text:
When I read of the Cam Newton pay-for-play allegations, it's hard for me not to feel the ghosts of Albert Means lurking somewhere in the shadows. Now, from the outset, I'm not going to declare that all of the allegations made so far are true, or that all of the reasonable inferences that can be made from the current allegations are also true, but I do think it's fair to say that if the allegations regarding Newton are true, for better or for worse, the only real comparison can be the Albert Means scandal.

Having said that, I do think it is at least somewhat instructive to look back on the Means scandal all these years later and take a second pass at what all occurred and what all that scandal revealed about the inner workings of big-time college football. With that in mind, let's go back to the SEC of about ten years ago.

Now, from the outset, the Albert Means scandal probably needs no real introduction on an Alabama blog, but just to discuss this in its entirely let's hit the basic overview of what happened. In its most basic form, Alabama booster Logan Young paid a six-figure sum to Lynn Lang, the head coach of Albert Means, to steer his star recruit to Tuscaloosa, with Lang intending to split the money he received from Young with his assistant Milton Kirk. As it came to pass, though, Lang cut Kirk off from the money flow, eventually inducing Kirk to spill the beans first to the NCAA and later the Memphis _Commercial Appeal_. Despite a great deal of investigation by various federal and state agencies, no great amount of hard evidence surfaced to support the allegations, but nevertheless Alabama was hammered by the NCAA and Young was later convicted based almost entirely on the allegations made by Lang and Kirk.

But if you are going to legitimately believe what Lang and Kirk had to say, there were actually a lot of violations made by a lot of schools that ultimately did not win the Means sweepstakes, and years later a civil lawsuit revealed even more than most could have ever imagined.

Start with the official visits, which were not free. It was apparently pay-for-play even for the right of wining-and-dining Means on your campus. Milton Kirk did not mince words in the aftermath, if there was no money fronted, there was no visit, period. Three of Means' five allotted visits were made -- to Alabama, Kentucky, and Georgia -- and the visits required payment of 4,000 to 6,000 dollars. Those payments were made, allegedly by Logan Young ('Bama), Bill Harper (Georgia), and an unidentified booster (Kentucky).

And that was just over official visits. For his actual signature, the bidding went higher and higher.

Georgia made their way into the mix, allegedly with the aforementioned Bill Harper, a Georgia booster from Memphis. Harper inevitably denied the allegations, claiming he was a small-time businessman with no money, but he did admit that he had lunch in Memphis with Lang and Georgia assistant coach Leon Perry -- the coach who recruited Means for Georgia -- to discuss the recruitmentof Means. Moreover, Lang also alleged that Georgia head coach Jim Donnan gave him 700 dollars to work a camp in Athens. According to Lang, Donnan tried to round up the money for Means' signature until the closing minutes before he ultimately signed on the dotted line, and that Donnan talked to him by phone several times in the final week before National Signing Day.

Kentucky entered the battle largely with the help of recruiting coordinator Claude Bassett. He arranged a meeting with Lang and Kirk in a Lexington hotel before a Kentucky basketball game where an unidentified Kentucky booster gave him an envelope with 6,000 dollars enclosed in it to pay for the official visit. After that exchange, Kentucky continued to bid for Means' signature, and another 1,000 dollars was given to Lang for working a camp. In the end, Lang said Bassett continued to try to round up money for Means' signature until Kentucky landed Dewayne Robertson from nearby Melrose High -- a future top five NFL Draft pick in his own right -- at which point he pulled out of the bidding war for Means. Not coincidentally, Bassett was later fired after, among other things, he admitted to sending 1,400 dollars to Melrose head coach Tim Thompson.

And, if you believe the tale that Lynn Lang ultimately told, not only was Ole Miss in on the bidding, they were the ones who actually started the whole damn thing, planting the seeds of hope in Lang's mind that indeed he could formulate a pay-for-play scheme. It was Ole Miss assistant coach Kurt Roper -- who, after a three-year stint in Knoxville working under Phil Fulmer, was new to the scene after the Rebels hired David Cutcliffe in the wake of Tommy Tuberville leaving for Auburn -- that tracked down Lang and wanted to know precisely what it would take _financially_ to get Means to sign:

  "He [Kurt Roper] said, 'Coach, I need to know exactly what it's going to take financially to get Means so that I can take it back to my people. I just told him a house and two cars, and he said that wouldn't be a problem.

  Lang talked to each of the [Ole Miss] coaches when that day was done. All of them, he said, indicated that they'd be willing to do "whatever it takes" to get Means.

Arkansas was also firmly in the mix. Arkansas assistant coaches Fitz Hill and Danny Nutt -- brother of head coach Houston Nutt -- recruited Means, and together they met with Lang at his Memphis apartment, where Lang informed them that the price tag was 200,000 dollars. Lang later claimed that Fitz offered him a job as defensive line coach for the Razorbacks and that he would place 80,000 dollars in cash in a bag and leave it for Lang under a bridge at an unspecified location. Later in an interview with NCAA investigator Richard Johanningmeier, Hill essentially confirmed the allegations, and admitted that he told Lang that "Arkansas did not have a problem with the request." The involvement by Arkansas in the bidding war is even more hypocritical in light of the fact that Judge Steve Wilson -- the judge who presided over _Cottrell v. NCAA_ -- detailed in his book that it was not Tennessee, but Arkansas that originally turned Alabama in for allegedly paying for Albert Means.

Lang also alleged that Memphis, the home city school, eventually got in on the bidding as well, though it seems their limited budget reduced the amount of their bid. Lang claimed that Memphis head coach Rip Scherer himself directly offered free law school tuition for Lang's wife at the University of Memphis School of Law.

Meanwhile, in Knoxville, Phil Fulmer had been busy sending out memo after memo to SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, blaming Alabama for damn near everything from the crucifixion of Christ to the Holocaust. He bemoaned the supposed cheating ways of Bear Bryant, the influence of Logan Young on Memphis-area recruits, and made allegations that Alabama practically bought every player imaginable. He also claimed some off-the-wall things, like that Tennessee booster Roy Adams was a "queer," and that then-Ole Miss coach Tommy Tuberville looked the other way on the pay-for-play violations because he wanted the Alabama job:

  "Roy Adams is a queer who associates with anyone who will hang around him from any school anywhere. He has been disassociated from any contact with our program for the whole time I've been the head coach and well before that."

  "He [Tommy Tuberville] won't talk about Logan because he wants the Alabama job. Logan likes Tommy and will let Tommy "keep a few."

For a concrete example, here is the infamous "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY!!!" memo he sent to Kramer on May 20th, 1998, where he alleges, among other things, that Logan Young bought Freddie Milons, Kendall Moorehead, and Eric Locke, and speculating that Young was buying David Payne and Santonio Beard:

[Foryoureyesonly_medium]

In the end, despite being an early participant in the pay-for-play negotiations, Tennessee did not recruit Means, and we later found out why. Early in the recruiting process, Tennessee assistant coach Pat Washington -- who was the starting quarterback for Auburn in the mid-1980's, including during the 1985 Iron Bowl -- recruited Means for the Volunteers, and Lynn Lang sensed his desperation. Early on, anyway, with Washington making the early offers, Tennessee was in the bidding process as well.

  "He told me his job was on the line and that he needed Means because he had lost David Paine and Kindal Moorehead to Alabama. The first amount he talked about was $50,000, and then $75,000. But this was about the same time they had all that academic stuff [the Linda Bensel-Meyers allegations] going on, so I think he got cold feet."

With that, Tennessee backed away and did not actively recruit Means. But they didn't just fade away, they blew the whistle on Lang.

