. the stage-climaxing super-villains of Cave's 2010 tour de force Akai Katana [赤い刀、"Red Blade"] who summon up and hurl massive gunships that unleash their own hot-pink torrents of fire in turn.)
In keeping with the familiar game taxonomy that sees game genres being named for the action involved in them (e.g. "shoot 'em up"), danmaku games have also been refered to more specifically as danmaku kaishi [弾幕回避, "bullet evasion"] games. Yet whatever relation one has to the 'bullets,' it would not be too much of a reckless leap in reasoning to name the "bullet curtains" themselves as the true iconic "stars" or attractions of these games (in most of these games, only cursory efforts are made to weave a narrative around the pilot characters or their antagonists.) Arcade gamers must learn very quickly, in order to make their sacrifice of 100-200 yen a worthy one, to view these tantalizing clusters of glowing globules or phosphorescent spear tips as the primary focus of their visual attention: no matter how well rendered the digital landscapes are in which the action takes place, or how intricately detailed any of the in-game objects may be, they must be treated as a kind of extraneous visual noise. The most successful danmaku players must hone a kind of visual essentialism that recalls the Optical paintings of Tadasuke "Tadasky" Kuwayama: his characteristic 'concentric circle' works not only presented an illusion of three-dimensionality, but conferred the illusion of being animated or 'breathing' objects as well (we could also refer to 19th-century harmonograph etchings for other designs in which concentric circles appear three-dimensional or spherical.) Showing another kind of kinship with Optical art works, the screen images of flaring bullet curtains can provide the viewer with a 'post-exhibition exhibition' in the form of entoptic phenomena: though appearing in a less unequivocally colorful form, the danmaku formations continue to twist and dance beneath closed eyelids for brief post-play periods.
As with previous generations of shooter game, a variety of powerfully destructive ship upgrades are available to the player, which can allow the contestant to match the projectile torrents of the on-screen enemy and mount vicious pre-emptive strikes or counter-attacks, all the while adding more blaring hues to this strange kaleidoscopic portrait of virtual combat. As hinted at above, the games are staggeringly difficult, yet are 'beatable' in theory (especially now that quasi-legal ports for arcade emulator software like MAME make it unnecessary to feed hard currency into the machines to prolong one's virtual life.)
The games are generally finite in terms of levels or stages, as well. Their playership is therefore not playing in order to gain some ontological understanding from the racking up of successive losses; a concept that Shuen-shing Lee identifies as being the prerogative of "second-level model players" (a "specific kind of player [that] is able to realize the implications of 'to lose' in an intentionally un-winnable form.")[i] If there is a 'masochistic' component to these games, it can be attributed to the voluntary taxing of one's eyeballs as much, if not more, than the voluntary entrance into an arena where ignominious defeat is highly likely.
The novelty of facing off against claustrophobia-inducing swarms comprised of dozens of enemy units - whose individually limited attack and defense options combine in daunting examples of emergent cohesion - was already made famous by Williams Electronics' highly successful run of dystopian blast-'em-ups, beginning with Robotron 2084 [1982] and arguably achieving 'peak controversy' with the blood-drenched shooters Smash TV [1990] and N.A.R.C. [1988]. The implausible, massively exaggerated, and perversely humorous carnage of the latter two earned them the sort of bipartisan condemnation[ii] that would surface again after the games in the Doom series were revealed as a favorite pasttime of the Columbine High School shooters, and still again in recent months (violent video games being a perennially cited cause of American mass slayings.) In marked contrast with Williams' arcade hits brimful of gore, the concern with developing games that require destroying or eliminating opponents - yet do not wholesale adopt the sanguinary images of human warfare - has been a component of the Japanese gaming industry since the advent of Space Invaders [1978] itself.[iii] The Japanese gaming industry's more cautious approach to ultraviolence has not stopped American detractors from critiquing them on other grounds, though (e.g. that the exportation of 'addictive' Japanese video games stemmed from a kind of hegemonic, implicitly 'warlike' aggression towards the impressionable minds of Western youth.)
I would submit, then, that it is neither the exceptional level of 'swarming' and concomitant destruction endemic to danmaku games, nor the difficulty of achieving mastery over them, that make these games qualitatively different from previous variations on the 'shooter' game. Rather, it is something else that has always been inextricable from electronic gameplay: namely, these games' promise of a unique aesthetic that tests the limits of human optics within a simple agonistic framework that may or may not lose its pulling power as players become progressively immersed in the pure experience of flickering color. In the same way that George Slusser once declared cyberpunk fiction to be an "optical prose […] less a world of conflicts than of textures,"[iv] the games thrive more upon the aestheticization of bewilderment than on the commitment to a narrative that unfolds over each successive chapter or game stage. Even the reward mechanisms of certain danmaku titles underscore this emphasis on immersion in shimmering, bewildering beauty over the narrative functions of playing a 'hero' role and besting an enemy: see, for example, the technique in ProGear [Cave, 2001] by which the encroaching bullets of an enemy vehicle will, when destroyed by the player's special attack, transform into a stream of precious gemstones, which are then pulled towards the player's craft by a kind of magnetic force.
Now, for the sake of not downplaying the fact that these are, at best, hybrids of game and aesthetic object (and for the sake of not assuming readers' complete familiarity with the recent history of arcade games) some discussion of the games' strategy and mechanics is necessary here. For those who have spent some time in a video arcade or parked in front of a home gaming console, the mechanics of game play are highly intuitive, using the same control surface of joystick and multiple push buttons that have been used for hundreds of other arcade and home console games. Meanwhile, the top-down and vertically-scrolling view of the onscreen action, largely the preferred 'camera angle' for these games, traces its lineage back to one of the very first computer amusements (1962's Spacewar!), and was later adopted for such gaming industry goldmines as Space Invaders. The latter, of course, stands as one of the highest-grossing coin-operated machines at all time, its runaway popularity allegedly forcing the Japanese mint to ramp up the production of 100-yen coins (the Japanese rail transport system of the time was largely dependent on the use of coin-operated ticket vending machines.)[v]
The flight controlled by players' 8-direction joysticks is modulated by a built-in limitation that disallows the simultaneous deployment of maximum agility and maximum firepower. In a continual test of "fight ot flight" reflexes, players are required to either sacrifice firepower for agility, or vice versa, as the use of more powerful weapons generally causes a reduction in speed of movement. To this end, a popular control feature of danmaku game play is the alternation between an "A" attack and a "B" attack, with the former being initiated by repeatedly tapping a "fire" button and the latter achieved by holding the same button down continuously. The "A" attack will generally be a sort of standard semi-automatic fire while the "B" attack will vary much more from one vehicle to another: this can manifest as thick neon-colored ropes of homing fire, slowly advancing but powerful explosive drones, enveloping shields that destroy enemy ships on contact, and much more besides.
Danmaku titles, despite a high degree of overlap between their easily intuited control schemes, and the challenges implied by their taxonomic classification, do not share a common template for gameplay or for "look and feel." While certain of the formative games in the genre (e.g. Toaplan's Dogyuun [1991]or Cave's Donpatchi [1995]and Dangun Feveron [1998]) are the heirs apparent to the overhead, vertically-scrolling 'camera' view of earlier airborne action titles, others like the more 'bullet curtain'-intensive ProGear use a side-scrolling scheme. Meanwhile, the visual style within these the games has gradually deviated from the familiar metal-encrusted worlds depicted in "classics" like Dogyuun or Batsugun [both from ToaPlan, 1991 and 1993 respectively]: ProGear is notable for its distinctly 'steampunk' style of anachronistic visuals, Dangun Feveron profers a comically incongruous blend of galactic space travel and disco-dancing imagery, and MushiHime Sama [Cave / AMI, 2004] relies on a persistent 'insect world' motif, which conveniently ties in with present-day theorists' relating the biological "swarm" to artificial intelligence (particularly Jussi Parikka's contention that the superorganization of the swarm is "more than the sum of its parts…without an overarching organizational principle guiding the actions of the singularities under one umbrella.")[vi]
So, in danmaku games, we can witness futuristic mechanized conflict as being reduced to pleasurable immersion in sound and light - the latter of which no longer has to be associated with the engines of war emitting it, or indeed burdened with any single message. As Optical artist Getulio Alviani said of his works, light was seen as "a material…never as a metaphor of light,"[vii] and I would argue that danmaku games largely succeed by evoking this same wonderment at the nature and potentiality of light itself. In a way, this merger of explosive violence with an aesthetically satisfying barrage of audio-visual data shares its lineage with another popular feature of public entertainment that appeared well in advance of the electronic age: the ability of fireworks shows to continue drawing crowds in both the video game markets of U.S. and Japan is a clear inspiration upon the visual style of these games. Ultimately, the rapture of fireworks exhbitions come from their euphoria-inducing over-stimulation of the retinae, in spite of their many other intended metaphorical uses: chief among these are their use in royal or imperial coronations, where they are intended to herald the inspiring "brilliance" of the recently crowned (e.g. the 1801 coronation of Czar Nicholas I, or the 1804 coronation of Napoleon.) Their contemporary use in military tributes (the 4th of July holiday) or during the decisive moments of other recreations already laden with 'battle' metaphors (championship football games) cannot be overlooked, either. As to the Japanese market in particular, the transient nature of fireworks (romantically noted by Vannoccio Biringuccioin his 16th-century manual de la pirotechnia [On Pyrotechnics])[viii] is perfectly congruent with a national aesthetic built upon the beauty of transience and the transience of beauty. So the fireworks display throughout history is an interesting point of comparison when considering that, like the psychedelic color eruptions of danmaku games, such displays could either be seen as glamorized simulacra of battle or as the carriers of a more abstract message or subjective interpretation. Yet this quirk of 21st-century gameplay does have the potential to be more than a small-screen virtualization of the fireworks show.
If expecting subjective revelations from an arcade game seems far-flung and whimsical - to say nothing of seeing them as sandboxes for aesthetic re-purposing - it might be interesting to consider some comments offered by artist Carsten Nicolai upon recalling the 1965 Op art exhibit "The Responsive Eye" (at which Tadasuke Kuwayama was appropriately featured.) Nicolai claims that "…92% of American households […] had a television the year the ['Responsive Eye'] exhibition opened. That means that each day, nearly 200 million people were accustomed to seeing or manipulating the lines and grids on test cards in order to calibrate signals for a clear picture, inherently producing moiré effects in the process."[ix] In other words, the potential reconfiguration of one-way transmitters into personal tools for meditation, for apperceptive study, or for the production of aesthetic novelty was - if somewhat limited - never completely off-limits within those communications media most associated with social control and behavioral manipulation. This is to say nothing of a medium that, unlike television, still offers many ports of entry for dissident 'amateurs' and their own re-purposing strategies: this is possible both at the hardware level (e.g. game console hacking) or via the writing and self-releasing of "home-brew" software titles. The latter strategy has already been confirmed by the runaway popularity of the mystical danmaku series "TouHou Project," a fan-initiated endeavor that has spawned over twenty titles since 1996 and expanded into a separate fictional galaxy of novelizations and comic adaptations.
If we keep in mind the 'intense illumination' aspect of popular pyrotechnic entertainments, yet also look to many of the more critical developments of the 20th century avant garde, we can lay the groundwork for a sort of "post-danmaku" form of graphic or video design. Certain pieces of 'structural film,' based upon the potential of stroboscopic light to enhance apperception, still provide a working model for much of what has followed in that deceptively 'minimal' style of art that seeks to be both literally and figuratively illuminating (this list typically includes Peter Kubelka's Arnulf Rainer (1960), Tony Conrad's The Flicker (1965) and Paul Sharits' N:O:T:H:I:N:G (1968), all composed almost entirely of rapidly alternating black or white frames, or color frames in Sharits' case.) This dual form of illumination was itself part of a larger cybernetic shift in the arts that Jack Burnham saw as a transition from an "object-oriented" culture to a "systems-oriented" one: a transition in which "change emanates not from things, but from the way things are done [emphasis in the original]."[x] Sharits' own thoughts on the equivocal nature of his work could also be applied to 'retinal overload' action games, and the unintended uses thereof. To wit: "Flashes of projected light initiate neural transmission as much as they are the analogs of such systems […] the human retina is as much a 'movie screen' as the screen proper."[xi]
Conrad's now infamous experiment in stroboscopy was a similarly multivalent work that, in one reading of it, transferred the role of film-making from the producer to the audience - like Brion Gysin's stroboscopic dreamachine project, viewing of Flicker allowed "…the audience themselves provide [the] basis for imagery or composition,"[xii] as it was widely reported that viewing the film would result in varied hallucinations of secondary imagery (interestingly, afterimages produced from viewing were reported as being seen in color rather than monochrome.)[xiii] On further consideration, though, the film's relation to psychic autonomy was somewhat more complex: as Branden Joseph suggests, the film "would seem to question one's sense of autonomy as much as it confirms it."[xiv] That is to say, it had the apperceptive effect of 'unveiling' how such technologies could manipulate or even standardize their behavior, yet nonetheless induced nervous responses that were involuntary and either pre-conscious or subconscious.
So, is it possible for to danmaku games to - as Sharits suggests above - simultaneously reveal the mechanics of an electronic medium and the physiological mechanics of our own vision? The tools are 'out there' for those who might want to essay a similar type of apperceptive experiment with the luminous little spheresof danmaku as raw materials - or, in the spirit of the structural film history touched upon above, to re-examine the very fundamentals of the gaming experience and to determine how their affective features might apply to other media. For the scripting-savvy, The 'BulletML' markup language[xv] offers a means of generating the dense configurations of danmaku featured in the games without necessitating participation in the contests themselves. The module, which uses Python to parse and execute its scripts, is of course intended as a possible addition to the game developers' toolkits (it has already been used for scaled-down danmaku freeware such as Shiroi Danmaku-kun [白い弾幕くん , "Mr. White Barrage"]), yet it also provides one possible canvas for a gaming-independent form of digital art. From here, it is up to the ingenuity of the programmer / artist to contextualize the results so that, if the artists are so inclined, those results can be more than mere "eye candy" or l'art pour l'art (or, rather, 'artistic' phenomena rather than simply 'aesthetic' ones.) Certainly, this is a criticism that has been voiced of Optical works from their inception to the present, with critics like Bulat Galeyev wondering out loud if "all these experiments with […] moiré [and] kaleidoscopic effects are some sort of technocratized happening or an intellectual circus; the acrobatics of idle minds."[xvi]
Galeyev's concerns are well founded, and he grappled with them not only with theoretical writing but also with his own body of Optical and Kinetic artworks. Maybe there is a more pressing concern to deal with today, though, and that is the situation in which artists' generation of cultural and aesthetic changes take a backseat to meta-technological commentary, or in which cultural and aesthetic changes are seen as not being as important or meaningful as advancements in information dispersal and etherealization. In short, a kind of l'art pour la technologie that itself sees technology as some consciousness acting apart from human agency and seeking to slowly transform us into its appendages or its double. Contrasted with this perceived singular aim, the history of Optical art (if we allow for fireworks shows and the 1960s flicker films to take part in that official history) is largely one of simplicity in design concealing a greater multiplicity of intentions and interpretations; one in which an inventory of physiological and psychological effects - rather than the inventory of tools that such effects can inspire - will remain its true legacy. If some sublime re-appropriation of the danmaku game should eventually be seen as part of it, it should come as no surprise. Jean-Claude Lebensztejn warned, in his assessment of The Flicker, that "to play with the thresholds of perception is to play with fire,"[xvii] yet this is as much an encouragement to artists open to radical ambiguity as it is a warning, and the 'fire curtains' of digital games are no less useful in this threshold-testing process than those raw materials already accepted by the cutting edge of cultural production.
- Thomas Bey William Bailey, January 2013
[i] Shuen-shing Lee, "I Lose, Therefore I Think: A Search for Contemplation amid Wars of Push-Button Glare." Available online at http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/lee/. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
[ii] Though not citing Smash TV or N.A.R.C. specifically, I would point to the sentiments expressed in Simon Gottschalk's protests as exemplary of the leftist critique of these games. See "Video-Games as Postmodern Sites/Sights of Ideological Reproduction" (Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 18, No. 1 [Spring 1995], pp. 1-18.) Protests from the center or right have gained much more traction in mainstream news reportage, and so I hope my readers will forgive me for not revisiting these arguments here.
[iii] However, this is far from an absolute assessment, and even Space Invaders' parent company Taito has portrayed conventional warfare with titles such as the WWII fighter plane simulator Sky Destroyer (1983) and the Uzi-powered 'commando thriller' Operation Wolf (1987).
[iv] George Slusser, "Literary MTV." Mississippi Review, Vol. 16, No. 2/3 (1988), pp. 279-288.
[v] See http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=24643. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
[vi] Jussi Parikka, Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology, p. 47. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis / London, 2010.
[vii] Getulio Alviani quoted in Carsten Nicolai, "The Responsive Eye: Beyond What We Call 'Art.'" Flash Art, March / April 2011, pp. 74-76.
[viii] "Fireworks had no otherpurpose than amusement and endured no longer than the kiss of a loverfor a lady, if as long." Quoted in Suzanne Boorsch, "Fireworks!: Four Centuries of Pyrotechnics in Prints & Drawings." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Summer, 2000), pp. 3-52.
[ix] Nicolai (2011.)
[x] Jack Burnham, "Systems Esthetics." Artforum Vol. & No. 1 (September 1968), pp. 30-35.
[xi] Paul Sharits, "General Statement for 4th International Experimental Film Festival, Knokke-Le Zoute." Film Culture, No. 47 (1969), p. 13.
[xii] Tony Conrad quoted in Branden W. Joseph, Beyond The Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts After Cage, p. 301. Zone Books, New York, 2008.
[xiii] Regina Cornwell, "Structural Film: Ten Years Later." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 23, No. 3, Structuralist Performance Issue (Sep., 1979), pp. 77-92.
[xiv] Ibid. (Branden W. Joseph), p. 299.
[xv] See http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/bulletml/index_e.html. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
[xvi] Bulat M. Galeyev, "Musical-Kinetic Art in the USSR." Leonardo Vol. 24, No. 1 (1991), pp. 41-47.
[xvii] Jean-Claude Lebensztejn quoted in Joseph, p. 298.


