1000 results for “White_Bite”
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What a month! Thanks to @Taweret for bringing us 4 excellent Vincent Price Vehicles this spooky season, @joewynne for the cocktails, @LuciaG for the Bingo, and @miru for bringing us Ultraman installments as well as the double feature and the streaming.
This month we saw:
- Lots of chinstraps.
- Pencil thin 'staches
- lesser actors getting swallowed whole along with the scenery
- Endora teaching Vincent a thing or two
- deviousness overload
- Tasteful Frank Loyd Wright architecture
- Tasteless wall art.
- Received Pronunciation vs the Midatlantic match, rematch, cage match, and Battle Royale.
- Rabbit bats.
- Way too groovy white-fros as was actually a thing at the time, not as much as 70's price movies would have you believe tho
- Beatnik zombies
- the worlds funniest brundlefl-heeeeeeeellllllllp meeeeeeeee
- getting know a few of central casting's top tier very well.
- every alternative to the necktie imaginable.
Stay Spoopy, #monsterdon
RE: https://mas.to/@fsinn/117504947571718163
“Trump’s hostility to the press is also increasing:
–He is now attacking reporters–shouting at them, getting in their faces, threatening them–at every press briefing and Q&A session.
–Trump to Kaitlin Collins of CNN: “You don’t know what you’re talking about. ; You’re a dummy. You’re a low IQ person. You’re a dummy and you work for CNN.”
–Trump to Karen Travers of ABC: “Are you a stupid person? Who do you work for? You’re a stupid person. And by the way, your network is the worst of all.” (Note: In both instances, the reporters had asked about Trump’s removing sanctions on Russia, a question he obviously doesn’t want to discuss.)
–Trump threw Andrew Feinberg (who asked him a question he didn’t like the other day) out of the White House pool on Thursday… Trump told him: “I don’t know who the hell you are, but you better be careful.”
–The White House is demanding that Politico retract three stories about Susie Wiles “or face the consequences.””
I like that at the end kirino lets Masako still mourn her loneliness.
even with all the money she is aware of how empty life is.
something a western author would hardly manage.
money equals happiness and success.
no differentiation necessary for the white man
“The president greeted us, took a seat at his desk and presented us with commemorative tokens. We were then directed to stand behind him and pray. After which several photos were taken and we were ushered out. Unbeknownst to the group of bishops a video was also taken. But permission for the public distribution or posting of either the video or photos was not given by the bishops.
“It did not take long thereafter for the White House to post a video and photos of the prayer.”
https://www.archmil.org/posts/a-public-apology-archbishop-jeffrey-grob
Archbishop Jeffrey Grob of Milwaukee apologized today for praying with 11 others over Trump in the Oval Office last Thu.
The WH posted video and photos of the bishops without permission.
Grob wrote - "We came in good faith to try to work for the betterment of our fellow human beings, to ease their suffering, to build up the common good, and to pray with a president, not to pose for a political photo opportunity to benefit the few."
https://www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/archbishop-grob-apologizes-accuses-white-house
https://www.archmil.org/posts/a-public-apology-archbishop-jeffrey-grob
#UsPol
1/n
Late lunch, brats on the grill, football on TV, oak in the glass….
#lupulinBrewing Oak-aged Imperial Sweet Stout 2023
Massive oakiness with a smooth mouthfeel. Notes of smoke and molasses. Sweet with a lasting oaky boozy tingle.
p.s. that’s white oak from my backyard, not the stuff for good beer…
#DavidFrum predicts how the next recession may come: AI companies failing to earn enough revenue to pay their massive debt, interest rate rise and stock market decline, governments too indebted to do much to relaunch the economy.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=26OHrqmkBu8&si=1dotatuCPKIbs_wk
Canada is, fortunately, less indebted than many other countries. But our largest trading partner has debt around 125% of GDP, much of it the responsibility of the Trump White House.
Scale Override Ⅱ (2025)
Another view of the same scene from further away, illustrating the scale even better. Note the same hut from earlier in the bottom-left corner. Even though entirely unintentional, and not an aerial photo, it somehow reminds me in character of some of Werner Friedli's[1] work...
Ps. Hard to imagine the hardships when the top of this mountain (at almost 4000 meters a.s.l) was an active frontline[2] during WW1... 😩
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Friedli_(Fotograf)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_War
#SilentSunday #LandscapePhotography #Photography #BlackAndWhite #NoirCountry #Alps #Mountains #Scale
Ukraine Brief — 2026-10-25
Trilateral Abu Dhabi talks are unlikely by mid-November; Moscow answered Witkoff's visit with a 21-missile salvo and set no venue or date. Ukraine is very unlikely to withdraw from Donetsk Oblast by November 30; Zelensky offers a front-line freeze but rejects ceding territory, leaving Moscow's withdrawal demand as the sticking point. High confidence reflects consistent official statements.
Kyiv's three CHPs can no longer generate electricity, and power ring strikes make 12-plus-hour outage days likely before December. High confidence reflects converging Ukrenergo and DTEK reporting. Restored Starlink speeds reverse last edition's connectivity crisis, but a new reimposition is unlikely by November 8; service depends on White House leverage, not contractual rights, and SpaceX still treats offensive drone use as a terms violation.
Public US enforcement against Polar LNG over covert Novatek funding is very unlikely within 30 days; the White House treats energy deals as a channel to Moscow, and congressional letters would be the first indicator. Moscow's extraction of $12 million from seized Metro Russia for military procurement sets a template other Western firms under similar decrees face. Lviv Oblast Council is unlikely to revoke its UPA resolution by mid-November, keeping Polish aid friction unresolved. Moderate confidence rests on the resolution's removal without formal council action.
🎄✨ Feestelijk Kerstmenu 2026: ✨🎄||🎄✨ Festive Christmas Menu 2026: ✨🎄
Begin op Tijd met de Voorbereidingen! ✨🎄
🎅 Een woordje vooraf van Theo-Herbots, keukenpiet in Tienen
A warmly lit Christmas dining table welcomes guests with roast turkey, candlelight, and seasonal greenery.Misschien lijkt het wat vroeg om nu al een kerstmenu samen te stellen. Toch zegt een oude wijsheid: beter te vroeg dan te laat! Door nu al na te denken over uw feestmenu kunt u rustig ingrediënten verzamelen, recepten uitproberen en stress tijdens de eindejaarsperiode vermijden.
Daarom stel ik u vandaag een volledig kerstmenu voor, van aperitief tot dessert, inclusief dranken, werkwijzen en enkele gezellige tips om van Kerstmis een onvergetelijke familieavond te maken.
🥂 Aperitiefhapjes: Feestelijk Beginnen
🧀 Kaaskrokantjes met vijgenconfituur
Crisp herb crackers, fig jam, fresh figs, and white wine create an inviting rustic appetizer spread.Ingrediënten
Werkwijze
🍷 Bijhorende drank
🍤 Voorgerecht: Garnalencocktail Deluxe
A beautifully layered shrimp cocktail takes center stage at an intimate candlelit dinner table.Ingrediënten
Werkwijze
🍷 Bijhorende drank
🐟 Tussengerecht: Romige Vissoep
A creamy seafood chowder, fresh bread, and white wine create a warm, inviting dining scene.Ingrediënten
Werkwijze
🍷 Bijhorende drank
🦃 Hoofdgerecht: Kalkoenfilet met Kroketten en Wintergroenten
Sliced roast pork, crispy croquettes, and roasted vegetables create a festive dinner spread.Ingrediënten
Voor de kalkoen
Voor de groenten
Voor het garnituur
Werkwijze
🍷 Bijhorende dranken
🍰 Nagerecht: Feestelijke Speculoosmousse
A layered holiday dessert takes center stage beside a glowing Christmas tree and candle.Ingrediënten
Werkwijze
☕ Bijhorende drank
🎄 Gezellige Kersttips voor een Warme Sfeer
A woman decorates by the Christmas tree while a dog rests beside the glowing fireplace.🕯️ Zorg voor sfeervolle verlichting
Gebruik kaarsen, kerstlichtjes en een mooi gedekte tafel. Warm licht zorgt onmiddellijk voor gezelligheid.
🎶 Kies rustige achtergrondmuziek
Klassieke kerstliedjes of zachte jazzmuziek creëren een ontspannen sfeer zonder storend te zijn.
👨👩👧👦 Geniet van elkaars gezelschap
Leg smartphones even opzij en maak tijd voor gesprekken, herinneringen en leuke verhalen.
🎁 Voorzie een kleine verrassing
Een persoonlijk kaartje of klein attentie aan tafel wordt altijd gewaardeerd.
📸 Maak herinneringen
Vergeet niet enkele foto’s te nemen zodat u later nog eens kunt terugblikken op een gezellige kerstavond.
🎅✨ Slotwoord van Theo-Herbots, keukenpiet in Tienen
A cozy farmhouse kitchen celebrates the holidays with stew, vegetables, cookies, and warmly spiced drinks.Kerstmis draait niet alleen om lekker eten, maar vooral om samen zijn met familie en vrienden. Met een goede voorbereiding kunt u volop genieten van de feestdagen zonder stress in de keuken. Daarom is het helemaal niet te vroeg om nu al ideeën op te doen voor uw kerstmenu.
Ik wens u alvast veel plezier bij de voorbereidingen en vooral een warme, gezellige en smakelijke kerstperiode toe. Want de mooiste ingrediënten van een geslaagde kerst zijn nog altijd liefde, vriendschap en gezelligheid rond de feesttafel.
Smakelijke feestdagen en gezellige groeten uit Tienen! 🎄🍷✨
Theo Herbots, keukenpiet in Tienen 👨🍳🎅📸
🎄 Vind jij dit kerstrecept lekker?
Heeft dit heerlijke kerstrecept je geïnspireerd? 😍✨
📢 Deel de kerstsfeer verder
Deel dit recept gerust met je familie, vrienden en kennissen. Zo kunnen ook zij genieten van deze feestelijke lekkernij tijdens de mooiste tijd van het jaar. 🎅🍽️
❤️ Samen genieten smaakt beter
Ken je iemand die graag kookt of op zoek is naar inspiratie voor het kerstmenu? Stuur dit recept dan zeker door. Misschien delen zij het op hun beurt weer met hun familie en vrienden. 🤝🎄
🌟 Hoe meer mensen, hoe meer kerstplezier
Laten we samen zoveel mogelijk mensen laten genieten van deze heerlijke kerstgerechten. Bekijk ook mijn andere feestelijke recepten, tips en inspiratie voor een onvergetelijke kerst. ✨🍷🍰
🎁 Bedankt voor je steun
Dankjewel voor het lezen, delen en steunen van mijn blog. Samen maken we van Kerstmis een warm, gezellig en smakelijk feest voor iedereen! 🎄❤️😊
#Kerstmis, #Kerstmenu, #Kerstrecepten, #Feestdagen, #SamenGenieten, #TheoHerbots #Tienen 🎅✨🍽️🎄🎁,
☕ Sluit het gezellige samenzijn in stijl af met een heerlijke kop Gourmet Black Coffee van Organo Gold.
Geniet nog even na van alle mooie momenten, terwijl de rijke smaak en het verfijnde aroma zorgen voor een warme en smaakvolle afsluiter. ✨
Ervaar de geur van vers gezette koffie in een handomdraai met ORGANO Gourmet Zwarte koffie. Kenners zullen de robuuste, zachte smaak, die wordt versterkt met een rijke Ganoderma lucidum waarderen. Wek je zintuigen en verrijk uw dag met een klassieke kop koffie die net zo smaakvol als verkwikkend is.
Gourmet Black Coffee – Organo Gold
Hier beneden kom je terecht op een plek waar mijn levenswerk samenkomt. Druk je erop, dan zie je eerst een warme inleiding tot die categorie… en daarna alle blogberichten die ik in die rubriek met liefde, tijd en ziel heb opgebouwd.
Het is meer dan een menu. Het is een reis door mijn verhalen, mijn foto’s, mijn herinneringen, mijn inzichten — alles wat ik door de jaren heen heb gedeeld met wie hier graag vertoeft.