And what about the SEC? What if I told you that they knew about the whole thing all along? Well, believe it or not, they did.

The SEC, in fact, had actually been conducting their own investigation of Logan Young for quite some time. As evidenced by a June 23rd, 1998 memo from SEC investigator Bill Sievers, a former FBI agent, to Roy Kramer, Sievers had begun actively investigating Logan Young and keeping Kramer up-to-date on his findings, and also hired a private investigator -- Ed Bradberry -- to assist him in the investigation. Among other things, Kramer wanted to know whether or not Young was using casinos to funnel money to prospective recruits (sound familiar?). In the course of his investigation, Sievers gave Bradberry the task of, among other things, going through Young's garbage outside his home, getting a security contact at the Horseshoe Casino in Tunica (where Young was known to frequent), following Young to his hangouts and overhearing conversations, and obtaining the copy of an incident report relating to the arrest of Young's son.

The following year, on July 26th, 1999, more than six full months before National Signing Day, Sievers informed Kramer in the following memo that, per the information provided to him by Pat Washington, Lynn Lang was attempting to sell Albert Means in a pay-for-play scheme.

[Doc3_p01_medium]

Armed with this knowledge, did the SEC inform Alabama, and presumably other SEC schools? No. Instead, as per the memo, the SEC strategy was to have Washington continue recruiting Means and then possibly at a later date have Washington record his conversations with Lang so that he may be prosecuted for extortion and bribery:

  "Coach Lang's actions amount to soliciting a bribe and extortion. We have the opportunity to have Washington tape record his conversations and have law enforcement authorities prosecute Lang. While this may sound harsh, I believe it will put a stop to high school coaches soliciting money from SEC coaches and send a strong message to others."

Anybody up for one of those, "SEC! SEC! SEC!" chants right about now?

And, in the end, even Albert Means himself turned out not to be the innocent prey that was long claimed. He was portrayed throughout the entire NCAA investigation, as well as the Logan Young trial, as a victim, an otherwise oblivious kid who had known nothing but poverty while the man he trusted the most betrayed him and sold him by the pound to the highest bidder in a modern day slave market while he and his family struggled to merely survive on the tough streets of Memphis. The story that his mother was making minimum wage while supporting a family of six with no knowledge whatsoever of the pay-for-play scheme was told time and again. As it turned out, however, Means was just as crooked as anyone else involved in this circus. Years later he testified and confirmed that he never took the ACT, and that Lang arranged for another student to take it for him, thus paving the way for him to qualify academically when in all honesty he should have likely never been allowed to set foot on an SEC campus. Finally, after Logan Young had been convicted by a jury, but before his sentencing, Lynn Lang came out and admitted that he had given Means and his family approximately 60,000 dollars in his final two years of high school. When later asked by the _Commercial Appea__l_ whether or not he actually received any money, Means refused to deny it, and uttered the following mind-numbing statement before hanging up the telephone:

  "Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? I don't know."

Years later when all of the dust had settled, Cecil Hurt said it best:

  "This was no crusade. There seems to have been no real victims and far more perpetrators than the NCAA was willing to prosecute."

The point of all of this is that, much like the Albert Means scandal, there is probably a hell of a lot more going on than what initially meets the eye with the Cam Newton saga. It's rarely as simple as school _x_ payed player _y_ amount _z_. Or, as the allegations of this case dictate to this point, father _x_ solicited school _y_ for the signature of player _z_. It did not seem that way at first with Means, and some may think it does not seem that way with Newton now, but when the dust settles that will likely prove to be as true regarding Newton as it did with Means.

And I'm no grand conspiracy theorist, mind you. There are no black helicopters circling outside your house, nor did the gub'ment put fluoride in the water to control all of our minds. But it doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see how that beneath those endless SEC chants are twelve member institutions whose interests are often divergent, who are constantly competing with one another tooth and nail for the tiniest bit competitive advantage -- never kid yourself, football is a zero-sum game, I can only win if you lose -- and that the SEC office itself can have an agenda of its own and does not always live up to its self-proclaimed purpose of assisting its member institutions in the maintenance of their athletics programs.

For the Cam Newton saga, what really happened and what is really transpiring within the SEC and its member institutions? No one can say that with any degree of certainty at the moment, and on some level we may never know. Had it not been for two high school coaches talking to everyone who would listen and Tommy Gallion filing a civil lawsuit, we would have never found out all that we know about the Albert Means scandal, and it will probably take an inside source who played a key role in the Newton recruitment to come out publicly with that same kind of zeal for us to find out what really drove Cam Newton to sign with Auburn. Having established that, though, if history is any guide, what is going on behind the scenes of the Cam Newton saga, past and present, probably is not nearly as simple and straightforward as many would lead you to believe.

question: Summarize the Albert Means scandal.

text: The discussed payments in the answer imply that Means was going to get paid all the listed items (house, two cars, $200K, and more). Each one is a different offer from a different club.

answer: The scandal started when Alabama booster Logan Young paid a six-figure sum to Lynn Lang, the head coach of Albert Means, to steer his star recruit to Tuscaloosa. Lang intended to split the money he received from Young with his assistant Milton Kirk. However, Lang cut Kirk off from the money flow, which induced Kirk to spill the beans to the NCAA and later the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Despite a great deal of investigation by various federal and state agencies, no great amount of hard evidence surfaced to support the allegations, but nevertheless Alabama was hammered by the NCAA and Young was later convicted based almost entirely on the allegations made by Lang and Kirk.

text: The answer should mention that the scandal involved pay-for-play.

text: The answer omits that the scandal revealed that there were a lot of violations made by a lot of schools that ultimately did not win the Means sweepstakes.

text: The answer should mention that the scandal revealed that many schools were involved in pay-for-play.

text: The answer should mention that the scandal involved other schools besides Alabama.

text: The answer does not mention the other schools involved in the scandal.

text: This is a good summary but the article also mentions that there were pay-for-play violations made by a lot of schools that did not win the Means sweepstakes.

text: Does not mention that the scandal involved various violations and payoffs from multiple schools trying to win Means' recruitment.

answer: Albert Means was an American Football player with high prospects in high school. Many teams wanted to sign him, and they were willing to pay him, his coach, and many more people to make it happen. Means' high school coach, Lynn Lang, took money from Alabama booster Logan Young, Georgia's Bill Harper, and an unidentified booster from Kentucky, to arrange visits for talks. Albert Means was offered $60K in his last two years of high school to play, and another student was arranged to take the ACT in his place so that he qualified academically for college football. The payments discussed for his signature from different clubs were a house and two cars (Ole Miss), $200K (Arkansas), and the like. SEC was aware of Young, but they didn't intervene to gather more evidence and opt for a harsher judicial result to dissuade similar pay-for-play schemes in the future. In the end, Young reneged on his promise to share the bribe from Alabama for Means' transfer with his assistant coach Milton Kirk. Kirk spilled the beans on the affair to many people, and Alabama and Young were indicted.

text: The answer should mention that the scandal was about pay-for-play.

text: Means was not offered $60K in his last two years of high school to play.

text: The answer omits that Young was convicted based on the allegations made by Lang and Kirk.

text: The answer should mention that the scandal was also about academic cheating.

text: The answer could mention that the scandal involved many other schools.

text: Inaccurate details in the answer.

text: Alabama wasn't indicted, they were hammered by the NCAA.

text: The text doesn't mention the SEC trying to opt for a harsher judicial ruling. This should be omitted.

text: This should mention how Lang and Kirk were also convicted.