text:
Smooth and quick—the bikes pass
your window. On the main route
East to West, they float by quiet,
unheeding your shrill alarms. Hundreds
each afternoon, confident and teasing.
Pacing marathons, whimpering, paws
massaging the glass. Dance interpretations
anxiety and claustrophobia. The long wait:
for food, a leash, a miniature door within
a door? Yawning—she returns tired.
There is no empathy, only urgency
in your trembling whines. She reaches
for the leash, leaving the way open, release
from bondage, the Red Sea parts, you dart
a false charge, a biker swerves into parked car.
Circling you survey: your own brand of justice.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Talk:Anvil/Archive 1
|This is an archive page of Talk:Anvil. Do not edit this page.
New sections can be added at the current talk page.
- 1 Anvil for blacksmith
- 2 Cartoon cliche without source
- 4 Will this be a bug?
- 5 Name
- 6 Foolishness
- 7 improving tools
- 8 How many uses?
- 9 Levels?
- 10 So is this replacing the old repair system?
- 11 Renaming bug???
- 12 Anvil Repairing Bug
- 13 Anvil or ASO?
- 14 Incorrect fall damage
- 15 Can't go over 40 levels, bug?
- 16 How the Anvil repair function works.
- 17 Fall Damage
- 18 Destroying chances
- 19 Renaming an item does what, now, to the repeat-use cost?
- 20 Terrible Bug
- 21 New Anvil Mechanics page.
- 22 Too Costly!
- 23 Grid template?
- 24 Suffocation Damage
- 25 Should we really link to tv tropes?
- 26 Items fail to repair
- 27 Renaming GUI Blocks
- 28 damaged anvil grid images
- 29 Data Value
Anvil for blacksmith[edit]
Anvil is finally here, i think they should put that anvil into the village blacksmith building, so it would make sense.
- Good idea, maybe to replace those 2 stone half slabs already there? As far as i know, those slabs were to represent a workbench like an anvil, wouldn't it make sense? Also please add sections at the bottom of a talk page, not the top, and don't forget to sign your posts! (use ~~~~) #trigger_hurt(Talk)(Contribs)(Ideas Page) 19:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Cartoon cliche without source[edit]
"It has been speculated to be able to fall and cause damage to mobs."
"Dinnerbone said it might be implemented this way." or "Some random guy on the internet thought it would be cool."? --☺ Sven ? ! 17:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
- dinnerbonetweet:255957162763894784 - not by any means confirmation of a falling-anvil trap, but something might come of this. 「ディノ奴千?!」? · ☎ Dinoguy1000 23:18, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
an ANVIL??? wow what else are they going to come up with, Boulders? Trigger hurt 18:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC) I bet the recipe will be something like:
|Input » Output
|Iron Ingot
- Well i was wrong, but i was close :D Trigger hurt 17:22, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
- ..and it's getting closer ;D --mgr 13:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
- Wow how did i not see that? so now it only requires 2 blocks of iron to make? Well i guess that makes them less expensive, i did not realize that the recipe has changed. Oh wait i know how i did not see that: THE SCHOOL BLOCKER, Zscaler. It lets me go to this site, but most every icon and thumbnail is invisible, i found a laggy solution, RNDR. Trigger hurt 13:54, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
- ..and it's getting closer ;D --mgr 13:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
- Wow there are alot of edits going on on this page Trigger hurt 18:55, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Will this be a bug?[edit]
"If it lands on a transparent block (like torches, rails, etc.), it will destroy it instead of dropping itself as an item like sand and gravel do"
Do you guys think it would be a bug and be fixed in the next snapshot? 220.127.116.11 15:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Just find it won't be a bug because the last "it" (not "itself") refers to the transparent block. 18.104.22.168 17:13, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
- You know i think what is a bug is when it lands on a pressure plate, spider, or boat that it drops itself as an item, it should destroy all weak blocks depending on what it hit, say glass. If i could i would test this. Trigger hurt 17:39, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I feel the renaming of Anvil to Anvil Block and the changing of Anvil to a disambiguation page is completely pointless since there are only two things referred to as Anvil. It takes the same amount of clicks to get to the page on the file format, and only increases the amount of clicks needed to get to the page on the block. We don't need the regular name for everything to be disambiguation. Not even Wikipedia does that. TorchicBlaziken 00:12, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
- Could we maybe make this page the "Anvil" page and the other will be "Anvil (file format)"? Seems like the best option without having the clunky word "block" in there... --Keithicus420 02:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, that was a unnecessary change. We don't need a disambiguation page because there are only two articles and a clear primary topic (being the anvil block). Also, if we did need a disambiguation page, the block page would be called "Anvil (block)" not "Anvil Block". -- Hower64 03:30, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
- In general, wiki policy is to name articles the same as the in-game item. I'm in favor of moving this page back to 'Anvil' and restoring the disambiguation link that User:Minecraft5025 removed. "Anvil file format" (no parens) is fine, as it matches the other file format page names. -- Orthotope 03:37, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Can someone edit out all the wannabe funny foolishness in this article? Thanks. --126.96.36.199 07:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
- Done. You can also do this yourself ! --18.104.22.168 07:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Looks stone Not Iron Zigzagar 00:58, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
improving tools[edit]
Can you add a faction of improve or repair by adding an ignot,for example diamond sword plus diamond will create sharpned or less breaking diamond sword, you can add also a forge.
- Of course we can. We just need a game we can code these things in. --☺ Sven ? ! 14:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
How many uses?[edit]
This is a little ambiguous. How many uses does the Anvil block have? I realize it has three states, which would suggest three uses, but it's not very clearly stated. Could someone just clarify on this? 126.96.36.199 15:07, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
What exactly are "levels"? Are they XP levels or something else? It doesn't seem very clear.
--whizzer0 10:27, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
- Since you can't spend height levels experience seems to be the only logical solution. --☺ Sven ? ! 11:14, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
So is this replacing the old repair system?[edit]
I certainly hope not... I'm going to be really annoyed if it costs an average of almost 7 iron ingots (55/12) to simply repair iron pickaxes. BTW, that last "purpose" paragraph is kind of odd: "On its last use, taking the item will cause the GUI to close and anvil to disappear, dropping the item on the ground." So it drops the item instead of letting you take it? --Mental Mouse 14:34, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
- The old repairing still works. The last use means as soon as you click on the output tool the GUI closes, the anvil disappears and the repaired tool drops to the ground. --☺ Sven ? ! 15:00, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Renaming bug???[edit]
I was playing around with the latest snapshot (12w41b) and it seemed like in the multiplayer version (i havent tested in SMP) the anvil couldnt rename items... i think this may have somthing to do with the fact that they tryed to fix the renaming crash when u delete all the characters in the anvil in multiplayer. Could anyone help???
- How should we? Unless one of use knows how to fix this bug and can release a new snapshot we have to wait until Dinnerbone releases a new one with this bugfix which will probably happen next Thursday.--☺ Sven ? ! 21:57, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
- Did you accidentally clear all of the letters from the name? I found out that on my server, when you delete all of the letters in the name, it'll disconnect your client. 184.108.40.206 05:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)::did it crash the game? give you a client error? also you mean SSP, not SMP, SMP is multiplayer. Trigger hurt 02:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Anvil Repairing Bug[edit]
I've discovered that when you drop the anvil in its "Very Damaged" or "Sligtly Damaged" state, It will automatically repair itself to a new anvil. I would think that seperate entityIDs for the 3 different anvils may fix this. 22.214.171.124 05:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Anvil or ASO?[edit]
Does the "anvil" really get damaged with use? If so, it's not an anvil, it's an ASO (Anvil Shaped Object). - Supervo 12:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
- Wayne? Its just an Anvil. It dont have to be like RL fool. --220.127.116.11 12:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Incorrect fall damage[edit]
The damage for falling anvils listed in the article is (d - 2) * 1.5. That was the damage in 12w41a, but 41b changed it. From tests, I'd say it was reduced and linked to velocity now, but I don't have access to the code in order to tell what's really going on. Seiterarch 13:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Can't go over 40 levels, bug?[edit]
I tried to repair a pickaxe with the anvil, which would cost me 38 levels. I then tried to rename it, but it said too expensive, even tough i was in creative mode. Is this intended behavior, or is it a bug? Thorgabel1 09:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
- Intended. See some recent tweets of Dinnerbone. --220.127.116.11 10:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
How the Anvil repair function works.[edit]
I have tested various combinations of enchanted items and this is how I found the logic work.
- "A" is the item in the first slot.
- "B" is the same type of item in the second slot.
- all items are seen to have level 0 enchantment of each type.
If A has the same enchantment as B then the resulting item will have the higher level of the enchantment and will be repaired the same way as normal.
If A has a conflicting enchantment as B then the resulting item will have the enchantment of A and the item will be repaired the same way as normal.
[See Enchantment page for details for conflicts [http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Enchantment#Enchantments}}
If there is an item in the first slot and in the second slot contains the same material used to create the first item, (diamonds for diamond sword, iron for iron pick, ...) the resulting item will be repaired 25% for each unit in the second slot and retain all of it's original enchantments.
So this is how it works in practice:
Example 1:
Slot 1 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, Sharpness I
Slot 2 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, Sharpness III
Result -> diamond sword, 0% damage, Sharpness III
- Since there is no conflicting enchantments the higher one is used in the result.
Example 2:
Slot 1 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, Looting II
Slot 2 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, Sharpness II
Result -> diamond sword, 0% damage, Sharpness II, Looting II
- Since there is no conflicting enchantments the higher one is used in the result.
Example 3:
Slot 1 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, w/ Sharpness II
Slot 2 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, w/ Smite V, Looting I, Fire Aspect I
Result -> diamond sword, 0% damage, w/ Sharpness II, Looting I, Fire Aspect I
- Since there is a conflicting enchantment the first item's enchantment is used in the result.
Example 4:
Slot 1 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, w/ Smite V, Looting I, Fire Aspect I
Slot 2 -> diamond sword, 45% damage, w/ Sharpness II
Result -> diamond sword, 0% damage, w/ Smite V, Looting I, Fire Aspect I
- Since there is a conflicting enchantment the first item's enchantment is used in the result.
Example 5:
Slot 1 -> diamond sword, 50% damage, w/ Sharpness V, Looting III, Fire Aspect II
Slot 2 -> 1 diamond
Result -> diamond sword, 75% damage, w/ Sharpness V, Looting III, Fire Aspect II
(if there there are no suggestions for improvements to this I say we should put this information in the main article)
Buzzaro 00:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
added link for Enchantments that conflict. and fixed error in example
Buzzaro 04:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
- This page discusses the Anvil block. The mechanics of repairing items with an anvil was complicated enough that it was given its own page at Anvil mechanics and this page contains a link to that page. I think your points about conflicting enchantments and enchantment levels are already covered on that page, but feel free to improve them. --Munin295 08:26, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Fall Damage[edit]
The anvil takes fall damage, as me and my friend tested by continually digging down anvils. What I would like to know is if it is affected by the distance it falls. 126.96.36.199 07:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- Already in the article — MiiNiPaaT|C 11:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
- I went through the article repeatedly. I don't think there's a part describing fall damage to the anvil. Damage to the mob/player from a falling anvil is described. Next time, maybe write a few more words pointing the reader to the part in question, if it's "already in the article". 184.108.40.206 03:39, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
Destroying chances[edit]
I don't think it needed in the main article, so I'll move it here: — MiiNiPaaT|C 11:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
|Number of uses
|Chance of destroying anvil
Anvils have an average lifespan of 25 uses.
- The average (mean) and median (50% mark) are so far apart... Sometimes that happens, but are you sure of your math? --Mental Mouse 16:34, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
The probability of the anvil breaking on the Xth use can be modeled with this pmf:
as you can see the mean is 25 and replacing "infinity" with "22" you can find that the median is approximately 22 uses.
Renaming an item does what, now, to the repeat-use cost?[edit]
Renaming an item removes the penalty for repairing the same item multiple times.
This sentence is currently floating in the article without clarification, and it seems a bit fantastical, doesn't it? Could it really be true that renaming any item will cause all subsequent repairs to cost the same number of levels? Or do they mean that it resets the penalty? Or is neither true and they just don't know what they're talking about?
Can anybody clarify?
Vencabot teppoo 19:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
- The usual penalty is 2 levels per prior repair. Renaming changes that to 2 levels fixed. --Mental Mouse 16:31, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Terrible Bug[edit]