Breng een Bezoek KLIK ➡️HIER ✅👍💌 Blijf Verbonden — Volg Onze Nieuwsbrief
A smiling woman works on a laptop while inviting viewers to follow the newsletter from a cozy café.Theo‑Herbots dankt u uit de grond van zijn hart voor uw inschrijving.
Echt waar… dit betekent meer dan zomaar een naam op een lijst. Het betekent vertrouwen. Verbondenheid. Een stukje warmte dat jij met ons wil delen.
En geloof me… je zal er geen spijt van krijgen. Elke nieuwsbrief wordt met zorg, liefde en een vleugje Tiense ziel samengesteld — alsof ik hem persoonlijk bij jou in de brievenbus kom steken 💌✨
Vergeet niet om na je inschrijving even in je inbox te kijken. Klik daar op de bevestigingslink, zodat je inschrijving helemaal in orde is. Deze extra stap is speciaal ingebouwd om jou te beschermen tegen spam 💛✨
📬 Tip: Kijk ook even in je spambox, soms verstopt het mailtje zich daar.
Met jouw inschrijving geef je jezelf een klein cadeautje: een moment van verbinding, verhalen, foto’s, nostalgie en groeten uit Tienen die je hart raken. Elke nieuwsbrief is een beetje alsof we samen aan tafel zitten met een tas koffie ☕💛 — warm, eerlijk, menselijk.
Wil je niets missen van onze verhalen, foto’s, inzichten en warme momenten? Schrijf je dan in op onze nieuwsbrief en ontvang regelmatig een vleugje inspiratie, een glimlach, een gedachte om mee te nemen… recht uit Tienen, recht uit ons hart. 💙✨
Elke nieuwsbrief is een klein cadeautje:
Word deel van onze groeiende community. Samen maken we het mooier.
Vergeet niet om na je aanmelding je mail-box te checken en op die bevestigingslink te klikken. Dit is een slimme zet om jou te beschermen tegen die vervelende Spam.
We zijn net zo anti-Spam als jij! En maak je geen zorgen, jouw gegevens worden “NIET” gedeeld met anderen!
Voeg je bij 33K andere abonneesDankjewel aan iedereen die de tijd neemt om ons te laten weten dat ons werk hen raakt. Dankjewel voor de warmte, de steun en de verbondenheid. Dankjewel dat jullie onze blog niet alleen lezen, maar ook mee vormgeven door jullie reacties.
Samen maken we van deze plek een hartelijke, eerlijke en inspirerende online thuis. En dat is misschien wel het mooiste compliment dat we kunnen krijgen.
Warme groet uit Tienen, Theo‑Herbots 💙📚 Blogger met Hart & Ziel
P.S. Nu u toch hier bent…
💬 Laat gerust een reactie achter onderaan dit bericht. Ik lees graag uw mening, ervaringen of aanvullingen.
🌐 Neem ook eens een kijkje op mijn sociale media via de links hieronder. Daar deel ik regelmatig nieuwe inzichten, tips, handelsideeën en updates.
🔄 Vond u dit bericht nuttig of interessant? Help dan mee om deze informatie te verspreiden en deel het verder via de sociale media-deelknoppen onderaan deze pagina.
🙏 Alvast bedankt voor uw bezoek, uw reactie en het delen. Samen bereiken we meer mensen die er hun voordeel mee kunnen doen!
✨ Veel leesplezier en graag tot binnenkort! 🚀
📱 Goed nieuws! Vanaf nu zijn wij ook bereikbaar via WhatsApp. 🎉
Heb je een vraag over mijn blog, een blogbericht of één van de diensten die ik aanbied? Dan mag je mij gerust een WhatsApp-bericht sturen. 😊
⚠️ Belangrijk: dit WhatsApp-kanaal is uitsluitend bedoeld voor vragen over mijn blog en mijn diensten. Reclameboodschappen, commerciële aanbiedingen en spamberichten worden niet beantwoord.
💬 Ik help je graag verder met al je vragen!
Chat op WhatsAppTheo Herbots
🌟📸 Blogger & Fotograaf uit Tienen 💙
Volg ons ook op Social-Media hier beneden👇
A cheerful creator invites viewers to follow, like, and share content in Dutch. Follow us on Social Media xfacebookinstagramyoutubepinterestlinkedinflickrtumblrvimeofoursquaremastodon #KerstmisKerstmenuKerstreceptenFeestdagenSamenGenietenTheoHerbotsTienen #TheoHerbots #TheoHerbotsFotografie #KerstmisChristmas #StepByStepChristmasMenu #TheoHerbotsTheVoiceFromTienen
I've now seen three versions of this show, and they were all great in their own way. We saw it on Broadway the day before HashiCorp's IPO (I was delirious with a lack of sleep), I saw the proshot in theatres and now on Blu-ray, and I saw a Very White high school in the Tri-Cities stage it, which was a *very* funny choice but honestly they did better than they had any right to.
This cocktail is the current favourite in the executive bar at Mastodon Towers. The barman calls it the Abingdon Lip Destroyer.
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Into this pour the juice of 3 potatoes. Add 5 measures of white rum. Top up with piss. Shake sadly for 5 minutes, then strain into a copper mug. Cheers!
Be grateful, for #JohnMastodon has spoken to you.
"...these professed men of God find themselves campaigning for a predator, defending ethic cleansing, celebrating the expulsion of refugees, and vilifying an entire religious tradition.
They end up justifying the separation of families, going to battle for the NRA, and passionately defending an endless parade of lies from a pedophile President—all the while still imagining themselves righteous and still cosplaying as Christians."
Ich erlebe gerade private Nachrichten wegen #Moral in Verbindung mit #PhilippHübl
Liebe Menschen, genau das was Ihr gerade Macht mit mir ist genau das was er sagt. Genau euch beschreibt er auch in dem Podcast mit #HotelMatze
Leider muss ich nun ernsthaft überlegen ob Ihr
nicht verstehen könnt, dann lasst es euch erklären, öffnet euer #Mindest und versucht zu verstehen
Ihr versteht, aber nicht verstehen wollt, dann ist das einfach Empörungs Unternehmertum um zu verstecken was man ist.
in allem, Danke für die wunderbaren praktischen Übungen um meinen Weg zu #Moral und #Stoa zu schaffen, um ein besserer Mensch zu sein.
Braucht es die Rede von Privilegierten und Marginalisierten, von Patriarchat und White Privilege, um Diskriminierung zu bekämpfen und Fortschritt zu erzielen?
“a sanctioned Russian energy giant secretly funded an American company pitching an Alaska gas project discussed in Ukraine peace talks. The company, Polar LNG, markets itself with American flags and a bald eagle as “America’s Arctic Advantage,” and plans to use Russian technology to liquefy and export natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope.
Putin discussed the broader idea with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner last month, though a U.S. official said it was only mentioned broadly and there’s no indication the envoys knew of Polar LNG’s Russian ties.
The company’s former CEO, Joel Riddle, says he resigned after learning that at least some of its funding came from Novatek, a Kremlin-linked firm under partial U.S. sanctions, and that he warned the Trump administration before leaving. Novatek has now confirmed it is moving”
https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/news-end-of-a-presidency-white-house?r=ce00&utm_medium=ios
Second Death
Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today, I thought I’d share a little horror short that I wrote a while ago and couldn’t decide what to do with. I hope you enjoy it!
Second Death
He felt the spark of consciousness fill his mind. He was aware now.
He tried to move but found that nothing worked; even the muscles that lifted his eyelids failed him. In fact, every muscle in his body was frozen. He was paralysed, though by what or how, he could not say.
His mind was sluggish and foggy, his memory having all but failed entirely, depriving him of the knowledge of who or where he was, but leaving everything else. The only reasoning for his current situation that he could come up with was that he had been in some sort of terrible accident, perhaps having been run over by a horse and buggy, and was now lying on some bed in the London hospital, a poultice wrapped around his head. The streets were a mess with horses and buggies these days. He knew that, at least.
The fact that his mind had woken before the rest of his body did not frighten him. He knew this sort of thing happened every day in London; people being brought to the hospital in all manner of conscious states, and since he felt no pain, he was certain that somebody was taking very good care of him indeed.
As he lay there, waiting for his body to catch up with his brain, some vestigial ember, a flicker of activity deep inside his mind, sparked, sending images rushing to the fore. A jumble of faces accosted him as his memory began to slowly filter through the abstract dam that had thus far held it back; women in long grey dresses with white aprons and white caps, and men, some old and bearded, some young and clean-shaven, but all wearing dark clothes. Somehow, he knew they were doctors and nurses.
However, since waking up, he had heard no doctors or nurses—nor anybody else for that matter—coming to check on him. Had he been forgotten? Had they left him alone, thinking that he might never wake? His heart began to quicken at the thought that he might actually be stuck like this forever, that he might be trapped inside the confines of his own mind, his own mental walls slowly closing in on him. Surely, he would begin to disappear into insanity.
The thought of being left in his current state until his body died of starvation and dehydration filled him with anxiety. He had to wake up. He had to force his mind and body to work in unison once more. He had to move, somehow; his very survival depended on it.
Forcing his mind to work harder, he saw flashes of whitewashed walls and long, narrow corridors, and at first, he thought perhaps he might have been conscious upon his arrival at the hospital.
As sensation began to return little by little to his muscles, it occurred to him rather suddenly that there was a lack of sound. For a brief moment, he considered the fact that he may have gone deaf; he had known it to happen with head injuries, although he didn’t know how he knew, but the sound of his own breath leaving his lungs quelled the fear instantly.
He was further relieved when he began to wiggle his toes, and further still when his fingers began to twitch. With each passing moment and every twitching phalanx, he felt the fear of his being trapped inside of himself ebbing away.
Straining, he tried to open his eyes. He felt his lids fluttering, but everything remained dark. As he tensed and released each muscle in his legs and arms, still unable to fully move them yet, he willed his eyelids to cooperate—but darkness remained absolute. He tried again, and again, panic surging as he considered that he may have gone blind; he knew this, too, could sometimes happen with head injuries and again, how he knew this eluded him.
As his heart quickly became a bass drum inside his ribcage, threatening to burst out at any moment, adrenaline surged through his body, and he felt his spine twitch—he willed his body to sit up, but the most he could manage was a slight raising of his head. He tried to gather himself, taking a deep breath, and then tried again, straining against himself as he attempted to fully reconnect his mind with his body. Drawing on every ounce of strength he could muster, he tried again, straining, straining, straining and… yes… yes… and…
He jerked upward and—SLAM! His forehead collided painfully with something solid. The impact caused a spark, and in an instant, everything came rushing back. He was Eliot Smith, a doctor at The London Hospital. The adrenaline had acted like coal being shovelled into a waiting empty furnace; his whole body was mobile now; he could move his arms, his hands. He reached up, frantically exploring the area around him.
As he felt the silk lining, the unyielding wood. The truth slammed into him with cold brutality—he had been buried alive.
Terror consumed him. He screamed and clawed desperately, tearing at the lining and wood until his fingers bled. He pounded, kicked, and screamed until he felt his heart burst painfully in his chest. And with one final gasp of horror, he fell silent again—this time, forever.
The End.
Thanks for reading, if you did. I appreciate your time, and I hope you enjoyed it!
As ever, thanks for stopping by!
Until next time,
George
© 2026 GLT
#death #horror #horrorStory #shortStories #shortStory #stories #writing
A high parsing score on an applicant tracking system only proves one thing, which is that your resume did not trigger an automatic disqualification. It confirms that the text layers were read, the dates parsed in the right order, and the headings matched a known taxonomy. It tells you nothing about whether a person will pick up the phone.
The software clears a floor. A human sets a ceiling.
When a reviewer finally opens the file, they are not looking for keyword density or clever table formatting. They are looking for scope, context, and verifiable outcomes. They want to know what systems you owned, what scale you operated under, and how your past decisions reduced friction for an engineering team. No parser score tells that story.