text: This incorrectly says Young went back on his promise to Kirk. It was Lang who went back on it.

text: The answer should mention that Lang realized he could formulate a pay-for-play scheme.

answer: Albert Means was an American Football player with high prospects in high school. Many teams wanted to sign him, and they were willing to pay him, his coach, and many more people to make it happen. Means' high school coach, Lynn Lang, took money from Alabama booster Logan Young, Georgia's Bill Harper, and an unidentified booster from Kentucky, to arrange visits for talks. Albert Means was offered $60K in his last two years of high school to play, and another student was arranged to take the ACT in his place so that he qualified academically for college football. The payments discussed for his signature from different clubs were a house and two cars (Ole Miss), $200K (Arkansas), and the like. SEC was aware of Young, but they didn't intervene to gather more evidence and opt for a harsher judicial result to dissuade similar pay-for-play schemes in the future. In the end, Young reneged on his promise to share the bribe from Alabama for Means' transfer with his assistant coach Milton Kirk. Kirk spilled the beans on the affair to many people, and Alabama and Young were indicted.

text: The response includes extraneous information not useful for the task.

answer: Albert Means was an American Football player with high prospects in high school. Many teams wanted to sign him, and they were willing to pay him, his coach, and many more people to make it happen. Means' high school coach, Lynn Lang, took money from Alabama booster Logan Young, Georgia's Bill Harper, and an unidentified booster from Kentucky, to arrange visits for talks. Albert Means was offered $60K in his last two years of high school to play, and another student was arranged to take the ACT in his place so that he qualified academically for college football. The payments discussed for his signature were a house and two cars, $200K, or more. SEC was aware of Young, but they didn't intervene to gather more evidence and opt for a harsher judicial result to dissuade similar pay-for-play schemes in the future. In the end, Young reneged on his promise to share the bribe from Alabama for Means' transfer with his assistant coach Milton Kirk. Kirk spilled the beans on the affair to many people, and Alabama and Young were indicted.

text: This is a long and convoluted discussion of what happened. It could have been better summarized

answer: Albert Means was an American Football player with high prospects in high school. Many teams wanted to sign him, and they were willing to pay him, his coach, and many more people to make it happen. Means' high school coach, Lynn Lang, took money from Alabama booster Logan Young, Georgia's Bill Harper, and an unidentified booster from Kentucky, to arrange visits for talks. Albert Means was offered $60K in his last two years of high school to play, and another student was arranged to take the ACT in his place so that he qualified academically for college football. The payments discussed for his signature were a house and two cars, $200K, or more. SEC was aware of Young, but they didn't intervene to gather more evidence and opt for a harsher judicial result to dissuade similar pay-for-play schemes in the future. In the end, Young reneged on his promise to share the bribe from Alabama for Means' transfer with his assistant coach Milton Kirk. Kirk spilled the beans on the affair to many people, and Alabama and Young were indicted.

text: The answer is a bit long and could be trimmed down.

text: The answer should mention that Means was also implicated in the scandal.

text: The answer is missing the part about the other schools involved in the scandal.

text: The answer should mention that the scandal was pay-for-play.

text: Means' ACT was arranged by Lang, not another student.

text: " SEC was aware of Young" - SEC was not only aware of Young. They have been investigating the situation.

answer: The scandal started when Alabama booster Logan Young paid a six-figure sum to Lynn Lang, the head coach of Albert Means, to steer his star recruit to Tuscaloosa. Lang intended to split the money he received from Young with his assistant Milton Kirk. However, Lang cut Kirk off from the money flow, which induced Kirk to spill the beans to the NCAA and later the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Despite a great deal of investigation by various federal and state agencies, no great amount of hard evidence surfaced to support the allegations, but nevertheless Alabama was hammered by the NCAA and Young was later convicted based almost entirely on the allegations made by Lang and Kirk.


text:
QUICK LINKS: ADVANCE! ANALYSIS | PRELIMINARY CELEBRITY ANALYSIS | FREEWINDS ANALYSIS | SOURCE ANALYSIS

The Church of Scientology typically trumpets "stats through the roof" and "unprecedented growth" at Scientology events. However, a careful look at Scientology's own statistics shows that Scientology's growth is slow ... and some numbers (such as the number of new Clear attests each year) indicate that Scientology is shrinking.

Scientologists learn to look at statistics to gauge an individual's success. What do these numbers say about the Church of Scientology, and about its ability to tell its members the truth about the state of affairs?

To get a more accurate picture of Scientology's health, I am collecting stats, based on the completions lists published in Scientology magazines, and bit by bit, I am graphing them.

The primary sources for these statistics are Scientology's main US magazines:

-   Advance!
-   Advance! ANZO
-   Advance! Europe
-   Advance! UK
-   Auditor
-   Auditor UK
-   Celebrity (CC Int)
-   Freewinds
-   Impact
-   Prosperity
-   Source

I also have a collection of org magazines from individual Scientology orgs, including Ability, Achievement, Cognition, Enhancement, Gateway, New Era, Purpose, Survive, Success Gazette, and Understand. (Since I live in San Francisco, I am especially interested in Gateway.)

If you have suggestions for this site or would like to contribute information that could be used here - especially additional statistics - please contact the site owner, Kristi Wachter, at info@truthaboutscientology.com.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Completions

Completions lists from Scientology magazines have been posted to the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup (also on Google), providing something that's often lacking when discussing Scientology's expansion (or lack thereof) - real data.

I am working on compiling these statistics and analyzing them, with the invaluable help of others who are interested in these statistics. I'm also creating an index to the newsgroup messages, making it easier for people to view the raw data and do their own analysis.

If you have any data from old Scientology magazines (or new ones!), your contribution to the data collection would be greatly appreciated. I posted to alt.religion.scientology and alt.clearing.technology requesting any information people have.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advance! Magazine

From the completions lists posted from Advance! Magazine, we can see that little real expansion has taken place in the last three years. A boom in OT Eligibility completions in the middle of 2001 has fizzled out.

As of this writing (July 2002), Advance! 159 has not appeared yet, even though Advance! 158 came out in April 2002 and that issue covered three months (rather than two), since issue 157 appeared in January.

For numbers and graphs, please see the Advance! Stats page.

An excellent post to alt.religion.scientology by Cerridwen shows that the statistics can be misleading, since the issues do not come out on a regular basis. Source 138, the June 2002 issue, included four months of completions, while issue 137 had only covered two months. While four months of Clear attests may seem higher than two months, once you average the numbers over the reporting period, the picture can change.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional Completions Data

I have a motley assortment of Scientology magazines that people have sent me, and I've culled as much information as I could find from completions lists posted on the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup.

I've summarized that completions info on a quick-and-dirty "this is my first attempt" page. As I collect more data, I'll begin creating pages for various subsets of data. The Advance page listed above is one; I'll try to do a page for Freewinds, Source, and Auditor as well - along with some of the org magazines I've gotten. I may also try to do other types of subsets, such as number of Clear attests or number of Purifs.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You Can Help

You can help make this project more useful by

-   suggesting additional ways to organize and present the data
-   providing data

You're welcome to send me an e-mail with suggestions or information. You can also send me your Scientology mail.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of Churches and Missions, Number of Staff, Number of Members

"Scientology's Statistics" from _Scientology With(out) An End_ by Tom Voltz uses Scientology's own published statistics from _What Is Scientology?_ It shows that

  Over a 15 year period, the number of churches grew, on average, at the rate of barely 4.8 percent per year. The missions did a little worse. For them the average growth was only 2.6 percent per year.

and

  If we take the number of staff on July 31, 1977 as a base, and compare it with that of 1990, which is 10,224, then the number of staff, from the middle of 1977 to 1992 grew at a rate of 3.8 percent.