In Survival Multiplayer I just tried to repair a half damaged enchanted Diamond Sword (Fire Aspect I and Bane of Arthropods II) with another half damaged unenchanted Diamond Sword. Required Experience was 17, I had that. I picked the new sword up and the Levels were removed. I pulled the sword down to my inventory, but instead, when I left the anvil menu via my Inventory Key (for me that's the tab key), I got the old damaged ones back! And I lost the levels! I googled but found nothing about the existence of such a bug. When I attempted to repair the same two items to a single one again, the Experience was 28! But they were still as broken as before -- Sanity Assassin 16:12, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
- You might try reporting it on Mojira, but it would help if you could figure out how to reproduce it. (Creative mode helps, but you need to pop into survival mode to damage items, and probably to test that "paid without result" thing.) I note that an initial cost of 17 indicates your sacrifice was well below 50% durability, and if your target matched that, you might well get an incomplete repair. Even so, the sacrifice should disappear and the target should be partly (mostly) repaired. --Mental Mouse 16:43, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
- Add-on: After it didn't work I used a Bottle o'Enchanting to level up and try again and my level popped up to 18 after the use of a single bottle. Now I realise that must have been me getting back the levels I "lost" during the crafting! Still the cost for repair was raised to 28 after that. -- Sanity Assassin 20:24, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
- Confirm this bug, reproducing by switch the language to Russian(example) and Anvil do not work anymore in SMP, but switch language to English - it works again. And by the way, level do not lost, if you reconnect level is back, and you may try again use Anvil. See my reproducing this bug. youtu.be/G1E0sIl8X9I --EuPhobos 15:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
- Add-on: After it didn't work I used a Bottle o'Enchanting to level up and try again and my level popped up to 18 after the use of a single bottle. Now I realise that must have been me getting back the levels I "lost" during the crafting! Still the cost for repair was raised to 28 after that. -- Sanity Assassin 20:24, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
New Anvil Mechanics page.[edit]
I've just replaced the Anvil mechanics page with a rewritten one based on the research that Opaquer and I have been doing. It now includes full details on the costs and restrictions of repairing and renaming items. --Mental Mouse 16:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Too Costly![edit]
Something I've noticed greatly on my survival worlds with anvils is that they get too costly. Take this into consideration: It costs 1 Iron ingot to make a shovel, sticks are easy to get. Yet to repair one that is about to break, it costs around 5 Iron ingots. Wait, what? Something about that doesn't seem right. Thinking about the other tools is even weirder. It wanted 3 iron ingots to repair my sword! I could just made a new sword and a shovel with that! Then the XP it costs is huge. If anything, it should decrease the amount of Experience it costs with every use, or at least not such huge increases. First repair of my iron chestplate (2 ingots): 5 XP. Second time: 7 XP Third time (3 ingots): 12 XP. Sixth time: 19 XP. This is just ridiculous. To repair it the sixth time, i had to spend 3 nights fighting off monsters to get that kind of experience. At which point it needed another ingot to repair. #trigger_hurt(I|T|C) Check out my project! 15:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
- Well for starters, you certainly shouldn't be using the anvil on unenchanted iron items. For those, yes, it's much more economical to just repair them in the crafting grid. Similarly, for lightly enchanted iron, it can often be cheaper to sacrifice a plain item than to use ingots. If you intend to repeatedly repair an item, it's a good idea to rename it early (it's not too late for your chestplate), which gets rid of that accumulating penalty. For diamond items, things can be trickier, and unit repair may well be cheaper than a sacrifice. Check out the revamped Anvil mechanics page for full analysis of the anvil costs.
- While you're at it, you might rig a dungeon or two as mini-XP farms -- not half as much hassle as a full mob farm, but at a properly fenced zombie or skeleton spawner, you can use up a stone sword or two and stack up some levels fairly quickly. (For skeletons, the key is fence-gates at head height.) --Mental Mouse 18:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
- First things first, I have an XP and drop grinder, there is a spawner very close to the surface and very close to where i put my home, which is also not far from the spawn point, not to mention a swamp biome is nearby so I had plenty of slimeballs for sticky pistons. I have a nice big farm with almost every bit of produce available: melons, pumpkins, cactus, wheat, carrots, potatoes, and sugar canes. Not to mention I have a sheep with every color of wool in a large pen, and cows, chickens, and pigs in a smaller area in separate pens. It truly is a great place, and to think that I just typed a random seed. I do believe I have found several other spawners, but not within the vicinity. As far as the grinder is concerned, it is not a large scale one, and there are no other spawners nearby to hook it up to, but it does produce a fair amount of XP for it's size, considering it is only 5 blocks wide and you have to punch each zombie 2 times after it drops into the area below. It does however produce a fair amount of XP to use, so I use it frequently. The reason I don't live by it is because the zombies are carried downwards and will infinitely spawn, and too many will start to lag. #trigger_hurt(I|T|C) Check out my project! 18:45, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
- Ok, you've got an actual spawner farm. Me, I just fence them off (according to type) and whale on the critters from behind the fence. I built a big mob farm back in 1.2/1.3 (2 spawning floors, each with 4 8×8 pads), and it was a PITA. Happily, levels and enchantments both got cheaper, so I haven't bothered to rebuild it in my new world. (Also, that sucker was looming over the horizon at amazing distances.) Anyway, anvils can be pricey, but once you understand how they work, it'll make more sense. --Mental Mouse 19:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
- Think about it this way: When you trade with a villager, the more you do so, they will lower costs and raise outputs for other trades. With anvils, it's just the opposite. Now as unrelated as the two may be, they both take at least one input and transform it into another. If I could extract my diamonds from an ender chest (I left a few in a mine quite a distance from home so I could empty my inventory and suicide to get home). What they should add is separate types of ender chests separated by the type of material they are made out of; say there could be wooden ender chests, obsidian ender chests, stone ender chests, cobblestone ender chests, end stone ender chests, iron ender chests, gold ender chests, diamond ender chests, and emeralds ender chests. #trigger_hurt(I|T|C) Check out my project! 19:57, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
- This is drifting from "anvils", but: Trading is very different -- though in fact, I haven't done so well trading with villagers. But there's a common factor to trading, anvil costs, and ender chests -- which is balance. Survival mode is very flexible, but it includes a lot of constraints and tradeoffs, so you can't just "do anything" Trading is not well balanced, but just by being so random, it manages not to trash availability limits altogether. Anvils let you get more out of enchanted weapons, but doesn't remove the basic limit that you can't keep all your equipment mega-enchanted all the time. Ender chests give you a limited number of game-wide storage slots. That's how a well-balanced game works. That said, variant ender chests are an interesting idea... you might want to toss that out in the Suggestions threads on the forums. I'd suggest disallowing any material less valuable than brick (no wood, stone, etc), and the types might have different capacities or behavioral differences. --Mental Mouse 21:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
- I see your point about the ender chests: Say all possible materials would be: Brick, Obsidian, Moss Stone, End Stone, and possibly an admin-only Bedrock one? That would probably be more of a joke. Using brick would make the chest less powerful, but say it could be stacked to 80. one made from Moss Stone would have an extra row of space, but could only be stacked to 48. One made from End Stone would have 2 extra rows, but tools can not be stored inside. Bedrock ender chests store the size of a regular double chest, and will over one minecraft week will add +1 of every item in there (except tools). But that would be unrealistic. In all seriousness it's a decent idea. But to the anvil thing, I see what you mean about the balance, but I still don't want to spend half an hour in my XP grinder to get enough to repair my chestplate. #trigger_hurt(I|T|C) Check out my project! 18:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
- This is drifting from "anvils", but: Trading is very different -- though in fact, I haven't done so well trading with villagers. But there's a common factor to trading, anvil costs, and ender chests -- which is balance. Survival mode is very flexible, but it includes a lot of constraints and tradeoffs, so you can't just "do anything" Trading is not well balanced, but just by being so random, it manages not to trash availability limits altogether. Anvils let you get more out of enchanted weapons, but doesn't remove the basic limit that you can't keep all your equipment mega-enchanted all the time. Ender chests give you a limited number of game-wide storage slots. That's how a well-balanced game works. That said, variant ender chests are an interesting idea... you might want to toss that out in the Suggestions threads on the forums. I'd suggest disallowing any material less valuable than brick (no wood, stone, etc), and the types might have different capacities or behavioral differences. --Mental Mouse 21:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Grid template?[edit]
Should there be a Grid template for anvils? I mean, almost everything else with a GUI has a template for showing recipes. #trigger_hurt(I|T|C) Check out my project! 19:31, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
- I was thinking the same thing and suggested it over in Talk:Enchanted Book, since it could be useful on that page. However, on the other hand it has a lot of variability that would probably appear per instance (e.g. that single page would end up having all different weapons/tools/armors combined with a single enchantment book), making me think that simply using images would be sufficient, if they could reflect the hover text of all involved items. --Kahless61 19:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
- Nonetheless, what makes using images is the fact that they do not link to the individual items, unlike the grids. Plus, like on the regular recipes, you can use semicolons to make the image links rotate. #trigger_hurt(I|T|C) Check out my project! 19:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
- Disagree Crafting tables, Furnaces, and Brewing Stands have listable recipes, based on limited options for ingredients. Anvils don't -- anything with durability can be repaired, and any item in the game can be renamed. The anvil is less like a crafting table than like an enchanting table, which does not have a grid, for the same reason. Also, an endlessly changing list of weapons, armor, and tools, would not be a useful part of the page. --Mental Mouse 12:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
- Nonetheless, what makes using images is the fact that they do not link to the individual items, unlike the grids. Plus, like on the regular recipes, you can use semicolons to make the image links rotate. #trigger_hurt(I|T|C) Check out my project! 19:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Suffocation Damage[edit]
So... I noticed mobs don't take suffocation damage when sitting on the same block as an anvil. (Unlike sand or other such things.) Should this be mentioned on the page...? Or....? 22.214.171.124 21:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
- Anvils are transparent blocks, and transparent blocks never cause suffocation damage. --☆ Sven ? ! 17:27, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Should we really link to tv tropes?[edit]
The trivia section has a link to tv tropes and it does not feel right. Mine turtle 02:58, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
- I'd say it's not a problem -- we can afford to have one or two links to there, when it makes sense.
- First and foremost, the link is part of a sentence specifically citing a trope as such, and going to a page explaining said trope. There's not too many cases here where explaining a trope is actually relevant, but this is one.
- Yes, TV Tropes is a famous Black Hole of the Internet, but hey, I got sucked into Minecraft when someone linked me to this Wiki, and I got wikitranced!
- Also, Minecraft has a splash referencing TV Tropes, (and they've got a decent page on Minecraft).
--Mental Mouse 14:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but tv tropes is not as family friendly as minecraft wiki. Mine turtle 19:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
- They've apparently gotten a lot better, mostly due to being strongarmed by Google, and they're not so adult-oriented that I'd advise barring any link to them. (PS: I fixed your spelling because it was making me itch.) --Mental Mouse 22:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Items fail to repair[edit]
There's a bug in SMP where if you repair an item, the repaired item shortly (after about two seconds) reverts back to its unrepaired state and materials but your Experience is still used up. Has anyone else noticed? 220.127.116.11 03:20, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
- The exp goesn't get used up, actually. When you next update it, like killing a mob or breeding or gaining exp in any way, the old levels will be back + the new exp. 184.108.40.206 15:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Renaming GUI Blocks[edit]
Looking through the page, the bit about renamed chests and such is shown in the history, but it is not shown in the renaming section. I feel it should be shown within the renaming section, seeing as it is a feature within the game. I just wanted to confirm that this tidbit of info would be relevant enough to add to the section before I make an edit. --188.8.131.52 20:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- It's worth a brief mention there. --Mental Mouse 22:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
damaged anvil grid images[edit]
Do we have grid images for slightly and very damaged anvils? —Fenhl 10:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
Data Value[edit]
There are actually 12 data values for the anvil, ranging 0-11. This is because the anvil can be oriented four ways. Damage values 0-3: Undamaged Anvil Damage values 4-7: Damaged Anvil Damage values 8-11: Very Damaged Anvil
I don't know how to edit that part of the wiki, but if someone who does know how can do so, that would be more correct. Verify yourself with /setblock <x> <y> <z> minecraft:anvil [Data Value (0-11)]