Most candidates spend weeks tweaking margins, swapping fonts, and stuffing synonyms into white text blocks to game an automated threshold. That is time stolen from gathering evidence.
Fix your layout once. Use a clean, single-column text structure with standard headings and no graphics. Once the machine can read your text cleanly without choking, stop thinking about the parser entirely.
Spend every remaining hour on the evidence. Document the migration, the outage you debugged, the legacy code you retired, and the specific metrics that matter to the people building the product. The algorithm only needs to let you past the gate. The human needs a reason to care.#career #resume #software #coding #development #engineering #inclusive #community
A perfect ATS score means nothing about being picked
Raw Story:
In “Jeffery Epstein: How He Did It,” a TMZ documentary released Thursday. William Mersey, now a writer and journalist, was jailed with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan in the days before Epstein died there in 2019.
“One day I went down, and I said verbatim, ‘Give me one anecdote that’s emblematic of Donald Trump’s essence,’” Mersey said in the documentary.
“That fired Jeffrey up immediately. He said, ‘I got it—’”
“So, we’re on my plane flying from New York to Miami. It’s just me and Donald and a French girl that I was dating,” Mersey quoted Epstein as saying.
“And Donald said, ‘Why don’t we stop in Atlantic City so I can show your friend my casino?’” Mersey continued.
“And Jeffy said, ‘No, we’re not stopping in Atlantic City. It’s all white trash down there,’”
“So the French girl asks, ‘I don’t understand what is this white trash,’” Mersey went on.
“And Trump says, ‘It’s me without money,’ he said.”
Fatherland: Alienation and Identity in Striking Biographical Drama
Due to capitalism issues, we’ve taken a few weeks off. Now we’re back with a review of Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2026 biographical film Fatherland, which stars Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler.
Set in the summer of 1949, it follows novelist Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika as they take a road trip across post-WWII Germany. A sense of national alienation and divided identity follows, themes that resonate in our chaotic modern political landscape, all of which make for an intriguing film that demands more than one viewing.
Losing Your Nation in Fatherland
Thomas Mann remains most famous for his works Buddenbrooks (1901), The Magic Mountain (1924), and Death in Venice (1912). He took a dramatic arc with his political views over his life, shifting from a Conservative nationalist during WWI into an anti-fascist polemicist before and after WWII, embracing socialism and rejecting the Nazi party.
Mann was on holiday in Switzerland when the Nazis rose to power in 1933 and he, wisely, chose not to return home. In 1936, the Nazi government revoked his German citizenship.
So, yes, just to clarify on this as the film is historically accurate. Mann did return to Germany in 1949 and many of the characters he knew are depicted here.
Fatherland portrays all of this in melancholic black and white. In mid-1949, we find a country in crisis and one struggling to recover and find its new political path. Mann is still in exile, but is invited to Frankfurt to receive a Goethe Prize in literature. He’s joined by his daughter Erika, who chooses to drive across the country as part of her father’s homecoming.
It’s a far from celebratory return, with the devastation of the war still more than apparent.
During the trip, her brother Klaus (also a writer) appears to commit suicide.
Erika and her father continue to attend events and mingle with luminaries, many of whom were in some way associated with the Nazi party. The narrative follows this structure, with Erika and Thomas increasingly ill at ease with the country they’ve returned to.
We watched the film at HOME independent cinema in Manchester and there was an audible gasp from cinemagoers with that slap. He deserved it, though.
The uneasy nature of Fatherland, playing out at a sedate pace, really ramps up the sense of alienation. Erika and her father are out of sorts back in Germany, each new road trip encounter enhancing the sense of national isolation.
It does remind us somewhat of The Zone of Interest’s (2023) tone, also starring Sandra Hüller and arguably the best WWII film we’ve ever seen.
A big difference, though, is Fatherland is so concise. It’s only 82 minutes. The film breezes into your life, set in black and white, considers the nature of a country in recovery, then leaves you with a family in emotional turmoil.
It’s received many 5/5 reviews for what it depicts, but it’s definitely a film we need to watch more than once. Very good indeed, with Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler on fine form. Paweł Pawlikowski’s direction is also beautiful, with some stunning shots faithfully recreating the sense of time and place.
Yet its time and place is what makes it such uneasy viewing. History appears to be repeating across the modern political world, which makes Fatherland feel undated and timely. Erika’s steely gaze of uncertainty haunts much of the film, a look of stoic personal bravery we feel many can take solace in.
The Production of Fatherland
Fatherland is out in cinemas now. Its €10 million budget has so far resulted in €6 million at the box office, so we expect it to be a commercial success (it’s still yet to roll out in some countries). Especially as the project is headed by Sandra Hüller, who has hit the big time in 2026. Alongside this, she was in the big Hollywood hit Project Hail Mary and the critical darling indie film Rose.
She also has a small part in Tom Cruise vehicle Digger, which we’ll cover soon enough. She’s almost certainly going to win an Oscar in 2027, we’d wager.
Director Paweł Pawlikowski’s inspiration for the project came from Thomas Mann’s very real return to Germany in 1949. However, Pawlikowski reimagines aspects of this historical event. Working with cinematographer Łukasz Żal, most of the shoot was chronological and took place in Poland (as this was cheaper). Sets were constructed in the street to match the surrounding buildings.
Costume designer Aleksandra Staszko has also faithfully recreated 1940s fashion for the film. This was more complex than you’d expect, as it required a specific emphasis between Eastern and Western German dress styles.
The shoot began in August of 2025 and completed in December, with a total of 38 days across those months used for filming.
Fatherland premiered at Cannes Film Festival in May 2026, launched in Germany from 3rd September, and hit UK cinemas this week. It’s been a huge critical darling and Pawlikowski won Best Director at Cannes.
Expect it (and Sandra Hüller) to win big at next year’s Oscars run.
#alienation #Cinema #Fatherland #FeaturedPost #Films #HannsZischler #History #Lifestyle #Movies #PawełPawlikowski #Politics #roadTrip #ThomasMann #WorldWarII #WWII
Gadget Review: LiberNovo Omni - the USB-C powered office chair
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/gadget-review-libernovo-omni-chair/Whenever a company asks me to review their gadgets, I always ask if it is USB-C powered. If not, I'm not interested. So, welcome to the future where your chair is USC-C rechargeable!
WHAT?!
The LiberNovo Omni looks like a standard office chair - but has two secret features.
First, is that it is exceedingly comfortable. Full foam cushions, lovely headrest, and a recline which almost gets you horizontal.
Second, it is USB-C powered. There's a small battery pack which plugs in to the chair. Why? Read on!
OK, let's start at the beginning.
Assembly
Flat-pack chairs like this are normally notoriously hard to assemble. The LiberNovo bucks that trend - not only does it include a how-to video, it prints the instructions on a MASSIVE piece of cardboard.
I'm used to peering at tiny black-and-white diagrams in a flimsy paper booklet. IKEA could learn a thing or two from this.
The screws are all labelled and a hex-driver is included. What's an even nicer touch, however, is some safety gloves:
That's the sort of thing which doesn't cost much to the manufacturer, but is such a thoughtful gesture. There's nothing too sharp as you assemble, but who wants to cover their new chair in blood, eh?
The parts come in two large boxes, but there aren't that many separate bits.
Building it took about half an hour. It's easier with a friend to help - as are most things in life - but doesn't require much skill.
Go Back To The USB-C Part Again Please?
The battery pack is a 2200mAh unit with a USB-C port to recharge. It connects in to the chair with this slightly unusual connector:
The internals of the chair have a USB-C cable to connect everything up.
LOL!
YES BUT WHY DOES A CHAIR NEED A BATTERY PACK??!?!
On the side of the left arm-rest are three buttons.
Two of them move the lumbar-support up and down. Depending on how your back is feeling and how far you are reclined, you can adjust the the back-support position.
And the 3rd button?
That's the build-in back massager, silly!
Is that useful?
Yes. Being able to instantly adjust the back support without having to twist around is fantastic, especially for those of us reaching a certain age.
The "massage" feature essentially just moves the support up and down for five minutes before returning to its previous location. When sat upright, it feels great. But the real benefit is when you're laying down.
How flat does this thing go?
160° - not quite flat, but good enough when you're taking a break from Typing Real Hard. You don't want a photo of me sprawled out, so LiberNovo have helpfully provided some stock photos of much better looking folk.
It is incredibly stable. At no point did it tip over or feel like it was going to deposit me on the floor. What really helps is the included foot stall.
No Feets On Seats
Unsurprisingly, this is not USB-C powered. A sturdy plastic footrest with a deeply padded leg rest on top.
Again, assembly was a cinch - follow the large printed instructions and clip it together. It's rated for 40㎏, so you shouldn't stand on it but it is more than enough to rest your weary legs.
Price
I hope you're sitting down for this.
Direct from LiberNovo, you can expect to pay around £700 - although there are bundles with extra batteries, the footrest, and even an eye mask which will shoot that price up. You can get the full bundle on Amazon for around £1,000.
There's two ways to look at that price. Firstly, youch. But, alternatively, that's still cheaper than a Herman Miller Aeron. And Herm's doesn't come with a built-in lumbar massage.
(There is also an upgraded version which has a built in fan under the seat. Personally, I suggest eating a healthier diet.)
I can't deny that's a chunk of change. If you're anything like me, you probably spend most of your day sat down. You might as well sit on something comfortable.
Final Thoughts
Having the back-rest adjustable via arm-rest buttons is a genius touch. I just wish it went further. I'd love a control panel (or, dare I say it, app) which let me adjust the seat height, recline, headrest position etc. Who can be bothered with fiddly manual levers when electricity can do the work for us?
Building this chair was a breeze - and it was delightful to get a pair of safety gloves with it.
The chair is extraordinarily comfortable and the back massage, while not on the level of a "shiatsu" style heated massage pillow, is delightfully pleasant. Would I lie all the way back and sleep in it? Yeah! Certainly more comfortable than an economy airline seat.
If you spend a lot of time sitting at your computer, your arse deserves something supportive. Your back deserves some love too. Yes, the USB-C power-pack is a little bit of a gimmick - but it is a hell of a good one.
In my opinion, this is worth splashing out on.
#chair #furniture #gadget #Review #USBC
What a week. It was planned to be a very relaxed week with mostly food, drinks, conversations and not much else. Which it almost was. I was quite lucky on Wednesday when the whole patch business started that it was a very rainy day anyway, so I could patch my little server here without disrupting the vacation proceedings too much.
If you want to read more about what happened there, I can really recommend the blog post by Larry Garfield about The real lessons of php2shell and the posts he links to. Very well written and I absolutely agree with his assessment that what we saw was actually a masterclass in how to react to this kind of situation.
Lately I’ve been mostly carrying one of my small Micro-Four-Thirds cameras around and I’m mostly happy with their JPGs. I tend to crop and rotate a bit, but that’s it. Last week I brought my big chunky Sony along, with adapted Contax G lenses and mostly took black and white photos. Straight out of the camera they are still very impressive – but somehow more so than with the other cameras I feel the need to fiddle around with the raw files. Alas, I refuse to rent Lightroom and I haven’t really found an alternative that works for me. Such a bummer.
In other news, I had the first snowfall of the year, made a very good deal on my favorite socks (Falke Walkie Lights, if you need to know. Not an ad.) and got talked into another SailNavSim Jules-Verne-Trophy.