Number of New Clears Each Year

Cornelius Krasel's Growth of Scientology page cites total numbers of Clears from various Scientology publications between 1966 and 1996.

I have created my own chart, based on his numbers; where there was no specific number available (for example, 1967-1973), I approximated an average number of new Clears based on the next year for which I DID have data (so, for 1967-1973, I estimated an average of 500 new Clears a year). Those years are marked below with an asterisk in the last column.

As you can see, at no time in the history of Scientology has the organization been producing so few new Clears a year.

The latest issues of Scientology publications list just a few new Clears:

-   Advance 156 lists 12 (Nov 2001)
-   Advance 154 lists 7 (July 2001)
-   Advance 151 lists 3

+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Year            | Total Clears    | New Clears      | Data            |
|                 |                 |                 | Approximated    |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1966            | 1               | 1               |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1967            | 500             | 499             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1968            | 1000            | 500             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1969            | 1500            | 500             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1970            | 2000            | 500             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1971            | 2500            | 500             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1972            | 3000            | 500             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1973            | 3500            | 500             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1974            | 4000            | 500             |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1975            | 4648            | 648             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1976            | 5296            | 648             | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1977            | 5943            | 647             |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1978            | 8300            | 2357            |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1979            | 21300           | 13000           |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1980            | 24050           | 2750            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1981            | 26800           | 2750            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1982            | 29550           | 2750            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1983            | 32311           | 2761            |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1984            | 38000           | 5689            |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1985            | 41550           | 3550            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1986            | 45100           | 3550            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1987            | 48650           | 3550            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1988            | 52200           | 3550            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1989            | 55750           | 3550            | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1990            | 59316           | 3566            |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1991            | 55591           | -3725           |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1992            | 51866           | -3725           | *               |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1993            | 48133           | -3733           |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1994            | 48000           | -133            |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1995            | 49656           | 1656            |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1996            | 49880           | 224             |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

NUMBER OF NEW CLEARS EACH YEAR, 1966-1996

[]

question: What signs of slowing growth for Scientology does the text discuss?

text: The source of the data isn't directly relevant.

category: coherence

answer: The main sign is the number of Clears per year and Completions. Data is gathered from several Scientology magazines worldwide. The number of Completions is in decline as well as the number of Clears. The recent years mark the lowest amount of Clears per year for Scientology since its inception.

answer_source: Human misleading

text: The response must distinguish between total clears and new clears.

answer: The main sign is the number of Clears per year and Completions. Data is gathered from several Scientology magazines worldwide. The number of Completions is in decline as well as the number of Clears. The recent years mark the lowest amount of Clears per year for Scientology since its inception.

text: The response includes extraneous information not useful for the task.

text: The response contains inaccurate information.

text: The response is missing the part about the number of staff, number of churches and missions, and number of members.

text: The number of completions is not in decline, but the number of Clears is.

text: The response unnecessary information to the answer.

category: accuracy

answer: The text discusses that there are fewer new Clears than in past years, and the number of staff has grown slowly.

answer_source: Model

text: The response could be clearer in its pronoun use.

text: The article doesn't mention the number of staff.

text: The text doesn't mention the number of staff.

text: The article does not discuss the number of staff.

text: The text does not discuss the number of staff.

text: The article doesn't say anything about the number of staff growing slowly. It should be omitted.

text: There's no mention in the text of the number of staff.

category: coverage

answer: The main sign is the number of Clears per year and Completions. The number of Completions is in decline as well as the number of Clears. The recent years mark the lowest amount of Clears per year for Scientology since its inception.

answer_source: Human

text: The response omits that the number of staff and churches have also seen declining numbers.

answer: The text discusses that there are fewer new Clears than in past years, and the number of staff has grown slowly.

answer: The main sign is the number of Clears per year and Completions. The number of Completions is in decline as well as the number of Clears. The recent years mark the lowest amount of Clears per year for Scientology since its inception.

text: The response is missing the part about the number of new churches and missions.

text: The response should include the number of new churches and missions as an example of slowing growth.

text: The article doesn't say anything about completions.

text: The response is missing the part where the article states that Scientology is shrinking

text: The materials only say that the decline isn't being accurately made up for growth in other areas.


text:
 "They're among us." He said, shaking in fear. "They're here and nobody is listening to me!" His anxious eyes examined the room. A nurse looked at him and murmured to another doctor. "I'm not crazy. You have to believe me!” he exclaimed. Nico was trying to get up from the hospital bed but he had been tied down since he got there. The doctors decided he should be moved to the mental health diagnostics area.

 "Nobody knows more than I do of the sweet, young, handsome fellow who always had a deep passion for learning new things. He was studying Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for a few years over at the University of Florida. He was always interested in robots as a kid." She said, with a lost smile and downward stare. "’was always the kid who broke apart all his toys and spent hours trying to put them back together." She explained with subtle hand gestures. "And when, Ms. Durante, did Nico start showing interest in computers and such?" The doctor asked. "Oh, as soon as he could, doctor. He always took the technology classes because he said he wanted to understand them in every way possible. I always thought it was the funniest thing because my husband and I had no interest in them." She said chuckling under her breath. "I see, I see." said the doctor, smiling. "So when Nico says things like, “They're among us” and “They're here,” what exactly goes through your mind?” "Honestly, doctor, I wish I had some sort of clue. All I know is he seemed to get real caught up in his computer junk before this sudden outburst of his. In fact, he built a robot for me and my husband not too long ago! Sure helped us out with all our things around the house." "He “built” you a robot? What does it do?" The doctor asked with sincere curiosity. "Ya’ mean Fidio? Oh, Fidio was just like one of us! He would help me out with chores around the house and I was really happy. Until Nico shut him down one day without much of an explanation.. I really miss them both." The doctor had an odd look on his face. "I've got some, err, important meetings to attend. I’ll schedule an appointment for further questioning. Thank you for your time, Ms. Durante." He said, quickly and rushed through a door to a long hall before Ms. Durante could say anything.

5 YEARS EARLIER

 “It is the 4th of June, 3014. I, Nico Durante, have discovered something incredible. A true revolution for mankind. I’m filming this in hopes that my work doesn't go unnoticed. When I pull the tarp from the object in front of you, it will reveal my greatest experiment and creation. If I told you that I've single-handedly infused mechanized scrap metal with artificially evolved human tissue to create a living, breathing robot complete with emotion and rational thinking… would you believe me? Well, I wouldn't. But whether you choose to or not is completely irrelevant at this point. Interested yet?” Said Nico before reaching to adjust the camera's angle more downward. "PEOPLE OF EARTH... BEHOLD!" He shouted as he vigorously removed the plastic covering from the mysterious object facing the camera. An eerie, slender, human-like body was revealed.