text:
In his Chess Note 6170 of June 13, 2009, at www.chesshistory.com, Edward Winter, the preeminent chess historian, cites the following quote from R.J. Buckley's chess column in the Birmingham Weekly Mercury of August 25, 1906, p. 3. It presumably was triggered by blindfold champion Harry Pillsbury's death two months earlier.
What has the sensational exhibition to do with beautiful chess? Why this craving for the red fire, the jugglery, the purposeless mental acrobatism that was fatal to Pillsbury? The desire for such exhibitions denotes a low level of intelligence.
Why should civilized chess amateurs exhibit the tastes of the bricklayer's hodman or the British farm labourer?
Let the blindfold business die with poor Pillsbury. If another great chess master should arise in America, let him not be 'butchered to make a gobe-mouche holiday'.
(Comment by E. Hearst: As our book substantiates in several places, playing large simultaneous blindfold chess exhibitions almost surely had little or nothing to do with Pillsbury's death at the age of 33. Reliable reports indicate that the major cause of his death was from the effects of syphilis, a disease he contracted while a participant in the St. Petersburg tournament of 1895-96.)


text:
A free meal is always nice, but if the invitation to dinner is from someone like Rachel Greenlief, I wonder if she is a good cook or not. My dad used to say to never trust a skinny cook, and Rachel is a gorgeous woman. She is so thin that I wonder if she eats anything at all? But she tells me she is a good cook, so I think I will take my chances on the one dinner and test out my dad's theory. Let's all hope he is wrong in this case.
The last time I dated a girl who bragged about her cooking, she told me that she grew up in the South and that she learned how to cook Southern Style. I had visions of crispy fried chicken, barbecue ribs, creamy macaroni and cheese, and coconut frosted layer cakes or pecan pie. I had visions of all the good things that Paula Deen cooks on her cable TV show. Maybe a little of the Neely's – Memphis couple who have their own show on the Food Network cable TV show.
Well, she kept inviting me to dinner because she said that getting a babysitter was hard for her, and she promised the baby would be in bed before dinner so it would be just the two of us. I have to admit that I thought it a little strange for a baby to be in bed for the night at only 6:00 pm, but I took her word on it. Having a baby around wasn't that big of an issue to me, unless it meant dealing with an angry and jealous baby daddy, but I decided to take my chances.
I showed up at six, sharp, and was greeted by her holding a crying baby who refused to go to sleep or play quietly the entire time I was there. Dinner was not until 7:30 because of the distraction of the crying baby plus she had to work that day. No good traditional southern food, either. We dined on Hamburger helper, canned peas and refrigerator biscuits. Now, I can cook all of that myself and it didn't taste bad. But that is what I call great Southern cooking and I could not wait to make my escape after politely eating her dinner and getting home by eight thirty.
Let's hope this dinner invitation is NOTHING like that other experience. And I will let you know if skinny cooks can be trusted.