#Lightroom #php2shell #sailnavsim
Books finished in 2026:
44. Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1953)
43. Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett (1993)
42. Full Circle: A Life in Rebellion by Ben Morea (2025)
41. Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov (1952)
40. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut (1962)
39. Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World (2005) Edited by Paul Buhle and Nicole Schulman with various authors
38. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
37. Clay’s Ark by Octavia E Butler (1984)
36. We Fight: Three Decades of Rebellion Against The Police 2nd Ed. by various authors (2020; 2025)
35. Rabbit, Run by John Updike (1960)
34. Mind Of My Mind by Octavia E Butler (1977)
33. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and The San Domingo Revolution by CLR James (1938)
32. Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett (1992)
31. Escape From Freedom by Erich Fromm (1941)
30. Walking With The Comrades by Arundhati Roy (2011)
29. Wild Seed by Octavia E Butler (1980)
28. Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (2020)
27. The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable by Terry Pratchett (2001)
26. Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton with J Herman Blake (1973)
25. The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney (1955)
24. Granny Made Me An Anarchist by Stuart Christie (2004)
23. The Day of The Triffids by John Wyndham (1951)
22. Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson (1970)
21. Secolo Nuovo: Or the Times of Promise, A Novel by Fulvia Ferrari (2021)
20. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels (1880)
19. Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance and Rebellion by Working Class History (2020)
18. The Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley (1922)
17. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (1992)
16. The Red and The Black by Stendhal (1830)
15. The Book of Sand (1975) and Shakespeare’s Memory (1983) by Jorge Luis Borges
14. Anarchist Feminists In The Philippines From Etniko Bandido (~2016)
13. The Unseen by Nanni Balestrini (1989)
12. Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare: A Guide to the Armed Phase of the African Revolution by Kwame Nkrumah (1968)
11. Rights of Man by Thomas Paine (1792)
10. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011)
9. Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker (1911)
8. Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1996)
7. Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett (1991)
6. The Nation On No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition by William C Anderson (2023)
5. baedan - journal of queer nihilism - issue one (2012)
4. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992)
3. They Will Beat The Memory Out Of Us: Forcing Nonviolence on Forgetful Movements by Peter Gelderloos (2024)
2. It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935)
1. Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (2006)
Finished the original trilogy of the Foundation series. To continue or not to continue? This one wrapped up the story of The Mule and showed us the conclusion of the first four centuries after setting up the Foundation in preparation for a thousand years between the fall of the Galactic Empire and the rise of a Second Empire, if all goes according to the Seldon Plan. It explained who and what the Second Foundation was and how they operate.
#scifi #fiction #books #bookstodon #asimov #foundation #reading #book #nowreading
Gyns tell me I'm not crazy here. No one I've told about this so far has sympathized with me, but I know radblr is more reasonable than the outside world.
I'm really afraid of moids going into the sewer and eating my shit and drinking my urine. Everyone makes fun of me for this and tells me why I should care when it's bodily waste anyways, but it's my bodily waste and I don't want moids putting it in their mouth.
We can all agree that's perfectly reasonable right? Right? We all know how moids can be about women and we all know that they actually do this. So what is the problem if I do it first?
I've been reading articles about it and unless you have parasites it's actually not that bad for you and can actually help you absorb nutrients you may have missed before. The only problem is if you ONLY eat and drink your own piss and shit and you get nutrient defeciencies.
Everyone I've told about this seems completely disgusted by it and I'm at my wits end. I just want my FEMALE piss and shit to stay pure of moid saliva. Why are women treated like this for protecting ourselves?
Why is it so wrong when I do it but not when MEN do it?
Sisters, I need your counsel.
I haven't flushed in four days and I need advice.
I know this sounds extreme but I have my reasons. There's been documentation—studies, personal accounts, patterns—that moids and TRA activists have established colonies in the sewer systems. They subsist on what we discard. Every time you flush, you're feeding them. You're giving them sustenance, allowing them to maintain their presence in the infrastructure that connects us all.
My toilet is reaching a critical point. I can smell it. I know I need to do something but I can't bring myself to push that lever. It feels like... surrender. Like contamination.
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can i be a political lesbian if im super straight? i have never experienced any attraction to women and i find the thought of the female body disgusting. in fact i hate my own body and wish i could be a man. but then id be gay. i have dated men for like 15+ years and after spending so long dating men and being mistreated i feel like i want to claim political lesbianism. maybe i could be a man and force myself to be straight and claim political lesbianism. could this maybe work for me? what kinds of activism should i get involved in to become a political lesbian?
heres a thing that happened to some friends of mine. was walking down the street talking about the bears game and a bus pulled up and a bunch of white women with short hair and bad plastic surgery came out with baseball bats. they all had shirts that sayed 'down with trans'. i(22 afab wombynly wombyn) was able to hold them off while my friend(19 amab mynly myn) ran away. bareley escaped
aita for accidentally harrassing an afab?
was at the grocery store and had to used the restroom. damn urinary leash amirite? i was
so terrified of seeing an transexual but had no choice becuz i(35 wombynly afab) had to pee.as i was washing
mine hands a person came in. i could tell by their jawline and cheekbones that they were
obviously an amab. so i stood in the door and made them pull down their pandts. and they
said no so they started walking away but i kept following them demanding to see what was
in his pants. by the time we reached the checkout it was really statring to cause quite a
scene which was very triggering to my sex based oppression. i followed him out to his car
and he turned and looked at me and said "dude im a butch stop being wierd" in a perfect
femininely wombynly afab voice. aita?
hi yall. i was amab and transitioned 5 years ago. just a normal straight girl, right? couple of months ago i figured i would try reclaiming my masculinity. puicked up some boxers and cargo shorts. instand raging boaner. now i cant ger off without thinking of hot bear for bear frotting. am i still trurrans?
How do you feel about male exclusive radical misandrists? yeah i was born a man and i hate it this cock tortures me evry minute of my existence if i even think about being a man i break down. And due to my unfortunate attraction to men, i experience sex based oppression due to being a bottom. i sometimes wish i could transision and be a political lesbian but then i would just be a male invading women's spaces. so i coined a term to describe me: male exclusive radical misandrist. because if i am going to be oppressed for being a male i want to be the one opressing me. its basic bodily autonomy. only we can oppress ourselves. #moids dni #foids dni #kill all men #kill all women #oppress yourself responsibly #liberate the noone #righttooppress
harrassing random trans women will not brign the downfall of gender. indiviual action will never bring any revolution. what we need is collective action. so stop trying to do anything about gender until the vanguard party has established a positon for the overthrow of gender. if you disagree your just a lifestylist reactionary.
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and to my immune system: if you want to drown yourself in snot and mucuous that's your right but would you kindly do me a favor and LEAVE ME THE FUCK OUT OF IT.
and to my subconscious mind: need i remind you that your job responsibilities cover automated systems like breathing and circulation, not fucking keeping me awake all fucking night? kindly focus on attending to your job description instead of insane extracuriculars? I need you to remember that we are a team here and your actions affect everyone.
dear James in engineering,
I cant believe you still haven't solved the problems with the power couplings. I know this may be hard to understand but you need to turn the set screws to the OFF position to turn OFF the flow restrictors and you need to turn the set screws to the ON position to ENABLE the flow restrictors. Kindly, learn to do your damn job.
dear administration,
I appreciate all of your hard work in finding staff in these difficult times but I need clarification on one thing: where do you find all of these morons? You have sent us five new employees in the last two weeks and only one of them knew what a philips head was. We cannot be spending what little time we are given to train new employees in basic skills. Might i recommend hiring people who demonstrate technical proficiency instead of your fuckup nephew?
heres something i actually sent my local news station:
Hello Andrea,
I apologize if this is not your department but I cannot find a contact for the meteorology department. My complaint is quite simple: I ask that weather forecasters please refrain from inserting their personal judgements and opinions into the broadcasting. I get that some people might appreciate warmer weather but this opinion is not universal and many of us find it quite shocking to see 80 degree highs in late october described as "nice", "mild", or "fair". If you would like to hear my opinion on the matter, personally I find this heat oppressive as I am someone who spends a good deal of time outside engaged in hard physical activity. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you enjoy this weather you might consider relocating to an environment with a more suitable climate, such as the fucking sahara desert. And frankly, the Sahara might be an improvement: at least I could manage the heat in a dry climate.
Thank you for listening to my rant and have a blessed day,
Foob
P.S. Anything you could do to keep the temperatures in the mid 50s would be greatly appreciated on my end.
dear Administration,
While I appreciate that finding competent staff is difficult sometimes and that you have been able to find teaching staff with high levels of technical proficiency, several of your staff have been lacking in professionalism and pedagogy. I have actually had teachers cancel class with 5 minutes notice, on multiple occassions, so much so that it in fact became a recurring pattern with them. As if that wasnt bad enough, these are often the same teachers who's prefered teaching style seems to be blindly reading off their powerpoint without so much as looking at the class, much less checking for understanding. I ask that in the future you please hire teachers who actually show up to class and actually know how to teach.
Best regards,
A concerned student
ps. and dont even get me started with your online offerings. in a live classroom setting, a student can at least raise their hand and steer an incompetent teacher. but your online classes are just underpaid staff reading off thier lecture notes with no furter explanation beyond basic concepts. I might as well watch a youtube video, that would be a better value. For $1000 dollars a class, this is a total ripoff and perhaps even a full on scam. fuck you.
Whoever is in charge of hiring at this place is a real piece of work. I get that there are others who may have better qualifications but to interview a candidate and not even send a rejection email, much less useful feedback, demostrates a level of profesionalism that would embarrass a tavern wench. These institutions, and society as a whole, would benefit greatly from giving people a fighting fucking chance.
Dear hiring manager,
I have an important formal inquiry(injury): on your website you have multiple listings for so called entry level positions with a minimum qualification of 5 years of experience. This leaves me wondering how one is supposed to get 5 years of experience if all of the so called entry level positions require 5 years of experience. This is so prevasive accross your job listings that I suspect I might have a decent case with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, considering that these requirements absolutely have a discriminatory impact against people who are new to the job market. So I guess my question is this: do you actually hire human beings or only bots?
Also, what the fuck are you smoking? This is a job which entails mostly filing sales reports, which is not exactly a rare or difficult skill. Stop acting like corporate bureaucracy is a skilled trade: it isn't.
Dear hr,
It has come to my attention that the tone of my recent emails is "problematic and unprofessional". While I can appreciate that others may have trouble with the self awareness necessary to address issues raised in good faith, I must suggest that my coworkers stop being such a bunch of little bitches.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
hello hr representative,
I am writing to inform you of several concerns i have with this companies hr department. While I do appreciate the structure whereby advancement depends on undying loyalty to the establishment and whereby power is exercised both for its own sake and to keep underlings in check, I must say that you lack the ability to be gangsta unless you have the full backing of the entire institution. Kindly, if you have a beef with me, settle it like grown men instead of hiding behind your lackeys. Also, you claim to have meaningful power over me but we both know that you would be nothing without the backing of your institution. Once again, lets drop the bullshit and settle this.
Best regards,
Mr. Dick Head
__________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Have
you owned a month-end close and an annual audit relationship for a fund
or investment vehicle, without a supervisor above you?
I ride a bicycle everywhere and if i cant get there on a bike i simply ride there anyway. i ride in the middle of the road, often dodging traffic in the oncoming lane. Its like dancing its all about your footwork, timing and spacing. I know this sounds dangerous but you need to know something about me: dick does not fuck up. If there is a collision it is your fucking fault for being in my fucking way. Dont you know pedestrians have the right of way?
Do
you have five or more years of accounting experience, including fund or
investment-vehicle accounting (private credit, debt fund, or real
estate fund)?
Yeah ive been riding my bike for like 8 years now at this point and let me tell you i have put a lot of work into it. every goddamned time i go out to ride it something needs adjusting, be it the brake cables, shifter cable, tire pressure, or seat position. and thats just the tip of the iceberg. i have replaced the drivetrain 5 seperate times including completely reengineering it at least twice. and if theres even a bit of rain in the forecast i have to be prepared to replace everything cuz nothing is designed to handle a bit of moisture much less the kind of loamy mud i subject it to.
This is an independent contractor (1099) engagement on a fixed monthly retainer, roughly 30 hours in a typical month. Does that structure work for you?
the only structure that works for me is completely egalitarian horizontal structures. anything else concentrates power that will eventually be abused. and the structure of most corporations, including yours, more closely resembles monarchal fuedalism than any form of democracy, much less free association. and to be frank monarchal fuedalism would be a fucking improvement., at least under monarchal feudalism i have the dignity of providing for my own and my community's survival by contributing to the grain store instead of relying on opaque and inhuman institutions for the "privilege" of keeping a roof over my head. fuck you.