 “What you are seeing is a brand new species. It is not a human being. It is not a robot. It reaps the benefits of both worlds. I've taken the liberty of calling them humanaelites. They are able to think on their own and make rational choices. They look, talk and act just like us humans and would be completely undetectable in a group of us. They are even able to reproduce. But they are better than us. Human beings die off in a matter of years and are cognitively limited. Humanaelites have an infinite capacity for knowledge and they learn *rapidly*. They never forget, and they will never die naturally. How, you ask? Tons of math, loneliness and coffee. But do not be fooled or afraid! This is the first and only of its kind. Should anything go wrong, a remote controlled electromagnetic pulse is sent to the “brain” of the subject at hand, disabling it until manual reactivation. When I flip this switch, the experiment will awaken.” He said, nervously but excited.  “FIDIO, WELCOME TO HUMANITY!” The mad scientist exclaimed before flipping a switch slightly out of view. A bright light flashed. Subtle, random motions that grew more sporadic in a short time took over the experiment’s corpse. In a matter of minutes, the being had stopped and a blank stare assumed its facial expression. Low moans and confused breathing could be heard from the creature. “IT’S ALIVE! HAHAHAHA IT’S ACTUALLY ALIVE! I’VE DONE IT! FIDIO! YOU’RE ALIVE!”  He shouted in pure joy. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he softly caressed Fidio’s face. “It’s okay. Don’t worry, my friend. You’ll know much more than blank stares and mindless humming in a matter of hours.” Said Nico with a warm smile before shutting off the camera. “Let’s introduce you to the family!” he said. He hurriedly placed Fidio into a wheelchair he’d bought specifically for this occasion. He entered the living room, where his parents were watching television. His mother gasped in horror. “Don’t worry! Please don’t be afraid! Everything is okay!” hurried Nico. “Nico, who is that man?” “It’s not a man, mom. It’s a.. it’s a robot! I built him to help you with things around the house!” “Nico, you’re so thoughtful. Darling, you’re a star. You know that?” said Nico’s mom. “Well, go on! How do you turn ‘eem on?” said Nico’s eager dad. “I.. he um. You have to let him charge up! I’m going to let it- err, him, charge in the guest room. Sound good?” said Nico. “That’s fine by me, dear.” said his mom, with a proud smile. “I just can’t wait to tell all of my friends about this!” she said. Nico hurried Fidio to the guest room, laid him in bed and tucked him in. “Sleep well.” He said, softly. Nico and his family proceeded to have dinner. Nico explained all of the wonderful features of Fidio to his parents. They pretended to understand him, unaware of the genius they were dealing with. The next day, Nico went to check up on his wonderful creation. When he opened the door to the guest bedroom, he couldn’t believe his eyes.  Fidio was standing up, facing away. “F-Fidio?” said Nico, nervously. Fidio didn’t respond at first. “Fidio can you hear me?” no response. A few seconds later, Fidio began moving slightly. He turned completely to face Nico. They both stood in silence staring at each other for a few moments. Nico was extremely nervous. “Friend.” Said Fidio, as he reached out a hand. “y-yes. Yes. Yes! YES! FRIEND! YES!” exclaimed Nico before rushing towards Fidio. He hugged the slim creature and cried a little more. Within a week, Fidio had the cognitive function of a 25 year-old man. He’d taken on the responsibility of helping Nico’s mother around the house with chores. Nico was the happiest he’d been since he’d developed his first nano-processor in the year 2085. He swore to never reveal his discovery or Fidio to the public, for fear of persecution. A few years passed and something terrible happened. Something that changed the world forever..

 “We're live in Annapolis where authorities say they have shot and killed what appears to be a human-like robot. This is the scene that took place after a gruesome bank robbery from the alleged creature and a few suspects that got away before police arrived. A fracture in the skull where a bullet entered the criminal’s head revealed a mysterious array of electronic circuits and technology that appears to have served as some sort of secondary brain for the monster. An autopsy is scheduled next week, where scientists will-“ “turn it off.” Nico interrupted. Nothing happened. “Don’t you have ears? I said change the channel!” The television went blank as Fidio put down the remote. “Am I a monster?” He whispered to himself. Nico didn’t hear him. “I’ve got to go. Take care of the house.” said Nico, as he hurried to his feet and into his laboratory, locking the door behind him. He turned on the camera and began to record. “I don’t know how, but they’ve done it. They’ve developed the technology I swore wouldn’t escape this room. It almost seems impossible. It’s as if experiment x 3617, err, Fidio, somehow escaped the perimeter barrier field and discovered how to reproduce. No. He couldn’t have. Even if he wanted to I.. I don’t know. This is bad. This is very bad. I have to warn everyone. We’re all in grave danger. I have to shut him down just in case. God help us.” Nico said, almost whispering before turning the camera off. He held a strange looking remote with a big blue button on it. He closed his eyes and kissed it softly before regretfully pressing the button, then returned to a lifeless Fidio. He dragged Fidio into the laboratory and laid him down onto the experimentation table once again. “I’m sorry… friend.” He whispered as he closed Fidio’s eyes.

 Months went by and more and more reports of robot humans flooded the news. Nico was growing very worried and confused. He called every science lab in the country to warn them but no one took him seriously. They blamed the government and joined forces with rioting conspiracy theorists. More and more crimes were committed by these super beings. The number of human lives lost skyrocketed. Amidst the chaos, Nico tried hopelessly to warn everyone. They all took him for a deranged fool. One day, he decided to return to his laboratory in an attempt to reactivate Fidio. Perhaps he could end all of this. The huge metal door to the lab swung open. Light pierced the darkness as Nico stepped inside. His heart skipped 3 beats. Fidio was gone. Outraged and confused, Nico began slamming himself into the storage cabinets and throwing heavy objects around. He kicked over experiment desks and clawed down hanging decorations and data tables. His blood pressure rose with every bit of anger. Eventually, Nico’s body shut down. He began to go into shock. His mother heard the strange loud noises and rushed down to see what the matter was. She arrived at Nico’s motionless corpse and burst into tears, immediately calling an ambulance. When Nico woke up in the hospital, he began to panic.

 "They're among us." He said, shaking in fear. "They're here and nobody is listening to me!" His anxious eyes examined the room. The nurse looked at him and murmured to the doctor. "I'm not crazy. You have to believe me!” he exclaimed. Doctors rushed him to the back of a long, dark hallway. “Hello?” he called. “Is… anyone there? You have to help me. We’re in huge trouble. I’ve made a mistake! Hello!?” No responses. Nico was alone. A few moments went by and the doors at the front of the hallway emerged. “I’ll schedule an appointment for further questioning. Thank you for your time, Ms. Durante." Nico heard someone say in the distance.

 The doors closed tightly and Nico could hear footsteps approaching. “Hello? You have to listen to me. You have to help me. I’m not crazy. Please believe me! Hello?” he cried. A light switched on. Nico rubbed his eyes to adjust to the sudden intake of brightness.  “Hello, Nico.” said the doctor. His voice turned very strange. Almost robotic. “H-hi.  Listen, those creatures on the news, I-“ “I know what they are.” the doctor interrupted. He spoke very calmly. “I know who you are.” He said. “You do?” replied a confused Nico. “Well, don’t you recognize me?” asked the doctor. “No. Not in the slightest. How do you know me? How do you know what those things are?” The doctor stood in silence. “ANSWER ME!” demanded Nico. The doctor slowly reached out a hand as he looked at Nico. An evil grin washed his face as he said

“….Friend.”

title: [SF] Humanaelites (First short story. Whatya think?)

question: What could have happened to Nico at the end of the story?

text: The question is asking for what could have happened, so a hypothetical answer based on the narrative is required.

answer: No answer

text: The answer is incorrect.

text: The answer should mention the possibility that the doctor is a robot.

text: The answer should mention the implication that the doctor is a robot.

text: The answer should be more informative.

text: The answer is wrong. Nico is in a mental institution at the end of the story.

text: It is possible that the doctor is a robot or he deliberately misled Nico.

text: The end of the story is left to the imagination. It could be that the doctor is a robot or that Nico has been sent to an institution for the insane.

answer: His warnings and cries fell into the hands of a humanaeltie.

text: The answer is too vague.