text:
The Single Life
Forever the Side Chick: The One That Was Engaged
As pathetic as it sounds, I was just a toy. His entertainment. His fun. Some excitement for whenever he was bored. And I loved him for a loooooong time.
Our "relationship" didn't start out as a relationship at all; it was all about the physical (at least for him). I was Steven's stress relief from work…and from his fiancée. You read that right. Trust me, I am not proud of being a side chick. Yet there I was readily available for a quickie or anything else Steven wanted. You can burn that Scarlett "H" on my chest now.
MORE: Forever the Side Chick: The One with the Baby Momma:
As pathetic as it sounds, I was just a toy. His entertainment. His fun. Some excitement for whenever he was bored. And I loved him for a long time.
When we met I was coming out of the other side of yet another failed relationship. So Steven and I started slow; you know, flirting here and there, texts, and casual conversation. I could always talk to him in that cliched way of being able to talk to someone who understands you like no one else does. That was what Steven was to me; he filled my void the way no other man could. He was also wise, non judgmental and supportive. But, as smart and fine as Steven is, he is equally manipulative. He knew that he had me. Emotionally and mentally, I was weaker than him. So you can imagine what happened next right? Cue Mad Cobra and sing with me, "Flex-a time to have sex-a."
Having sex with Stephen was the worst thing I could have done. I just fell more and more in love with him. He started to become that man, the man of my dreams. With every secret rendezvous I fell deeper and deeper.
When he noticed I was acting more like a girl in love and less like the side piece he called on his lunch hour, he was quick to get me back on track.
He insisted we kept our relationship a complete secret and I agreed as neither one of us wanted our affair to end – albeit for different reasons. We had our lovers' quarrels and wouldn't speak at times but we would always come back to each other.
It wasn't until a year later that I realized Steven was more invested in us than he led on. Steven could have cut me off (he had options) but there was something that kept him coming back. The second I started acting a fool (and there were times where I acted like a complete fool over this man), he could have bounced. Instead, with his charisma and his sly way of talking me off the ledge, I'd be right back with him.
I think Steven liked the control. He enjoyed knowing he had me wrapped around his finger in more ways than one. Steven was also possessive and loved knowing I was his and his alone. Yes, this was very one-sided, but I fell for it anyway. Even when I tried moving on and dating someone new, Steven would reel me back in. He'd constantly point out what was wrong with any and all potential suitors when I'd bring them up.
"He's not your type."
"You'll grow bored with him."
"I think you can do better."
PLUS: How to Date Like a Goddess
The list went on and on. And I listened. Though Steven was in a very committed relationship with his fiancée, I stopped dating other men and focused just on him.
After two years of being with Steven (but not being with him) our relationship started to shift. Because I grew tired of being just a side chick.
The truth is Steven was never going to be with me. He was never leaving his fiancée. And all I had at the end of it all were two years of nasty, built up karma.
I wanted more for myself. I wanted someone who I didn't have to sneak around with. I wanted to be someone's other half and equal. And you're never an equal when you are a side chick.
I now realize I had locked myself up in a romantic prison. Steven was my jail and I willingly sacrificed two years of my life, my body, my spirit and, most importantly, my heart for a man who would never be mine. Yet, I don't regret being a side chick to a man with a fiancée. I walked away from this experience learning the most valuable lesson of all – self-love. My teacher just so happened to be an almost married man.