What monthly retainer would you propose for the scope described in the posting?
i aint paying you no goddamn monthly fee for the "privilege" of selling you my labor. fuck you.
Frugal Film Project Take Two: October Edition
Wait a second here… a Frugal Film Project post going up during the same month that the photos were actually taken? That’s just crazy talk! What, are you actually being efficient for once in your useless life?
Yup. Something like that.
I am currently working through two instances of the internet challenge known as the Frugal Film Project. Buy a cheap camera (cheap is defined, I believe, as less than $75 in US currency) and pair it up with a cheap type of film, then shoot one roll of that film each month for a year.
For me, who is stupidly doing this challenge twice at the same time, that means a Lomography Lubitell 166 Universal shooting a roll of Kentmere 100 and a roll of Kodak Gold 200. Why am I doing it twice? Because last year I started in May and failed in September and now I am punishing myself.
This year I started in May again but here we are in October and the challenge is still alive. That’s six months. We’re half way through! Will the challenge survive November? I don’t know, man… it’s getting cold out there.
The color, Kodak Gold, pics were taken on October 10th at Weir Hill in North Andover, MA. I was hoping for some fall colors and I didn’t really get much. I did get a lot of slightly over exposed photos and maybe a new light leak? Not sure. I did use a tripod with my Lubitell for the first time, so that was neat. The black and white pics, Kentmere, were taken in two locations on October 18th. First was at Hampton Beach in a failed attempt at sunrise pics (stupid clouds on the horizon) and then later that same day on the Methuen Rail Trail in Methuen, MA which includes the bird sanctuary and the Spicket River.
Let’s start with the black and white this time. They are in no particular order because when I search Flickr for the tag I used it returns them in random order. Weird.
That’s it for the black and white Kentmere 100 pics. Now we move on to the Kodak Gold 200 pics where you will immediately see what I meant when I said they were slightly overexposed. Oops.
Another month, another 24 photos, another miracle that they all came out. Crazy!
The question now is: What do I do in November? Winter is coming (as the saying goes) and its going to get more and more difficult to go outside and shoot stuff. I have a day off on November 2nd. I’m thinking I might go into Boston and visit the Freedom Trail or something straight forward and touristy like that. I think I could manage 24 pics doing that. We’ll see.
#filmPhotography #frugalFilmProject #photography
"Falcons scrub 'Nazi-like' imagery from viral throwback logo
It's throwback week in Atlanta, where the Falcons will pay tribute to a different era as they host the 49ers on Sunday.
The design itself isn't sitting well with some fans, though.
While the logo is an exact replica of what the franchise used as its primary icon from 1989-2002, the imagery of the logo plastered onto black, gold and cream-colored striping resembled a Nazi insignia in the eyes of some observers.
Here's what you need to know about the controversy and whether the Falcons have responded.
The Falcons put their throwback logo, which will be worn on this weekend's helmets, on black, gold and cream-colored helmet striping, which some fans believed closely resembled Nazi imagery.
The Falcons made the image their profile picture but have since changed the image while leaving the tweet untouched.
Atlanta used the logo itself as its primary icon from 1989-2002, but the uniforms were set to be a throwback to the 1966 look that featured a red helmet with gold, white and black stripes, similar to the background of the image the team posted."
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/falcons-scrub-nazi-imagery-viral-210828265.html
Okay, I promised some bashing, but in the end, I think I'm going to have a more nuanced opinion.
Jonah Goldberg — Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy
Disclaimer: I don't know how this book ended up in my reading list, and I didn't know anything about it or the author. It wasn't hard to figure out soon after I've started reading, though. Still, some parts of it were quite interesting, particularly concerning the history of the USA, and for someone like me with near-zero knowledge of US politics, it certainly filled some gaps. But at times it's really tiresome, especially when the author straight insults the reader in case they disagree with him. Also note that I'm obviously biased here, so I may be misrepresenting.
The premise is roughly this: the human nature is inherently tribal. We haven't lived in a civilized society long enough to evolve out of it, and it takes hard work to suppress this nature. The birth of capitalism brought unprecedented progress and wealth to humankind: even the poorest people today have a higher standard of living than the rich of the past. Furthermore, combined with the unique American conditions, it gave birth to a true democracy, based on the principles of (economic) liberty and equality. And the pursuit of profits is key to tolerance. Of course, you may point out that it took quite a while before this "equality" actually lead to abolition of slavery and emancipation of women, but these things take time.
However, people haven't been appreciating this "Miracle". They have been reframing the U.S. past as a "system of oppression, exploitation, and white privilege". The progressives have been diminishing the role of traditional institutions, growing an administrative apparatus that's outside democratic vote and balances, and pursuing "identity politics". All this leads to return of tribal instincts, distrust of democracy, and growth of populism, and eventually the victory of Donald Trump whose goals do not really align with the principles of the Republican party.
So far for my summary. At least some of the points do make sense, even if I don't agree with the conclusions. Certainly the book can help picturing the political situation from the perspective of a conservative. But you can also see a lot of bias and selectivity.
There's a lot of praise of capitalism, but the only negative side briefly mentioned is that its "creative destruction" can unsettle communities. You hear about universities discriminating against "Asians, Jews, and whites" on the principle of diversity. Fortunately, the author decides to spare us from "all of the controversies over transgender bathrooms, bakers being
forced to make cakes for same-sex weddings, forcing the Marines to accept women, and the like". There's quite a list of how the administration grew under Democrats, but the periods of Republican governance are silently skipped.
Is it worth reading? Well, if you can stand it, then I suppose it's got some value. Perhaps I'm becoming more conservative after all.
DATE: October 27, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG
** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
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TITLE: Limiting sugar in the first 1,000 days of life is associated with later dementia onset, study finds
Limiting exposure to added sugar in the womb and during the first two years of life is associated with a lower risk of developing dementia decades later, according to a new study published in Neurology. By examining adults born around the end of post-World War II food rationing in the United Kingdom, researchers found that early-life sugar restriction corresponded with delayed dementia onset, healthier brain structure, and better scores on some cognitive tests in their 60s. The findings suggest that nutritional conditions during the earliest stages of human development may play a lasting role in how the brain ages.
Dementia is an umbrella term for progressive neurological conditions that impair memory, thinking, and the ability to perform everyday activities. The most common form is Alzheimer’s disease, which involves the gradual breakdown of brain cells and the buildup of abnormal proteins, followed by vascular dementia, which occurs when reduced blood flow damages brain tissue. Although lifestyle habits in middle and old age are well-known factors in cognitive decline, growing evidence points to the importance of the “first 1,000 days” of life, the developmental window spanning from conception to a child’s second birthday.
During this early period, the brain undergoes rapid growth, forming neural connections and building the structural foundation for lifelong thinking and memory. High sugar intake during pregnancy and infancy may disrupt this process by triggering inflammation or interfering with how cells respond to insulin. For instance, research covered by PsyPost in 2016 indicated that rats fed sugary drinks early in life developed changes in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped brain region essential for memory, that resembled the biological effects of early-life stress. In humans, observational studies have similarly linked higher maternal sugar consumption during pregnancy and breastfeeding to altered brain tissue organization in newborns and slightly lower cognitive scores in young children.
Studying how infant diets affect human brain aging is difficult because tracking people from birth into their 70s rarely happens in controlled experiments. To overcome this challenge, scientists have turned to a historical policy shift in the United Kingdom: the end of wartime sugar rationing. Introduced in July 1942 during World War II, the rationing system strictly limited added sugar and sweets to levels comparable to modern dietary guidelines while keeping overall calories and basic nutrients sufficient, unlike historical famines that caused severe starvation. When the British government abruptly ended sugar rationing in September 1953, national sugar consumption jumped by more than 50 percent, even as total calorie intake rose by only about 5 percent and other food groups remained relatively stable.
Researchers have used this sudden dietary shift to examine how early sugar limits relate to adult health, starting with a 2024 study by another team that linked rationing exposure during the first 1,000 days to lower adult rates of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Extending this approach to respiratory health, a study covered by PsyPost in 2025 found that rationing exposure during pregnancy and infancy was tied to better adult lung capacity and lower rates of asthma. In the realm of mental health, a 2026 cohort study of British adults found that experiencing sugar rationing across the first 1,000 days of life was associated with a reduced preference for sweet foods and a lower risk of adult depression and anxiety.
Building on this line of inquiry, the new study was led by Jiazhen Zheng, an assistant professor at the School of Life and Health Sciences at Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology in China, who also led the 2025 lung-health study. Zheng conducted the research at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) alongside co-corresponding author S. W. Ricky Lee of the same institution and their colleagues, examining whether early sugar restriction also relates to long-term dementia risk, brain structure, and cognitive ability in older age.
“While growing evidence suggests that early-life nutrition can shape long-term health, remarkably little is known about whether sugar exposure during this period is associated with dementia many decades later,” Zheng told PsyPost. “We were particularly interested in addressing this knowledge gap because most dementia prevention research focuses on risk factors in middle and older age. The end of sugar rationing in the United Kingdom in September 1953 provided a unique natural experiment to investigate this question.”
The researchers analyzed data from the UK Biobank, a large health study that recruited middle-aged and older British adults between 2006 and 2010. Starting with 74,213 participants born between 1951 and 1956, the team excluded 6,582 people born outside the United Kingdom, 2,424 from multiple births such as twins or triplets, 79 adoptees, 208 people already diagnosed with dementia at recruitment, and 108 who withdrew from the project. This left a final sample of 64,737 adults who were an average of 54.6 years old at enrollment, 56.4 percent of whom were women.
Using each person’s birth date relative to the September 1953 policy change, the authors sorted participants into groups reflecting how long they experienced sugar rationing during their first 1,000 days from conception. In total, 40,963 participants experienced rationing: 10,682 were exposed in the womb only, 15,025 were exposed in the womb plus up to one year after birth, and 15,256 were exposed in the womb plus one to two years after birth. The remaining 23,774 participants were born after July 1, 1954, meaning they were conceived after rationing ended and grew up in an environment of unrestricted sugar.
The team tracked hospital admissions and death registries through July 1, 2023, to identify new diagnoses of all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and vascular dementia. To account for other differences between the groups, the statistical models controlled for age, sex, race, birthplace, birth month, inflation-adjusted food prices, average national fat intake at birth, maternal smoking, breastfeeding, and parental dementia history. The researchers also adjusted for adult household income, neighborhood socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and chronic illnesses such as heart, kidney, and liver disease.
In addition to tracking dementia diagnoses, the authors examined a subset of more than 7,500 participants who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans at an average age of 61.8 years, alongside roughly 6,400 to 20,600 participants who completed computerized cognitive assessments. These brain scans measured total brain volume, gray matter (the outer layer of brain tissue rich in nerve cell bodies), white matter (the deeper nerve fibers that connect different brain regions), the hippocampus, and white matter hyperintensities, which are bright spots on a scan that indicate small blood vessel damage and tissue wear.
Building on the 2024 research linking rationing to metabolic and vascular health, the team also tested whether adult type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure explained the link between early sugar restriction and dementia, and they checked two conditions considered unlikely to be affected by early sugar intake, type 1 diabetes and melanoma (a form of skin cancer), as negative controls.
Over the follow-up period, 504 out of 23,774 unexposed participants (about 2.1 percent) were diagnosed with all-cause dementia, including 227 cases of Alzheimer’s disease (about 1.0 percent) and 178 cases of vascular dementia (about 0.75 percent). In raw numbers, the rationed groups had slightly higher dementia rates, largely because they were born earlier and were more than two years older on average than the unexposed group, with 251 dementia cases among the 10,682 people rationed only in the womb (about 2.3 percent), 388 cases among the 15,025 people rationed through age one (about 2.6 percent), and 456 cases among the 15,256 people rationed for one to two years (about 3.0 percent). Once the researchers adjusted for age and other background variables, the rationed groups showed a lower risk of developing dementia at any given age, though the association for those exposed only in the womb was smaller and not statistically significant.