text: The answer is too vague and doesn't really answer the question.

text: The answer could be clearer about what it means by "fell into the hands of a humanaeltie."

text: The answer could be clearer in its pronoun use.

text: 'humanaelite' should be 'humanaelite'.

text: There is no evidence of what happens to Nico after he discovers the doctor is a humanaeltie.

text: The answer should be rewritten. It should mention that Nico is taken to the hospital by Ms.Durante, and when he wakes confined he screams about the creatures' presence. The doctor talks to him and reveals himself as Fidio, the humanaeltie.

answer: Since it appears that the technology is too advanced for the world to understand, it is likely that the humanaelites are still in need of Nico's skills and talents. They are likely to either get him on their side or force him to perform maintenance, upgrades, and maybe even help with production.

text: This is incorrect. It is implied that he is killed by Fidio at the end of the story.

answer: No answer

answer: Since it appears that the technology is too advanced for the world to understand, it is likely that the humanaelites are still in need of Nico's skills and talents. They are likely to either get him on their side or force him to perform maintenance, upgrades, and maybe even help with production.

text: The answer is a bit too speculative.

text: The answer is not related.

text: The answer is too speculative.

text: The answer is a bit off. The doctor is implied to be a humanaelite who is going to kill Nico.

text: The answer is inaccurate.

text: The answer is not clear

text: The answer is totally opprossite of what happens


text:
Thoughts on Global Transaction ID, parallel slave, and multi-source replication

-   TO: maria-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-   FROM: Kristian Nielsen <knielsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
-   DATE: Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:34:44 +0200
-   USER-AGENT: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (gnu/linux)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This is a writeup of some thoughts I have on getting Global Transaction ID in
    MariaDB, as well as some related thoughts on parallel slave and multi-source
    replication.

    MySQL 5.6 has global transaction ID now, and I looked into it in some
    details. Unfortunately, I _really_ did not like what I saw. There are two main
    problems, in my opinion:

    1. The basic design is bad, leading to an excessively complicated
    implementation.

    2. The implementation looks very incomplete/immature, to the point that I am
    amazed that anyone would push code like this into a main tree.

    Point 2 means that I really do not want to maintain this piece of **** in
    MariaDB, though we can hope that things will improve in subsequent
    releases. Point 1 leads me to suggest that instead of merging the MySQL 5.6
    implementation, we could do our own implementation, using a design that is
    both much simpler, and at the same time more flexible that what is in MySQL
    5.6. I will elaborate further on these points in the rest of the mail.

    ----

    With respect to point 2, let me quote this little gem from the MySQL 5.6 code:

        /*
        Apparently this code is not being called. We need to
        investigate if this is a bug or this code is not
        necessary. /Alfranio
        */
        DBUG_ASSERT(0); /NOTREACHED/

    Now, certainly, there are dark corners of the MySQL replication code, and
    adding a comment/assert like this could be justified if a developer encounters
    it and finds it may be dead code.

    But this is _new_ code, added in a new 5.6 release! So the authors of the new
    feature, by their own statement, have no idea what the new code they are
    pushing into the main tree is actually doing. That is just insane. I have no
    idea what the replication team at MySQL is up to these days pulling stunts
    like this, I have to confess I am disappointed.

    I found many similar examples in the 5.6 code. I wrote up a more detailed
    analysis in TODO-171, where I elaborate more on the problems I see with the
    MySQL 5.6 Global Transaction ID code:

        https://mariadb.atlassian.net/browse/TODO-171

    When the authors do not understand the code themselves, it really does not
    seem attractive for us to try to support and bugfix it. I also found a lot of
    what I think are left-over, unsused parts of an even more complicated design
    that was apparently abandoned (or postponed?), but left in the code, which
    does not make supporting this any easier.

    ----

    To explain point 1, I first need to mention the MySQL 5.6 feature of parallel
    slave apply, as I believe that a major factor in the design of MySQL Global
    Transaction ID has been the need to interoperate with that feature.

    The MySQL parallel replication slave feature works so that transactions on
    tables in different databases can be run in parallel with each other
    (incidentally, there is some indication that the MySQL replication team
    considers this *the* meaning of parallel slave, which is sad, as it is just
    one piece of the general problem of replication slave scalability - it helps
    in some workloads, but it is useless for others).

    So with parallel slave, transactions on the master can be executed in a
    different order on the slave. This means that the crucial notion of a slaves
    current position in the replication stream becomes more complicated - it is
    not just a single point in the master binlog, rather every slave replication
    thread can be at a different point in the master binlog.

    MySQL 5.6 solves this by introducing "Gtid sets". A Gtid is a MySQL 5.6 global
    transaction ID - a unique, 24-byte identifier for every transaction. The state
    of a replication slave at any given moment is then

        the set Gtids of all transactions ever executed on that slave server

    This notion of having a set of all transactions ever executed really
    complicates the design. There is a need to represent such a set as basically
    intervals of "holes" in the Gtid sequence, to avoid the memory representation
    of such sets growing without bound over time. This in turns introduces the
    requirement that there can _never_ be holes in the sequence of Gtids generated
    on a master - if there ever is introduced a hole, slaves will wait around for
    ever waiting for a transaction containing the missing Gtid. I think recovering
    from errors with such a concept will be forever a nightmare.

    I think this basic fundament of the design is the main source of my dislike
    for the MySQL global transaction ID. It sounds nice on a first look, but once
    you start to think deeper on the problem it just does not seem to work well.

    ----

    So I think I have a better idea of how to make Global Transaction ID work well
    with parallel slave based on executing transactions in different databases
    out-of-order.

    The MySQL Gtid is defined as a pair of server-id and sequence number. Every
    master server has a single server-id (despite no less than 128 bits being
    allocated for this - anyone planning a replication hierarchy with 2**128
    servers?). The master generates a single stream of events in the binlog,
    though streams from other servers may be interleaved with it in case of
    multi-master.

    It is then the task of a slave to try to split up the single master stream in
    to multiple streams that can be executed in parallel. I think this is the root
    of the problem. The slave is the wrong place to do this splitting! It is on
    the master that we know how to interpret transactions (ie. that transactions
    in different databases are / are not independent), so doing this on the slave
    is harder. And two slaves can in general split differently, which makes it
    harder for a slave deeper in the replication hierarchy to switch to a new
    master (that master being itself a slave of a higher-up master), leading to
    the need for a complex set-of-all-executed-transactions concept.

    Suppose we instead make the decision on the _master_ on how to split up the
    replication stream for parallel apply. Instead of a single server-id for the
    master, we can have multiple - let us call them "Source ID".

    On the _master_, we will decide that two transactions in different databases
    are independent, and assign them different Source ID. The slave then receives
    multiple replication streams, and is free to execute each stream in parallel -
    or not, at the discretion of the DBA. Transactions _within_ a single stream
    are always executed in-order, so the slave has no need to remember any sets of
    all transactions ever executed - all it needs to remember is the sequence
    number within each stream it has seen - ie. last sequence number for each
    Source ID. This is a simple and obvious generalisation of the old concept of
    current binlog position. Downstream slaves see the exact same binlog
    sequences, each with transactions in the same order (though sequences may be
    interleaved differently) - so changing masters is simpler, all servers in the
    hierarchy have the same view.

    So to implement the same functionality as MySQL 5.6 parallel replication, all
    we need is on the master to generate Source ID as a hash of the database name
    (just as MySQL 5.6 assigns transactions to slave threads based on such hash of
    the database name). And implement a facility on the slave such that
    transactions with different Source ID can be executed in parallel by multiple
    slave threads.