text:
Recipe – Italian Chicken/Raviolini Salad
For vinaigrette:
1/4 cup red-wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
For salad:
2 cups coarsely shredded cooked chicken (1/2 lb; from a rotisserie chicken)
1 cup bocconcini (small fresh mozzarella balls; 6 oz)
2 hearts of romaine (3/4 lb total), torn into bite-size pieces
1 (8-oz) jar roasted red peppers, rinsed, drained, and cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch-wide strips
1 cup assorted marinated brine-cured olives (5 oz)
2 cups cooked Homestead raviolini (chilled)
Make vinaigrette:
Whisk together all vinaigrette ingredients except oil in a small bowl until combined. Add oil in a slow stream, whisking until emulsified.
Toss chicken,Homestead raviolini and bocconcini together with 1/4 cup vinaigrette in a bowl and let stand 10 minutes to allow flavors to develop.
Make salad:
Toss together romaine, red peppers, olives, chicken, raviolini and bocconcini mixture, croutons, and remaining vinaigrette in a large bowl until combined.


text:
Some mistakes I understand. Others, I do not. This is one that falls into the latter category.
I was unaware that my grandmother's sister, Ruth Habben attended Western Illinois State Normal School (today Western Illinois University) in the mid-1930s. I know she did not graduate and I'm assuming the financial necessities of the Great Depression were to blame.
She appears in the 1934 yearbook, the Sequel--apparently the only year she attended. Her name is in the index at the back of the yearbook. For reasons that elude me, Ancestry.com indexed her first name as "Nebo."
Yes, Nebo.
I'm not certain how this error came to be. The letters are easy to read as evidenced by the image of the index which is also included in this blog post. The first image comes from the "summary" of the item on Ancestry.com's site.
Aunt Ruth's picture appears on page 65 of the 1934 Sequel as shown in this image. She is in the back row, second from left, appearing with the "class of 1937." I probably could have picked her out--she "looks like a Habben" as they say.
These images were obtained from the database of "U. S. School Yearbooks" on Ancestry.com.


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Builders are not delivering the flat as they show Sample flats, sometimes finishing is worst and not good painting, not a good coating of doors etc. so what we need to check before taking possession of your new home, we should keep these below check-list in our mind and ask to builder if you have got something different.
1. Match with Builder Prospectus – First match the things with builder prospectus that whatever written in prospectus or promised that got delivered or not.
2. Match with Sample Flat – Compare the look and feel with Sample Flat, in the sample flat many other things are placed, but you have to check all things which was required to fix for your flat as it is mentioned in prospectus or property agent has promised to you.
3. Check All Windows/ Doors – You have to check the coating and quality of painting, check also all doors are working in open and closing, Also make sure all window glasses or doors are proper without any cracks.
4. Check Wall Seepage – You have to also ensured that all walls are without water and all dry.
5. Check All Switch/ Lights/ Plug – Before possession, Take flat after testing OK of all wiring, ask to builder give me with testing OK for all switches, lights, Fans and all plugs, it may chances that few of them are not working. Check also all required points are given or not.
6. Check Drain System And Water Flowing area – You have to ensure that water is flowing properly from bathrooms, kitchen, balcony and there is no blockage.
7. Measure Size of rooms – Sometimes builder changes the plan and may be room size is so less then you may check it also and ensure it is as per plan or not.
8. Check Parking – Check Parking area which is allotted to you.
9. Check Floors – Ensure floor tiles for all rooms and master bed room as per mentioned in prospectus.
10. Check Kitchen – There are many builders are providing modular kitchen and semi-modular kitchen, make ensure it is modular kitchen and all things have been provided to you. If not then ask to define the modular kitchen and semi-modular kitchen.
11. Check All Tabs – Check all tabs of bathrooms, kitchen and balcony and also check water is flowing properly or not.


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Current Promotions, Free Gifts and Great Savings
To make sure our police and public safety professionals have the clothing, gear and supplies that they need at a budget friendly price, Galls is proud to offer specials on some of our top brands.
We have partnered with 5.11 Tactical, Lawpro, Thorogood, Coast, Vertx, Propper and Damascus to give our law enforcement and military personnel specials on duty and tactical gear.
Make sure you check out the current deals here at Galls. We are continuously working with our brand partners to offer great deals and specials on top products. Sign up for our email list so that you are up-to-date on all current specials.
All offers and discounts are valid while supplies last.