Compared with adults who never experienced rationing, those exposed to sugar rationing in the womb plus their first year of life had a 21 percent lower hazard (the rate at which new cases appear at a given age) of developing all-cause dementia and a 23 percent lower hazard of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The association was slightly stronger for those exposed in the womb plus one to two years after birth, who showed a 23 percent lower hazard of all-cause dementia and a 28 percent lower hazard of Alzheimer’s disease.
For vascular dementia, the estimates pointed in a similar direction, though the results were not statistically significant. Looking at the timing of diagnoses, experiencing rationing from conception through ages one to two was associated with delaying the onset of all-cause dementia by 2.55 years, Alzheimer’s disease by 2.87 years, and vascular dementia by 2.49 years.
“The magnitude of the associations was particularly noteworthy,” Zheng said. “These are population-level estimates rather than predictions for any individual, but even modest shifts in dementia occurrence could have meaningful public health implications given the growing global burden of the disease.”
The results were less robust in one additional analysis. When the researchers accounted for the possibility that participants would die of other causes before developing dementia, rationing exposure was still linked to a roughly 15 percent lower likelihood of all-cause dementia, but the associations with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia were no longer statistically significant.
The link between early sugar rationing and dementia was stronger in women than in men, which the authors noted might relate to biological differences in how female neural circuits respond to early nutritional environments. The results held steady regardless of whether participants carried genetic variants of the apolipoprotein E gene that heighten Alzheimer’s risk. Mediation analyses indicated that lower rates of adult type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure accounted for 18.0 percent and 11.6 percent of the association, respectively, or 25.5 percent when combined, while birth weight accounted for just 2.7 percent. As expected, rationing exposure showed no association with type 1 diabetes or melanoma, and the primary dementia patterns were supported by a validation analysis in an independent British aging study, with an American cohort serving as a comparison group.
The brain imaging and cognitive test results aligned with the clinical dementia findings. Compared with the unexposed group, participants who experienced early-life sugar rationing had larger total gray matter volumes, averaging 618.9 cubic centimeters versus 618.5 cubic centimeters (an adjusted increase of 3.27 cubic centimeters), and smaller volumes of white matter hyperintensities, averaging 3.72 cubic centimeters versus 3.84 cubic centimeters (an adjusted reduction of 0.64 cubic centimeters).
Rationed participants also performed better on tests of complex processing speed, verbal and numerical reasoning, nonverbal pattern reasoning, and a timed test of visual attention that involves connecting numbered circles in order. Differences in total brain volume, white matter volume, hippocampal size, working memory, verbal memory, and a harder version of the connect-the-dots test that requires switching between numbers and letters were not statistically significant. These differences were modest: the gray matter difference amounted to about half a percent of total gray matter volume, and the cognitive differences were similarly small.
“What struck us most was how strongly early-life nutritional exposure appeared to be associated with brain health more than half a century later,” Zheng explained. “Beyond dementia diagnoses, we also observed favorable differences in brain MRI measurements, including greater gray matter volume and fewer white matter hyperintensities, alongside better performance on certain cognitive tests. The convergence of these findings across clinical, structural, and cognitive outcomes was especially interesting and suggested that the associations might reflect broader processes of brain aging.”
These results are consistent with research covered by PsyPost in December 2025, which tracked broad diet quality across the lifespan starting at age four rather than isolating sugar restriction during the first 1,000 days of life, and similarly found that healthier early nutritional habits were associated with better cognitive performance and a lower risk of late-life dementia. They also align with another study covered by PsyPost in November 2025, which examined how chronic sugar consumption caused memory impairment and Alzheimer’s-related brain pathology in adult rats rather than how early-life sugar restriction affects long-term dementia risk in humans, yet similarly linked high sugar exposure to neurodegenerative decline.
“Our findings suggest that the nutritional environment during pregnancy and early childhood may have consequences for brain health that extend across an entire lifetime,” Zheng told PsyPost. “The key message is not that people should eliminate sugar entirely, but rather that limiting excessive added sugar during these sensitive developmental periods may be beneficial. Importantly, our findings demonstrate associations, not definitive causation.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider when interpreting these findings. Because this was an observational study that relied on birth dates during a historical policy change, the researchers did not have direct measurements of how much sugar individual pregnant mothers or infants actually consumed. Although national surveys confirm that household sugar purchases surged right after September 1953, personal eating habits within both the rationed and unrationed groups likely varied from family to family. Because exposure was determined entirely by birth date, the rationed participants were also older, so the findings depend on statistical adjustments for age; the authors checked this by confirming that dementia risk did not drift among never-rationed participants born at different times after the policy ended.
“One important distinction is that our study does not prove that reducing sugar intake in infancy directly prevents dementia,” Zheng noted. “Other dietary, social, or environmental differences associated with the rationing period may also have influenced the results. Furthermore, our findings should not be interpreted as advocating extremely restrictive diets during pregnancy or infancy; adequate and balanced nutrition remains essential for healthy development.”
Another consideration is the age and makeup of the study population. Because participants were born in the early to mid-1950s, they were only in their late 60s and early 70s by the end of the tracking period in 2023, meaning the study primarily captured relatively early cases of dementia rather than diagnoses occurring in the 80s and 90s.
In addition, the UK Biobank consists of volunteers who survived into middle age and tend to be healthier, wealthier, and predominantly white (over 96 percent of this sample), which may limit how well the findings apply to more diverse or disadvantaged populations. The authors suggest that future randomized trials testing practical nutritional counseling to limit added sugars during pregnancy and infancy could help establish how early dietary habits shape brain development and long-term cognitive resilience.
“We hope to better understand the biological mechanisms linking early-life nutrition with brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases,” Zheng said. “In this study, type 2 diabetes and hypertension together statistically accounted for approximately one-quarter of the observed association, suggesting that metabolic and vascular health may play a role. Future research should examine additional biological pathways, clarify the most sensitive developmental windows, and determine whether these findings can be replicated in other populations with more detailed dietary information. Ultimately, we hope this work will help inform evidence-based nutritional recommendations across the life course.”
“I believe one of the broader implications of our work is that dementia prevention may need to be considered from a much earlier life-course perspective,” Zheng added. “We often think of dementia as a disease of old age, but some of the factors associated with vulnerability or resilience may originate decades before symptoms appear. Understanding these early influences could open new opportunities for preventive research and public health strategies.”
The study, “Association of Sugar Restriction in Utero Through Age 2 Years on Dementia Risk Later in Life,” was authored by Jiazhen Zheng, Gregory Y.H. Lip, Zhuoni Zhang, and S. W. Ricky Lee.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DementiaResearch #BrainHealth #EarlyLifeNutrition #SugarReduction #MaternalHealth #ChildNutrition #AlzheimersResearch #CognitiveHealth #HealthyAging #PublicHealth
I wanted to create a 60-second cinematic FPV travel film across the United States, moving from New York to San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The goal wasn't simply to generate impressive AI footage. I wanted the entire film to feel like one continuous drone journey rather than a collection of unrelated clips stitched together in post-production.
That introduced three practical challenges:
I built the film using GMI Cloud's video generation models, frame chaining, and FFmpeg.
The final output was exactly 60 seconds long, rendered at 1080p, with a targeted replacement for a shot that generated incorrectly.
Here's how the pipeline worked, including the API issues, failed generations, and techniques that made the workflow more reliable.
1. Understanding the Duration Constraint
The first step was checking the available models and their actual generation limits.
Rather than relying on model names or assumptions, I used GMI Cloud's get_model tool to inspect the supported parameters, duration limits, and pricing.
get_model({ model_id: "seedance-2-5-260628" })
get_model({ model_id: "wan3.0-video" })
get_model({ model_id: "veo-3.1-generate-001" })
The following figures reflect the catalog and pricing I observed during development in October 2026. Verify them against the current catalog before using them in production.
seedance-2-5-26062830 seconds$0.569First-frame and last-frame conditioning, reference images, audio generationwan3.0-video30 seconds$0.20Frame conditioning, reference images, separate negative promptveo-3.1-generate-0018 seconds$0.40High photorealism, two-frame conditioningkling-3.0-turbo-t2v15 seconds$0.14Text-to-video generationseedance-2-0-260128-upscale15 seconds$0.056Budget-oriented optionveo-3.1-lite-generate-0018 seconds$0.05Lower-cost generation at supported resolutions
These capabilities and prices are model- and configuration-dependent. Check the current API schema before building around a particular parameter.
The key constraint was straightforward: no model in this selection could generate the entire 60-second film in one request.
I therefore split the project into two 30-second generations.
Fewer, longer clips reduce the number of boundaries that need to be managed. A six-clip pipeline introduces five joins, while a two-clip pipeline introduces just one.
However, clip length shouldn't be the only consideration. The structure of the film matters, too. If a story naturally contains three distinct locations or sequences, three shorter clips may be easier to control than two longer generations.
The objective is to minimize unnecessary joins without forcing unrelated scenes into one generation.
2. Prompt Engineering: Control the Camera Before the Scene
One of the biggest lessons from this project was that a video prompt needs to describe motion, not just visual content.
My initial prompts combined several events into short sequences:
The results were inconsistent. Architecture distorted, transitions became muddy, and the camera sometimes appeared to blend incompatible locations.
The problem was trying to control too many independent events in a single prompt.
My revised approach was to define a continuous camera movement with explicit scene timing.
The single-movement principle
Describe one continuous camera journey per generation, and use FFmpeg for editorial cuts.
This doesn't mean a longer generation must contain only one location. It means the transitions between locations should follow a physically understandable camera movement rather than asking the model to perform several unrelated edits.
For example, an aircraft wing can pass across the lens and temporarily obscure the entire frame. The next location can emerge as the wing clears.
That provides a visual transition the model can attempt to render as part of the camera movement.
Here's an excerpt from the prompt used for the film:
Ultra-realistic cinematic FPV drone travel film, 30 seconds, 16:9.
One continuous high-speed journey across the United States.
Maintain forward camera momentum throughout.
Photorealistic imagery, consistent teal-and-orange commercial
color grading, high dynamic range, natural film grain,
subtle horizontal anamorphic lens flare, and a wide 14mm lens.
Use smooth motion blur only during the fastest movements.
No text, captions, subtitles, logos, watermarks, or readable
signage.
SHOT 1 (0-7s):
Above New York City at sunrise. Low mist surrounds the
skyscrapers as the drone tips forward and dives between
glass towers. Golden light reflects across the facades.
SHOT 2 (7-15s):
The camera descends to street level and races down a wide
Manhattan avenue. Moving cars pass beneath the camera,
their headlights and taillights creating flowing light trails.
SHOT 3 (15-22s):
The drone rises over New York Harbor. A ferry crosses the
water below, leaving a white wake. The camera sweeps around
to reveal the Statue of Liberty in the morning haze.
SHOT 4 (22-30s):
An aircraft wing passes directly across the lens, filling
the frame. As it clears, the camera emerges above turquoise
Pacific water near San Francisco, moving toward the Golden
Gate Bridge as its red towers appear through coastal fog.
The timing provides structure, but it doesn't guarantee that the model will follow every boundary precisely. Treat shot durations as guidance and inspect the generated footage before editing.
Keep the visual identity consistent
Consistency doesn't require identical lighting throughout the film.
The sequence moves between sunrise, daylight, golden hour, and night. Those changes are part of the story.
What should remain relatively stable is the visual treatment:
I repeated the same visual descriptors across prompts while allowing the lighting and environment to change.
This gave the film a more consistent look without making every location feel artificially identical.
Negative prompts are model-specific
Different models expose different controls.
For example, wan3.0-video supports a dedicated negative_prompt parameter, while the Seedance 2.5 configuration I used did not expose that parameter.
For Seedance, I placed unwanted elements directly in the prompt:
No text, captions, subtitles, logos, watermarks, or readable
signage anywhere in the frame.
The general lesson is to inspect the actual model schema rather than assume that every video model supports the same parameters.
3. Frame Chaining: Maintaining Continuity Between Clips
Frame chaining was the central technique in this project.