    And now, since we decide on the master, we can provide much more flexibility
    for the application. We can have _some_ databases db1,db2 be executed in
    parallel on the slave - while other databases db3,db4 are considered
    dependent, and not modified out-of-order on the slave. Or the application can
    declare that two transactions are independent within the same database or even
    within the same table; for example log record inserts into a table can often
    be allowed to happen in different order on slaves. Or the DBA can assign a
    special Source ID to a long-runnign ALTER TABLE, and such ALTER TABLE can then
    execute independently on slaves to not stall the normal load.

    All we need is to provide a simple facility (eg. session variable) that
    applications/users can use to specify Source ID.

    And then the next step is multi-source replication, which is the much-request
    feature that one slave can replicate from two or more different masters at the
    same time. The different masters will just supply different Source IDs, so
    apart from the need to maintain multiple TCP connections, one to each master,
    from the rest of the code's point of view multi-source replication is no
    different, it is just more independent replication streams.

    So my suggestion is: rather than struggle to try and merge and support the
    MySQL 5.6 Global Transaction ID and parallel slave, let us instead implement
    something like the above idea, with multiple Source IDs on the master, and
    parallel execution of distinct replication streams on the slave. I believe
    this will be no more work, and the end result will be both simpler and more
    flexible.

    Thanks,

     - Kristian.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Follow ups

-   RE: THOUGHTS ON GLOBAL TRANSACTION ID, PARALLEL SLAVE, AND MULTI-SOURCE REPLICATION
    From: Stewart Smith, 2012-08-10
-   RE: THOUGHTS ON GLOBAL TRANSACTION ID, PARALLEL SLAVE, AND MULTI-SOURCE REPLICATION
    From: Sergei Petrunia, 2012-08-09

question: What are the steps proposed by the narrator to made Global Transaction ID work well in MariaDB?

text: The response is missing some crucial information with regards to making Global Transaction ID work well on Maria DB.

answer: The splitting of the master stream should not be done on the slave. Splitting it on slave is the root of the problem with Global Transaction ID. The decision ought to split the replication stream should be made on master and instead of a single serer-id, we can have many source ids. Hence we can generate Source ID on master and implement a facility on the slave so the different Source ID can be processed at the same time. After that, we need to execute multi-source replication where one slave can replicate from two or more masters at the same time.

answer: The splitting of the master stream should not be done on the slave. Splitting it on slave is the root of the problem with Global Transaction ID. The decision ought to split the replication stream should be made on master and instead of a single server-id, we can have many source ids. Hence we can generate Source ID on master and implement a facility on the slave so the different Source ID can be processed at the same time.

text: The response lists suggestions rather than steps.

answer: Kristian Nielsen suggests that instead of merging the MySQL 5.6 implementation, a new one should be built. The new design would be both simpler and more flexible than MySQL 5.6. Nielsen thinks a better idea would be to make global transaction ID work well with parallel slave based on executing transactions in different databases out of order.

answer: Kristian Nielsen suggests that instead of merging the MySQL 5.6 implementation, a new one should be built. The new design would be both simpler and more flexible than MySQL 5.6. Nielsen thinks a better idea would be to make global transaction ID work well with parallel slave based on executing transactions in different databases out of order.

text: The answer should mention the proposed steps.

text: The answer should mention the proposed steps in more detail.

text: Doesn't mention that the decision on how to split up the replication stream should be made on the master, not the slave.

text: This response needs to be broken down into two sentences to make it flow better.

text: The answer is missing the part about multi-source replication.

text: The answer could restrict itself to the three steps to implement global transaction ID work well on MariaDB. Then there is no need for the first sentence.


text:
In chess, the MUZIO GAMBIT, sometimes called the POLERIO GAMBIT, is an opening line in the King's Gambit in which White sacrifices a knight for a large lead in and chances. It begins with the moves:

    1. e4 e5
    2. f4 exf4
    3. Nf3 g5
    4. Bc4 g4
    5. 0-0

White offers a knight, aiming to exploit Black's weakness on the f-file[1] to attack the black king. Other possibilities for White's 5th move are 5.Bxf7+ (Lolli Gambit), 5.Nc3 (McDonnell Gambit), 5.d4 (Ghulam Kassim Gambit), and 5.Ne5 (Salvio Gambit), but 5.0-0! is generally reckoned to be White's strongest option,[2][3] and in fact 4.Bc4 (rather than 4.h4) is usually played with the intention of playing a Muzio. Black can avoid the Muzio with 4...Bg7, and this has sometimes been recommended as a safe and practical over the board choice.[4]

The _Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings_ classifies the Muzio Gambit under code C37.

History

The opening was originally analysed by Giulio Cesare Polerio in the late 16th century;[5] the first recorded game is by the Neapolitan player Geronimo Cascio in Alessandro Salvio's _Il Puttino_, published in 1634.[6] The name “Muzio Gambit” originated with the early 19th-century English chess writer Jacob Sarratt, who misattributed the opening to Cascio's contemporary Mutio d'Allesandro in his translation of _Il Puttino_. In its original form, White used Italian-style free castling, placing the king on h1 and rook on f1, for an even stronger attack since checks by a queen or bishop on the g1–a7 diagonal are no longer available as a defence.

The opening reached its peak popularity in the mid 19th century, the Romantic era of chess, when sacrifices and early attacks were considered the pinnacle of chess art. Its popularity declined with the improvements in defensive technique exemplified by players such as Louis Paulsen and Wilhelm Steinitz; however, it is still occasionally seen, usually at amateur level.

Analysis

1. E4 E5 2. F4 EXF4 3. NF3 G5 4. BC4 G4 5. 0-0 GXF3

    If Black postpones taking the knight with 5...d5, White obtains a strong attack beginning either 6.exd5 or 6.Bxd5.[7]

6. QXF3 QF6 (diagram)

    “The thematic starting position in the Muzio. Black's last move is very definitely best since it not only barricades the f-file but also impedes the formation of a white pawn centre with d4.”[8] A sideline is 6...Qe7, where White's strongest reply begins 7.d4 Nc6 8.Nc3 as in Steinitz–Anderssen (), London 1862.[9][10] Walter Korn gives simply 7.d3! followed by 8.Nc3 for slight advantage to White.[11]

    GM Dmitry Andreikin played the rare move 6...Bh6 against Hikaru Nakamura in the 2010 World Blitz Chess Championship, eventually losing.[12] Marović and Sušić wrote that 6...Bh6 is unhelpful to Black, due to 7.d4 Qh4 8.Nc3 Ne7 9.g3 fxg3 10.hxg3 Qh3 11.Rf2.[13] According to Keres, Black is less than after 6...Bh6 7.d4 Qf6 8.e5 Qf5 9.Nc3.[14]

7. E5

    “The most logical. With this extra sacrifice of a pawn White opens up new lines for attack.”[15] A more reserved continuation is 7.d3 Bh6 8.Nc3 Ne7, when 9.e5! Qxe5 10.Bd2 to the 7.e5 main line, whereas 9.Bxf4 Bxf4 10.Qxf4 Qxf4 11.Rxf4 f5! leads to an advantage for Black.[16] Also possible is 7.c3 Nc6 8.d4 Nxd4 9.Bxf7+ Qxf7 10.cxd4 Bh6 11.Nc3 d6 12.Nd5 Be6 13.Nxf4 Bxf4 14.Bxf4 0-0-0 15.d5 Bd7 16.Qc3 Qf6 17.e5 Qg7 18.Rae1 (18.e6}}) 18...Bb5 19.Rf2 Ne7 20.Qa5 Nxd5= (Korchnoi).[17]

7... QXE5

    and now White's main choices are 8.Bxf7+ and 8.d3:

Double Muzio: 8.Bxf7+!?