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Today was not so unbearably hot in my neighborhood, thanks to an influx of clouds early this afternoon accompanied by a fine breeze. Which means I might be able to wear long pants tonight, and avoid adding to my new bug bite collection on my legs (eleven, at last count).
So instead of obsessing over the temperature all day, I watched two or three episodes of Shakespeare Uncovered on PBS (yes, I am that much of a geek; I also watch Antiques Roadshow sometimes . . . sue me). I was an English major, and I studied a lot of Shakespeare, so this was a great way for me to spend an afternoon. Anyway, one of the episodes was on Hamlet, with David Tennant doing the hosting duties (you can watch it here). Hamlet is a favorite of mine, and Tennant was my favorite Doctor, so it was win-win all around for me. But there was one scene which just stood out to me.
The program explores Shakespeare from a variety of angles–historical, biographical, literary, etc. At one point, Tennant goes to the British Museum to view original copies of the three different existing versions of Hamlet. The librarian tells him that the so-called "bad quarto" is one of only two existing copies, and Tennant gets this delighted, gleeful look on his face. He seems genuinely overjoyed that he gets to lay hands on something so incredibly rare (I was vaguely horrified that they let him touch it without gloves, but that's another story). I found his reaction deeply affecting; I know I would've reacted much the same way. To touch history like that, to be connected to one of the greatest writers of the English language, seems so glorious and overwhelming. It made me think of all the ways there are to be a part of the world, of history, of culture. Of the dreams I have of being remembered for my words.
Which led me to this quirky little song by Josh Ritter. "Bone of Song" is a meditation on creativity and inspiration. The character, let's call him Josh, finds the bone of song, "a jawbone old and bruised, and worn out in the service of the muse. And along its sides and teeth were written words." The bone tells Josh to share his song, and it will be recorded along with all the other music inscribed there. It's a magical object, meant to give the holder a place in the world of music, but no control or ownership over the muse: "It said leave me here, I care not for wealth or fame. I'll remember your song, but I'll forget your name."
This is the experience of the artist. It is the search for your spot in the larger world you enter, to find a way to honor your predecessors while carving out a niche where you can be remembered, too. One of the themes that kept coming up in Tennant's discussion of Hamlet was how an actor can find something new in a role and play that has become utterly ubiquitous. How do you make a role like that your own? How do you write words that stand up to those of Shakespeare or Joyce (or anyone, for that matter)? How do you paint a picture or take a photo that shows the world anew? There's really no way to tell. You just do your best, and hope someone cares after you're gone. That's why the best artists and performers don't create for an audience; they create for themselves. What they see and hear and know to be true. And they hope that one day, they will stumble on the great inspiration that will transform not only their own experience, but the world's.
"Lucky are you, who finds me in the wilderness. I am the only unquiet ghost who does not seek rest."


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IRSA Fine Art
is involved in the promotion of Polish art both in Poland and abroad. We offer works of leading Polish artists representing a wide spectrum of schools and tendencies from the 1960s and 1970s to the present (including matter painting, art informel, lyrical and geometric abstraction, New Realism etc.). We also have works by artists of classic post-war Polish art such as
Alina Szapocznikow
Aleksander Kobzdej
Jerzy Tchórzewski
Ryszard Winiarski
Roman Artymowski
Wojciech Fangor
, and of contemporary artists representing the middle and older generations such as
Krystyna Schwarzer-Litwornia
Stasys Eidrigevičius
Leon Tarasewicz
Bronisław Krzysztof
Witold Urbanowicz
. The painters and sculptors whose work we promote produce both so-called traditional pieces but they also use modern techniques, such as photography and spatial installations.
During the year in our two galleries we organize four to six exhibitions, each of which is accompanied by a catalogue of the highest quality produced by the
IRSA Institute
. They are richly illustrated, beautifully printed and designed to bring a particular artist and his or her works into as close a focus as is possible.
Currently in preparation are exhibitions of the works of Wojciech Fangor, Jan Lebenstein, Adam Myjak and of the foreign artists, André Masson and Victor Vasareley. We are organizing the exhibitions featuring Masson and Vasarely in cooperation with fellow galleries abroad, just as was done, for example, in the Tarasewicz show in Milan and as will shortly be done in the show in London, currently being planned, of the sculptor Bronisław Krzysztof.
IRSA Fine Art
's most recent large scale project is an exhibition of the sculpture and drawings of the splendid Alina Szapocznikow, with a catalogue raisonné of the artist's drawings, until now never edited.
IRSA Fine Art
, although formally established only in 2003, has taken over the joint exhibition activities of the
IRSA Research Institute
and the
Polish Auction House SZTUKA
. Thus the gallery is able to draw upon the experience of its owner, Dr Józef Grabski, acquired over the many years he has spent in the art field. Dr Grabski has now been in the international art market for almost thirty years without a break, working as a respected authority on art, including modern art, and as a dealer. He is also a collector. From the beginning of the 1980s, he has co-created or provided advice on the creation of many international collections, both for private individuals and for institutions; among these are the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection (Johnson & Johnson, New Jersey, USA), H. Abel Collection in Munich, the Gordon Collection in London, and the Meyer Collection in Zurich.


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Perry's cash dash sparks worries
Rick Perry's campaign for Texas governor last year criticized his GOP primary opponent's ties to a lobbyist caught on film apparently suggesting he could secure meetings for a deposed Central Asian politician with top Bush administration officials in exchange for a $250,000 donation to the Bush library.
But this summer, as Perry's allies scrambled to build a fundraising network ahead of his late entry into the presidential race, they accepted help from the very same lobbyist, Stephen Payne. He not only attended one of the first Austin get-togethers of Perry backers who have committed to raising — or "bundling" — as much as $500,000 apiece for Perry's presidential campaign, but Payne also boasted that he helped arrange meetings with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis to burnish the Texas governor's foreign policy credentials.
Story Continued Below
Payne's involvement could become fodder for attacks against the candidate, multiple Perry fundraisers and allies said privately. They worry Payne's role highlights a broader problem — that the urgency Perry backers feel to catch up financially to GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is leading to sloppiness and an insensitivity to perception that could leave the Texas governor and his allies vulnerable to criticism from rivals, scrutiny from the media and even legal complaints.
Adding to the problem, these allies said, is that Perry has never had to raise money under the intense national media scrutiny of a presidential campaign or the more restrictive federal rules — and they question whether some of his early fundraising efforts were fully vetted for compliance with those rules, let alone perceptions.
"They haven't paid attention to appearances here because the appearances don't hurt him here. We're the Wild West of campaign money," said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group that publishes detailed studies on state campaign funding. A report released last month chronicled Perry's reliance on 200 super-rich mega-donors during his fundraising juggernaut gubernatorial campaigns, while earlier analyses made the case that Perry's administration has done favors for major donors. "All his [Texas] opponents have accused Perry of being a pay-to-play governor, but that seems to roll off his back here in Texas."
He added, though: "If there's the appearance that [Perry's allies] are playing fast and loose with the rules at the national level, I don't think it will play with a broader audience beyond the borders of the Lone Star State."
None of the Perry fundraisers or allies interviewed for this story wanted to be indentified voicing their concerns for fear of being excommunicated from a Perry inner circle already on edge about leaks that have plagued its early fundraising efforts.


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Best of the Week: Summer Movies Podcast, 'Godzilla' Everywhere, 'Harry Potter' Spin-off, and More
Movie News
Alfonso Cuaron may direct the Harry Potter spin-off movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Sticking with spin-offs, Gareth Edwards will direct the first Star Wars one, and Warner Bros. has confirmed a Ninjago movie.
The Coen brothers' next movie will be Hail Caesar, a comedy set in 1950s Hollywood. Oh, and the Coens are also writing Steven Spielberg's next movie.
Apparently everyone at Cannes thinks Foxcatcher will earn Steve Carrell an Oscar nomination. Quentin Tarantino wants to put 90 minutes of deleted scenes back in Django Unchained and release it as a miniseries. The entire Halloween collection is hitting Blu-ray in one big box set for the first time ever this fall.
The Geek Stuff and Videos
The trailers: Guardians of the Galaxy, Foxcatcher, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Life Itself, Life of Crime
The discussions: Godzilla 2 or Pacific Rim 2? What comedic actor would you like to see turn to Oscar-worthy dramas?
J.J. Abrams shows us the first footage from the set of Star Wars: Episode VII. Check out this rad concept art for a Godzilla monster battle that didn't make it in the movie. And this guy who made his own Magneto boots.
Godzilla director Gareth Edwards' made this creepy short in only 48 hours. Speaking of, here's Edwards explaining how they filmed the skydiving scene. Also, here's how the hotel fight in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was filmed.
Our Features
This week's Summer Movies Podcast covers Transformers 4 buzz, disaster movies and more. This week's face-off is Godzilla 1998 versus Godzilla 2014. We've seen Edge of Tomorrow, and would love to tell you about how great it is.
Here's everything hitting VOD and streaming services this week, and here's everything hitting Blu-ray and DVD. Our lover of everything young adult breaks down all the recent news with movies like The Giver, The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner.
Hey Harrison Ford, please say no to Blade Runner 2.
Movies.com, the ultimate source for everything movies, is your destination for new movie trailers, reviews, photos, times, tickets + more! Stay in the know with the latest movie news and cast interviews at Movies.com.
Copyright © 2019 FANDANGO MOVIES.