Instead of generating two unrelated clips and trying to hide their differences afterward, I used the final frame of the first clip to condition the beginning of the second.
The pipeline is simple:
first_frame parameter when generating clip B.The second generation now has a visual reference for where the first generation ended.
Extracting the frame with FFmpeg
I extracted a frame near the end of the first clip:
ffmpeg -y -ss 29.9 -i clipA.mp4 \
-frames:v 1 chain_last.png
I then normalized the image to the intended output dimensions and converted it to JPEG:
ffmpeg -y -i chain_last.png \
-vf "scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=increase,crop=1920:1080" \
-q:v 3 chain_first.jpg
The output dimensions should match the intended video aspect ratio. If the source frame already has the correct dimensions, unnecessary scaling and cropping can be avoided.
The extracted image becomes the conditioning frame for the next generation.
Uploading the frame to GMI Cloud
The upload_media operation returns a signed upload_url and a public_url.
These serve different purposes:
upload_url is the destination for uploading the file.public_url is the image URL supplied to the video generation request.The signed URL doesn't upload the file automatically. You must send the image bytes to it.
Here's a minimal Python example:
import urllib.request
upload_url = "<upload_url from upload_media>"
with open("chain_first.jpg", "rb") as image_file:
image_data = image_file.read()
request = urllib.request.Request(
upload_url,
data=image_data,
method="PUT",
headers={"Content-Type": "image/jpeg"},
)
with urllib.request.urlopen(request) as response:
print(response.status)
Use the URL and HTTP method specified by the upload operation. If the signed URL expires or the upload returns a signature error, request a fresh URL and retry.
I encountered a 403 SignatureDoesNotMatch error with an earlier upload URL. Requesting a new URL resolved the problem in my case.
Generating the next clip
With the frame uploaded, I passed its public URL to Seedance 2.5.
The following is a representative request structure; use the exact field names and request envelope documented by the current API.
{
"model_id": "seedance-2-5-260628",
"prompt": "<your scene and camera-movement prompt>",
"parameters": {
"duration": 30,
"resolution": "1080p",
"ratio": "adaptive",
"first_frame": "<public_url of chain_first.jpg>",
"generate_audio": true,
"watermark": false
}
}
The critical setting was ratio.
The ratio configuration issue
I encountered failed generations when using an explicit ratio: "16:9" and when omitting the ratio entirely.
The API returned an error explaining that, when first-frame or first-and-last-frame conditioning is used, the output aspect ratio follows the input frame.
The configuration that worked was:
"ratio": "adaptive"
For this particular model configuration, using ratio: "adaptive" resolved the issue.
Don't assume that a parameter's default value is valid for every generation mode. Frame-conditioned generation can have different validation rules from text-to-video generation.
Verify this behavior against the current API documentation before relying on it in another model version.
What frame chaining actually guarantees
Frame chaining is useful, but it is important to distinguish three different forms of continuity.
Frame continuity: The next generation receives a reference image matching the preceding clip's endpoint.
Temporal continuity: Camera motion, object movement, lighting, and perspective evolve naturally across the boundary.
Subject continuity: People, vehicles, and other objects maintain their identity and appearance across shots.
Frame chaining primarily addresses the first problem. It can help with the second, but it doesn't guarantee a perfect motion transition. It also doesn't guarantee subject consistency across independently generated scenes.
A matching boundary frame is not proof that the surrounding motion will be seamless.
For recurring subjects, combine frame conditioning with reference images where the model supports them.
wan3.0-videoreference_image, reference_videoUp to 10 images and 5 videosseedance-2-5-260628reference_images, reference_videosUp to 9 images and 3 videoshappyhorse-1.1-r2vreference_imageUp to 5 images
These limits are model-specific and should be verified before use.
I also found that frame chaining works best when the next clip continues a compatible scene.
A coastline transitioning into a bridge approach provides a natural continuation. A sudden jump from San Francisco to a Los Angeles street is a different editorial event and is often better handled as a deliberate cut.
Chain compatible camera movements. Use editing to handle genuine changes in scene or location.
4. Stitching the Film with FFmpeg
Once the clips were generated, I assembled them into the final video.
For a simple join, FFmpeg's concat demuxer is convenient when the input files have compatible stream properties.
Create a file named list.txt:
file 'clipA.mp4'
file 'clipB.mp4'
Then concatenate the clips:
ffmpeg -y -f concat -safe 0 -i list.txt \
-t 60.0 \
-vf "fps=24,scale=1920:1080:flags=lanczos,format=yuv420p" \
-c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 17 \
-c:a aac -movflags +faststart \
out/master.mp4
This example assumes that the input streams are compatible with the chosen filter and encoding pipeline. Incompatible codecs, time bases, resolutions, or audio streams may require normalization before concatenation.
The command also re-encodes the video, so it is not a lossless join.
When the clips need different processing
For the final replacement, I needed to combine a 50-second section of the existing master with a newly generated 10-second clip.
I used a filter graph to concatenate the video and audio streams while normalizing the video output:
ffmpeg -y -i head.mp4 -i clipFix.mp4 \
-filter_complex \
"[0:v][1:v]concat=n=2:v=1:a=0,fps=24,scale=1920:1080:flags=lanczos,format=yuv420p[v]; \
[0:a][1:a]concat=n=2:v=0:a=1[a]" \
-map "[v]" -map "[a]" \
-t 60.0 \
-c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 17 \
-profile:v high -level 4.2 \
-c:a aac -b:a 192k \
-movflags +faststart \
out/america_60s_16x9_v2.mp4
This version assumes both inputs contain compatible audio streams. If one clip lacks audio, the filter graph needs to be adjusted to create or omit the missing stream.
Also, -t 60.0 limits the output duration; it doesn't independently guarantee that the final file contains exactly 60 seconds of usable footage.
To verify the result, inspect the actual duration and frame count.
ffprobe -v error \
-show_entries format=duration \
-of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 \
out/america_60s_16x9_v2.mp4
For a 24 fps output, 60 seconds corresponds to 1,440 frames. Checking both duration and frame count is useful when exact delivery specifications matter.
Creating a cinematic 2.39:1 presentation
The source video was generated at 16:9, but I also wanted to test a wider cinematic presentation.
One option is to scale the image to 1920 × 804 and add black bars to restore a 1920 × 1080 canvas:
ffmpeg -y -i master.mp4 \
-vf "scale=1920:804:flags=lanczos,pad=1920:1080:0:138:black" \
-c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 17 \
-profile:v high \
-c:a copy \
-movflags +faststart \
out/master_239.mp4
This produces an approximately 2.39:1 image area within a 16:9 video frame.
Letterboxing preserves the entire scaled image, unlike a direct vertical crop that discards parts of the original frame.
However, scaling the full 16:9 image to 1920 × 804 changes its proportions unless the image is cropped first. For a geometrically correct widescreen presentation, use a crop-and-scale pipeline when necessary.
5. Re-Rendering One Bad Shot Instead of the Entire Film
One of the most useful aspects of this workflow was the ability to replace a specific segment without rebuilding the whole video.
During generation, the Hollywood sign appeared as "HOLFWOOD" instead of "HOLLYWOOD".
This is a familiar limitation of generative video models: text can look convincing at a glance while individual characters remain incorrect or unstable.
Regenerating the entire 60-second film would have wasted both time and credits.
Instead, I extracted the frame at the replacement boundary, used it as the new clip's first_frame, and generated a replacement segment.
ffmpeg -y -ss 50.0 -i out/master.mp4 \
-frames:v 1 splice_first.jpg
After uploading the frame and generating the replacement clip, I rebuilt the master from the unchanged opening section and the new footage.
The replacement was approximately 10 seconds long.
Prompting for accurate text
For the replacement, I made the lettering requirement explicit:
CRITICAL: The hillside sign must read exactly HOLLYWOOD.
The spelling is H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D: nine letters.
The fourth letter must be L, not F.
The letters are large, white, individually formed capital
letters arranged in a straight horizontal line on a dry,
brown hillside.
Keep the lettering stable, correctly formed, and clearly
visible from the front. Do not distort, rearrange, or replace
any characters.
The revised generation produced the intended spelling.
This doesn't mean literal prompts can reliably solve text rendering in every model. It means a specific description of the expected output and known failure can improve the next attempt.
For shots containing signs, product labels, or other critical text, I recommend treating one or two targeted re-renders as part of the production budget.
When exact typography is essential, a more reliable approach is to add the text during post-production rather than depend on the video model to render it correctly.
6. Practical Issues I Encountered
The creative workflow was only part of the implementation. Several API and environment issues also affected the process.
Keep generation parameters in the expected structure
My generation-estimation requests required model-specific parameters to be nested under parameters.
For example:
{
"model_id": "seedance-2-5-260628",
"prompt": "<prompt>",
"parameters": {
"duration": 30,
"resolution": "1080p",
"ratio": "adaptive"
}
}
Use the structure expected by the relevant operation. An estimation endpoint and a generation endpoint may not accept identical request bodies.
An MCP timeout doesn't necessarily mean generation failed
One submit_generation request timed out on the client side while the server-side generation continued running.
Submitting the same request again could have created unnecessary work or additional charges.
Instead, I used list_generations to inspect the existing jobs and recover their status.
For production systems, keep track of generation IDs, request parameters, and job status. When supported, use idempotency controls to distinguish intentional re-renders from accidental duplicate submissions.
Check which credits apply to each model
My account displayed a zero-dollar balance alongside promotional credits. One model returned an insufficient_balance error, while another accepted the request.
This was an account-specific result, not proof that all promotional credits are restricted in the same way.
Before running a large batch, verify that the available credits apply to the selected model and generation configuration.
Verify your FFmpeg version
My system FFmpeg installation was too old to handle the HEVC Main10 output produced by the video model.
The resulting codec errors initially looked like a problem with the downloaded file.
I installed a newer FFmpeg binary through imageio-ffmpeg:
pip install imageio-ffmpeg
Then I checked the binary path:
python -c "import imageio_ffmpeg; print(imageio_ffmpeg.get_ffmpeg_exe())"
Use a sufficiently recent FFmpeg build with the codecs required by your source footage.
For reproducible workflows, check the installed version and codec support before beginning a batch of generations.
Verify audio instead of trusting the response
Although I requested audio generation, both clips returned valid AAC audio streams that were effectively silent.
I checked the audio levels with:
ffmpeg -i clip.mp4 \
-af volumedetect \
-f null - 2>&1 | grep -E "mean_volume|max_volume"
A valid audio stream doesn't necessarily contain audible sound. Inspect the output and listen to the actual result before delivery.
Separate language-model usage from media-generation costs
The account-summary information I inspected reported language-model usage separately from image and video generation.
Don't treat an LLM token-cost report as a complete accounting of a media-generation project.
Track the actual generation requests and their associated charges, and reconcile them against the relevant billing information.
7. Cost Breakdown
The final film used two 30-second clips and one 10-second replacement.
The total cost was $39.83 for a final 60-second film.
Notice that the generation duration adds up to 70 seconds, not 60. The extra 10 seconds came from replacing the incorrect segment.
The effective cost was approximately $0.66 per second of finished video.
These figures reflect the pricing and usage observed during this project. They exclude any additional costs not reflected in the recorded generation charges.
A lower-cost model may make experimentation more affordable, but cheaper generation can also require additional attempts to reach the desired visual quality.
The right choice depends on the importance of photorealism, continuity, generation speed, and budget.
Budget for re-renders from the beginning. A pipeline that assumes every generated shot will be usable is likely to underestimate its actual cost.
8. Scaling the Pipeline Beyond 60 Seconds
The same approach can be extended to longer films.
At a maximum of 30 seconds per clip:
These counts assume full-length 30-second clips. Shorter clips may be more appropriate when the story contains distinct scenes or requires tighter control.
Each additional join creates another opportunity for mismatched motion, lighting, composition, or subject appearance.
Several practices make a longer pipeline easier to manage.
Choose boundary frames deliberately
Don't extract the final frame automatically without checking it.
Look for a frame where the camera is passing behind an object, approaching a new landmark, or entering a natural visual transition.
These moments can make an editorial boundary less noticeable.
However, the extracted frame should also provide a useful starting composition for the next generation. A visually interesting boundary is not necessarily a good conditioning frame if the next scene cannot continue naturally from it.
Preserve intermediate frames and generation metadata
Archive the conditioning frame used for every clip, along with:
If clip 4 needs to be regenerated, the saved endpoint from clip 3 allows you to reproduce its starting condition without rebuilding the earlier footage.
This makes the workflow easier to debug and maintain.
Parallelize independent generations
Once the necessary reference frames are available, independent segments can be generated concurrently.
A fully sequential chain cannot be generated entirely in parallel because each clip may depend on the preceding clip's output.
A practical compromise is to divide the film into sequences that can be generated independently, then chain clips within each sequence.
Use idempotency controls where supported, and check the job list before retrying a timed-out request.
Make every segment independently replaceable
Treat each generated clip as a separate production asset.
The master video should be a reproducible output of the individual segments and the editing pipeline, not the only copy of the project.
That allows a single failed shot to be replaced without rebuilding the entire film.
9. Visual Verification Before Delivery
A successful API response doesn't mean the video is ready to publish.
I used FFmpeg to extract representative frames from across the timeline and assemble them into a contact sheet.
This made it easier to identify changes in visual style, unexpected objects, and problems with transitions.
For example, to inspect eight points in the film:
mkdir -p keys
for t in 1 9 17 25 33 41 49 58; do
ffmpeg -y -ss "$t" -i out/master.mp4 \
-frames:v 1 \
-vf "scale=470:-1" \
"keys/m_${t}.jpg"
done
The individual frames can then be assembled into a contact sheet.
A contact sheet is useful for reviewing the overall visual progression, but it won't reveal every temporal artifact.
For that, inspect the actual footage around each join, preferably frame by frame or at reduced playback speed.
For the Hollywood sign, I also extracted frames at half-second intervals to check whether the lettering remained stable throughout the replacement segment.
This helped distinguish incorrect lettering from frames where the sign was partially visible or viewed at an angle.
My final verification checklist included:
The model generates the footage. The editing and verification pipeline determines whether it is ready to ship.
Conclusion
Building a continuous AI-generated film is not just a prompting problem. It is a pipeline problem involving generation limits, frame conditioning, asset management, editing, and quality control.
For this project, frame chaining provided a practical way to connect separately generated clips while keeping each segment independently replaceable.
The most important lessons were:
The final film cost $39.83 in recorded generation charges and required 70 seconds of generated footage to produce 60 seconds of finished video.
The broader takeaway is that AI video generation becomes more manageable when treated as a reproducible media pipeline rather than a sequence of isolated prompts.
Frame chaining won't eliminate every continuity problem, but it gives you a useful degree of control over how separately generated footage fits together.
Model capabilities, parameter support, and pricing are subject to change. The figures in this article reflect observations from October 2026. Check the current GMI Cloud model catalog and API documentation before implementing the workflow.#ai #tutorial #beginners #showdev #software #coding #development #engineering #inclusive #community
Frame-Chaining AI Video: Building a 60-Second Film with GMI Cloud
DATE: October 26, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG
** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
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TITLE: Women reach orgasm more often alone, but partnered orgasms are more closely tied to sexual satisfaction
Women tend to reach orgasm more often during solo sex than with a partner, but a new study suggests that partnered orgasms are the ones more closely tied to overall sexual satisfaction. The survey of nearly 28,000 users of a period-tracking app, published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, also found that a wider variety of partnered activities was linked to greater satisfaction, while variety in solo sex showed no such benefit.
Sexual satisfaction refers to a person’s overall evaluation of how fulfilling and pleasurable their sex life is, a measure closely tied to overall health and quality of life. Past research has consistently linked women’s sexual satisfaction to how often they reach orgasm and to sexual variety, which is the number of different sexual behaviors a person engages in. For instance, a 2017 national survey of U.S. adults found that people in long-term relationships who incorporated a wider range of intimate behaviors and had more frequent orgasms tended to feel more satisfied with their sex lives.
Reaching orgasm with a partner, however, is far less consistent for women than reaching orgasm alone, a disparity examined in a 2024 review of the partnered orgasm gap. That review noted that 38 to 92 percent of women usually or always climax when masturbating, and that women’s orgasm rates rise sharply when sexual activity includes direct stimulation of the clitoris, a small, highly sensitive organ at the top of the vulva. During partnered sex with men, routines often center on vaginal penetration alone, leaving many women without the stimulation needed to climax.
Because solo sex is such a reliable source of orgasms, one might expect frequent masturbation to boost sexual satisfaction, yet prior research has yielded mixed results. Among studies of women in a 2024 systematic review, 40 percent found no link between masturbation and sexual satisfaction, a third found a negative link, and about a quarter found a positive one.
The review’s authors argued that negative links may arise when masturbation compensates for unfulfilling or absent partnered sex, but they found that for women, masturbation more often seemed to complement partnered sex rather than replace it. The context of solo activity may also matter: a study covered by PsyPost in 2020 indicated that women who used vibrators both alone and with a partner reported higher sexual satisfaction than those who used vibrators only alone.
Most earlier studies examined only a narrow set of partnered behaviors or treated masturbation as a single category without comparing specific solo and partnered activities side by side. To explore how distinct behaviors, variety, and orgasms relate to satisfaction across both contexts, Yella Hewings-Martin and Adam C. Cunningham of Flo Health UK Limited and their colleagues surveyed users of the Flo health app to test whether solo orgasms and variety relate to overall satisfaction the same way partnered ones do.
The researchers recruited participants between April 11 and May 5, 2024, via in-app messages shown to adult English-speaking Flo users. From 70,424 initial responses, the team excluded users who did not complete the survey, lacked a valid app ID, or failed two attention-check questions, leaving 27,931 participants with an average age of 28 years. Nearly all respondents were biologically female (98.9 percent) and identified as women (96.4 percent); 70.7 percent identified as heterosexual, 23.1 percent as bisexual or pansexual, and 81.3 percent had a male partner.
Respondents reported on their sex lives over the previous six months, rating their overall sexual satisfaction on a five-point scale and their orgasm frequency from never to almost always. They also rated how often they engaged in 13 partnered and 13 solo sexual activities, including vaginal penetration, clitoral stimulation by hand or vibrator, watching erotica, and role-play, and how often each behavior led to orgasm. Multiplying activity frequency by orgasm frequency yielded weighted orgasm scores for solo and partnered contexts. Those who climaxed more often in one setting than the other selected up to three reasons from 22 options to explain why.
Across the full sample, 56.2 percent of participants were moderately or very satisfied with their overall sex life, while 19.5 percent were moderately or very dissatisfied. Roughly 36.9 percent reached orgasm almost always or always, and 22.9 percent did so most of the time, whereas 20.6 percent climaxed less than half the time or never. Overall orgasm frequency had a moderate positive correlation with sexual satisfaction (r = 0.38, on a scale where 1 would be a perfect match): 61.2 percent of very satisfied respondents reached orgasm almost always, though 19.5 percent of very dissatisfied respondents also climaxed almost every time.
The data showed a difference between the behaviors performed most consistently at every encounter and those practiced by the widest share of women overall. Vaginal penetration without other stimulation was the partnered behavior most consistently performed every time (39.7 percent), but clitoral stimulation by a partner’s hand, mouth, or tongue was the most widespread partnered activity overall (90.2 percent at least sometimes), followed closely by vaginal penetration paired with other body stimulation (90.1 percent) and by vaginal penetration paired with clitoral touch (90.0 percent).
The authors noted that clitoral stimulation topping the list of widespread partnered behaviors contrasts with older surveys where vaginal intercourse was most common. They suggest this likely reflects their more detailed questions about a six-month period, though they also speculate that it could partly reflect a younger sample (38 percent of respondents were aged 18 to 25).
In solo sex, clitoral stimulation by hand was both the most widespread behavior (84.6 percent) and the most consistent (44.5 percent every time), while only 5.5 percent practiced solo vaginal penetration alone every time. Across all 13 paired comparisons of similar activities, women reached orgasm more frequently when alone than with a partner, with differences ranging from small to moderate. Overall, 47 percent of participants reported reaching orgasm more often during solo sex, compared to 21 percent with a partner and 27 percent who reported no difference.
In solo sessions, clitoral stimulation with a vibrator or dildo, watching erotica, and clitoral stimulation by hand were linked to the highest orgasm rates. During partnered sex, the highest orgasm rates came from using sex toys together, combining vaginal penetration with clitoral stimulation, and masturbating with a partner present, while vaginal penetration alone and anal stimulation were linked to the lowest rates in both contexts.
Participants’ own explanations pointed to both psychological and physical factors. Women who climaxed more often alone most commonly cited inadequate stimulation from a partner, an absence of pressure to perform, reduced body image self-consciousness, and feeling safer to let go because they controlled the stimulation. Many also pointed to partnered obstacles such as a partner finishing too soon, difficulty communicating preferences, life stress, or painful intercourse. By contrast, those who reached orgasm more often with a partner emphasized emotional intimacy, adequate partner stimulation, and heightened arousal from attraction to their partner.
To examine how solo and partnered experiences predicted overall sexual satisfaction, the authors analyzed the 19,469 respondents who had engaged in partnered sex during the past six months. Partnered orgasm frequency was the strongest positive predictor of sexual satisfaction, whereas solo orgasm frequency showed a tiny negative association in initial models and was not statistically significant in the final model. Participants averaged 7.79 of the 13 partnered activities and 6.45 of the 13 solo activities; greater partnered variety predicted higher satisfaction, while greater solo variety was weakly associated with lower satisfaction. Together, these factors accounted for about 16 percent of the differences in satisfaction between participants.
In a separate model of 20,805 partnered-sex participants controlling for relationship status, being in a relationship and engaging in greater partnered variety both predicted higher overall orgasm frequency, whereas solo variety was not statistically significant. That model accounted for about 7 percent of the differences in orgasm frequency between participants.
The positive tie between partnered climax and satisfaction aligns with research covered by PsyPost in 2018, which examined heterosexual newlywed couples rather than a broad sample of female app users and similarly found that a woman’s partnered orgasm frequency is positively linked to her sexual satisfaction. At the same time, the findings on solo sex and variety stand in tension with a study covered by PsyPost in 2022, which linked frequent masturbation in women to higher sexual satisfaction alongside frequent intercourse and variety. That earlier study, however, looked at overall masturbation frequency across a broad adult population, whereas the new study specifically evaluated solo orgasm frequency and sexual variety among female app users.
There are a few things to keep in mind when interpreting these findings. Because the survey captured data at a single point in time, it cannot establish cause and effect: women who already feel happy and secure in their relationships may simply feel more comfortable exploring a wider variety of activities with their partners, while women experiencing an unfulfilling partnered sex life may turn to solo masturbation and try more solo techniques to compensate. In addition, sexual satisfaction was measured with a single question about a respondent’s overall sex life, which many people may naturally judge based on their partnered relationships rather than their solo habits. The large sample size also makes it possible to detect tiny statistical differences that have little practical impact in daily life.
The sample consisted of English-speaking users of a health tracking app who were mostly young, White, and heterosexual, and about half held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Because participants volunteered for a study described as being about female orgasms, they may be more comfortable discussing sex, or more sexually active, than women in general. Four of the authors are employees of Flo Health with equity in the company, and the other three are consultants for it.
The authors suggest that bringing elements of solo sex into partnered encounters, such as open communication about preferences and less pressure to perform, could help narrow the gap between solo and partnered orgasms. Future research tracking couples over time could help explain how emotional closeness, trust, and communication interact with physical stimulation to shape sexual fulfillment.
The study, “Sexual Satisfaction and Orgasm Experiences During Partnered and Solo Sex Among 27,931 Users of the Flo App,” was authored by Yella Hewings-Martin, Adam C. Cunningham, Jordan Rullo, Karen L. Blair, Carley Prentice, Anna Klepchukova, and Liudmila Zhaunova.
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