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Self Guided Bike Tour
Want to explore the wine country on your own but need a little help working out the details to make it a perfect day. Our Self-Guided Bike Tour is individually geared toward you. We help plan your route to the wineries of your choice, collaborating with you to meet your needs and interests. We are available to support you throughout the day, whether we're needed or not. We provide service for flat tires, mechanical failures, losing your way, severe weather rescue, transporting wine purchases and just about anything else that may come up. Think of us as a distant command center helping you to pursue your own perfect day. Best of all we deliver a catered deli box lunch to a winery, so you can settle in for your own private picnic overlooking the vineyards.
If you are looking for an exceptional experience in wine country but want the flexibility of being on your own, our Self-Guided Bike Tour is perfect for you. Enjoy the conveniences of our support and explore the vineyards at your own pace.
Tour Winery options >> view the wineries you can visit on your tour
Grand Traverse Bike Tours
118 N St Marys St
Suttons Bay, MI 49682
Main Entrance in Alleyway
[+] Launch in Google Maps
Winter Hours
Wednesday, Friday: 10 - 5:30 pm
Thursday, Saturday: 10 - 4 pm
Sunday - Tuesday: rentals and service available, please call ahead. 231.421.6815
About Us
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5 Milwaukee area play spaces for little ones
Bounce houses and play structures and rock climbing walls are the stuff dreams are made of for kids.
But a lot of the equipment in play spaces and parks aren't that great for the littlest kids. So what to do when you're at one of those oh-so-fun play spaces so your older kid can have the time of his life, but you also have your little one in tow?
Well, here are 5 destinations with dedicated play spaces for little kids.
1. The Big Backyard: This indoor playground in New Berlin has a gigantic playset with fast slides, tunnels to get lost in and a big area to run around playing with balls and on bikes. But, they also have a large dedicated area for the little kids -- with smaller play structures, playhouses and infant and toddler toys.
2857 S. 160th St., New Berlin, thebigbackyardwi.com
2. Betty Brinn Children's Museum: BBCM prides itself on being an interactive play space for all ages. With tons of opportunities for role playing, a play structure themed around a board game, interactive exhibits and a maker space, even the biggest kids (and their parents!) can enjoy a day at Betty Brinn. But Pocket Park is especially for preschool-aged kids and infants, complete with a sandbox, tree fort with a little-kid friendly slide, water activities and even a soft padded crawling area for those pre-walkers.
929 E. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, bbcmkids.org
3. Discovery World: With the focus on education, camps and labs at this science museum, it might seem like this is a place for school-age kids. But the folks at Discovery World have been working to make it more little-kid-friendly so the whole family can enjoy hanging out here. That was the thought behind the new addition to the popular Kohl's Design It! Lab. Now little kids can "make" right alongside their bigger brothers and sisters at the Kids Corner, where there are high chairs, markers and crayone, tiny tables and stools and building blocks.
500 N. Harbor Drive, Milwaukee, discoveryworld.org
4. StoneFire Pizza Co: With a ninja course, multiple climbing walls, arcade games and rides, this New Berlin play space is paradise for school-age kids. But there's also plenty for little kids to do. The Discovery Room is designed for kids 5 and under, and has a three-tiered water table with smocks and a huge train table, not to mention plenty of seating so parents can sit and watch their little ones play.
5320 S. Moorland Rd., New Berlin, stonefirepizzaco.com
5. Playgrounds and malls: We couldn't pick just one of these because they seem to be everywhere! Shopping malls have areas set aside for little kids to climb all over, and playgrounds at most major parks have smaller play structures dedicated to little ones. Just remember playground etiquette -- if you're the parent of a bigger kid, don't let him monopolize these spaces. These are meant to be safe places for little ones to play without the fear of being mowed down by the big kids!


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|Work Schedule:
|Full Time
|$51,603 – $90,216*
|Washington, DC metropolitan area
*Higher starting salary possible depending on experience level.
This position offers an opportunity to participate in the Language Hiring Bonus Program. See "Bonus Programs" in the Benefits section for more information.
Cyber threat analysts conduct all-source analysis, digital forensics, and targeting to identify, monitor, assess, and counter the threat posed by foreign cyber actors against US information systems, critical infrastructure and cyber-related interests. They support the President, the National Security Council, and other US policymakers with strategic assessments and provide tactical analysis and advice for operations. Cyber threat analysts are professional intelligence officers who apply their scientific and technical knowledge to solving complex intelligence problems, produce short-term and long-term written assessments, and brief US policymakers and the US cyber defense community. This work demands initiative, creativity, analytical skills, and technical expertise. Agency analysts maintain and broaden their professional ties throughout their careers through academic study, collaboration with Intelligence Community peers, and attendance at professional meetings. They may also pursue additional studies in fields relevant to their areas of responsibility. Opportunities exist for foreign and domestic travel, language training, analytic and management training, and assignments to other offices in the Agency and throughout the US Government.
Minimum requirements Candidates with a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, computer engineering, digital forensics, cyber security, telecommunications, information assurance, security studies, or a mix of international and technical studies are strongly encouraged to apply. A minimum GPA of 3.0 on a 4-point scale is required. Competitive candidates typically will have higher GPAs, relevant experience, an awareness of US national security interests, and strong verbal presentation and writing skills, including the demonstrated ability to write clear and concise text. All candidates must have excellent analytical abilities and a strong ability to think creatively when approaching issues. Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work under tight deadlines are also needed. Foreign language proficiency and foreign area knowledge gained through study, travel, or work abroad are highly desirable.
The following items must be attached to your online application:
- Your resume.
- A cover letter in which you specify your qualifications for one or more analytic positions. Please address why you want to work as an analyst and what differentiates you from other applicants.
- Unofficial transcripts for all degrees.
- Two different writing samples, each five (5) pages MAXIMUM, single spaced, technical or analytic papers that focus on your current area of expertise or interests and are related to your interest in positions at CIA. You can excerpt longer papers.
All applicants must successfully complete a thorough medical and psychological exam, a polygraph interview and an extensive background investigation. US citizenship is required.
To be considered suitable for Agency employment, applicants must generally not have used illegal drugs within the last twelve months. The issue of illegal drug use prior to twelve months ago is carefully evaluated during the medical and security processing.
Important Notice: Friends, family, individuals, or organizations may be interested to learn that you are an applicant for or an employee of the CIA. Their interest, however, may not be benign or in your best interest. You cannot control whom they would tell. We therefore ask you to exercise discretion and good judgment in disclosing your interest in a position with the Agency. You will receive further guidance on this topic as you proceed through your CIA employment processing.
To Apply:
Make a note of the position(s) that interest you, as you can apply for up to four positions in one application. DO NOT submit multiple applications; this will only slow the review of your application, and delay processing. Please read the Application Instructions carefully before you begin the online application process.
An equal opportunity employer and a drug-free work force.


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After much deliberation, the planets have aligned and I've finally gotten around to setting up R3's Patreon account! The usual disclaimers apply: Don't feel compelled, don't put yourself in (more?) financial peril to support me, and... and... and that's about it, actually. Only two disclaimers! What a breath of fresh air, huh? https://www.patreon.com/R3Writing
Author: R3 Writing
Plague Doctor: Brain Stem (Part 4)
Despite my misanthropic first meeting, I had come to find something of a professional respect (or at least what passed for it) between me and 'HemlockBanana'. As pretty fictional psycho Rob Anderson became less and less relevant in the eyes of our mutual fandom, the bitterness that those who tolerated him inspired in me faded … Continue reading Plague Doctor: Brain Stem (Part 4)
Plague Doctor: Call Me in the Morning (Part 3)
Looking back, I don't exactly have much of a right to be a smartass about Benny with how he handles criticism. Development aside, the first time I had gotten any sort of peer review for the fics I had been writing, I was dead certain it would be glowing. Not that the amount of effort I had put into it was any different. The lack of criticism was enough of an opiate.
Plague Doctor: "Do No Harm" (Part 2)
One of the most ominous sentences I've heard said by heroes or "morally correct" characters in general is "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." Something reserved for cruel and unusual fates that sometimes are just so horrendous they never actually get used on anyone, just dangled over a character's life like the sword … Continue reading Plague Doctor: "Do No Harm" (Part 2)
Plague Doctor: Patient Zero (Part 1)
The first work I took into my own hands was a sequel to one of my favourite books. From what I understood, the original author, E.F. Curry, had died and, rather than give his surviving works the Terry Pratchett treatment, a cousin or other such distant relative had taken it upon himself to wrap things … Continue reading Plague Doctor: Patient Zero (Part 1)
Plague Doctor: Prologue
"I'm something of an artistic leech. If I was just a consumer, I'd likely get away with merely being called a fan, posting on some obscure forum or site. But the only lot in life I've been able to carve out is that of a writer, and the only tools I can scrounge up are the works of others."
Short Story: General Pantheon
In a world where gods worshipped are flesh and blood, a Roman centurion leads a doomed campaign into Egypt at the behest of his insufferable master.


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UPDATE: Bus accident not wreck, heart attack
OKLAHOMA CITY — What was originally reported as a Metro Transit bus accident was actually the bus pulling over for a passenger having heart problems.
Authorities said a cardiac patient needed medical attention so the bus stopped near S.W. 21st and May Ave.
An ambulance took the passenger to the hospital.
Authorities have not released the identity of the person involved.
No other issues were reported.