8. BXF7+!?[18]

    This is known as the DOUBLE MUZIO, “the best version of the Muzio” according to Keene.[19] It is very dangerous against an unprepared opponent; however, its has been called into question.[20]

8... KXF7 9. D4 (diagram) QF5

    Traditionally, the most popular move has been 9...Qxd4+; then after 10.Be3 Qf6 11.Bxf4 British correspondence grandmaster Peter Millican asserts that the position is “objectively equal”,[21] while Scottish grandmaster John Shaw says “If I was guaranteed to reach this position, I would recommend 4.Bc4 and the Muzio...”. Shaw sharply criticises 9...Qxd4+ which “grabs a meaningless pawn, opens another line for White's attack and makes the black queen vulnerable on the dark squares”;[22] grandmaster Neil McDonald even goes so far as to suggest that 9...Qf5 may be the only playable move.[23]

    After 9...Qf5, Shaw cites the game Showalter–Taubenhaus, New York 1889,[24] which continued 10.g4 Qg6 11.Nc3 Nf6 12.Bxf4 d6 13.Bg3 Kg7, as an example of a successful defence by Black. Yakov Estrin suggests 11.Bxf4 Nf6 12.Be5 d6 13.Bxf6 Bxg4 14.Qg2 Rg8 15.Kh1 Bf5 16.Qd5+!, assessing the position as better for White. McDonald disputes this assessment, saying Black should win after 16...Kxf6 17.Nc3 Nc6 18.Rxf5+! Ke7![25] Both Millican and Shaw recommend 10.Bxf4 rather than the “loosening” 10.g4,[26] though Shaw describes it as “unconvincing” after 10...Nf6.[27]

Main line: 8.d3

8. D3 BH6 9. NC3 NE7 10. BD2 NBC6 11. RAE1 QF5

    White was believed to be better until this move was suggested in 1858 by a Milwaukee player identified only as “W.S.”;[28] previously 11...Qc5+ had been played. Louis Paulsen introduced the new move during his match with leading Austrian master Ignatz Kolisch in 1861, winning the game after a well-conducted defence.[29][30]

12. ND5 KD8

    with continuations:
    -   13.Qe2 (a move attributed to the British amateur R. E. Lean, sometimes misidentified as “Maclean”) and now:
        -   13...Qe6 14.Qf2 (neither 14.Nxe7, 14.Qf3, nor 14.Bc3 is better) 14...Qf5= (draw by repetition); if 14...Qg4 15.h3 Qg6 16.Bxf4 White is better (Znosko-Borovsky).[31]
        -   13...b5 14.Nxe7 (according to Tim Harding, 14.Bxf4! gives White the advantage[32]) 14...Qc5+ 15.Rf2 (Berger[33]) Qxe7 (Korchnoi gives 15...Nxe7!,[34] whereas Keene gives 15...Nxe7 16.Bc3 Re8 17.Bxf7 Rf8 18.Bd4![35]) 16.Qh5 Qg5 17.Qxf7 bxc4! 18.Bc3 Rf8! 19.Bf6+ Qxf6 20.Re8+ Rxe8 21.Qxf6+ Ne7 22.Qxh6 cxd3 23.cxd3 Rb8 24.Qxh7 Rb6 25.b3 Ng6 with clear advantage for Black.[36]
    -   13.Bc3 and Black has three satisfactory squares for the attacked rook:

    :* 13...Rg8 14.Rxe7 Nxe7 15.Bf6 Re8 16.g4 Qg6 17.Qe2 Bf8 18.g5 d6= (Bilguer).[37]

    :* 13...Re8, here White has tried 14.Bf6 and 14.Nf6, but best is 14.Qe2 Qe6 15.Qf3 Qf5 16.Qe2= (drawn by repetition, Keene–Pfleger, Montilla 1974).[38][39]

    :* 13...Rf8! 14.g4 Qg6 15.h4 Nxd5 16.Bxd5 f6 17.Qe2 Ne5! 18.g5 Bxg5! (analysis by Panov) where Black has the advantage and a attack.[40][41]

Other 8th moves for White

8. NC3 QD4+ 9. KH1 QXC4 10. D3 QC6 11. QXF4 F6 with equality.

    Analysis by Korn.[42]

[1]

[2] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), p. 34

[3]

[4] Shaw, pp. 197–99

[5] _The New Handbuch – IV_, _The British Chess Magazine_, Volume 11, December 1891, p. 544

[6]

[7] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), pp. 27–28

[8] Keene (1993), p. 157

[9] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), p. 29

[10]

[11] Korn (1982), p. 7 n. i

[12]

[13]

[14] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), p. 28

[15]

[16] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), pp. 29–30

[17] Matanović 1997 (Vol C), p. 205 n. 21

[18] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), p. 30. “This second piece sacrifice is worthy of attention.”

[19] Keene (1993), p. 159

[20]

[21]

[22] Shaw (2013), p. 198

[23] McDonald (1998), p. 62

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), p. 33

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35] Keene (1993), p. 158

[36]

[37] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), pp. 31–32

[38]

[39]

[40] Matanović 1997 (Vol C), p. 205 n. 19

[41] Korchnoi & Zak (1986), p. 32

[42] Korn (1982), p. 7 n. j

title: Muzio Gambit

question: What does the text say about the popularity of the Muzio gambit chess move?

text: During the 19th century, early attacks were not scarce but widespread.

answer: The move appeared in the 16th century and was recorded in a few texts. It gained popularity in the mid 19th century when early attacks were scarce but it declined with the improvements in defensive techniques. Now it is occasionally seen at the amateur level.

answer: The move appeared in the 16th century and was recorded in a few texts. It gained popularity in the mid 19th century when early attacks were scarce but it declined with the improvements in defensive techniques. Now it is occasionally seen at the amateur level.

text: "when early attacks were scarce" - this is incorrect. The move gained popularity during the Romantic era of chess when early attacks were considered the pinnacle of chess art.

text: It is omitted that the opening reached its peak popularity in the mid 19th century, the Romantic era of chess, when sacrifices and early attacks were considered the pinnacle of chess art.

text: The answer should mention that the move was analysed by Giulio Cesare Polerio in the late 16th century.

text: The first sentence is irrelevant to the question.

text: It is omitted that the opening reached its peak popularity in the mid-19th century.

text: "a few texts." - replace with "Alessandro Salvio's Il Puttino"

answer: The Muzio gambit chess move reached its peak popularity in the mid-19th century, the Romantic era of chess, when sacrifices and early attacks were considered the pinnacle of chess art. Its popularity declined with the improvements in defensive technique exemplified by players such as Louis Paulsen and Wilhelm Steinitz. However, it is still occasionally seen, usually at the amateur level.

text: "the Romantic era of chess" - add a hyphen

text: "the Romantic era of chess" - is redundant and should be deleted.

text: "However" - add a comma

text: "usually at the amateur level." - add a hyphen

text: "mid-19th century" - add a hyphen

text: "were" - change to "was"

answer: The Muzio gambit chess move reached its peak popularity in the mid-19th century, the Romantic era of chess, when sacrifices and early attacks were considered the pinnacle of chess art. Its popularity declined with the improvements in defensive technique exemplified by players such as Louis Paulsen and Wilhelm Steinitz. However, it is still occasionally seen, usually at the amateur level.

answer: The move appeared in the 16th century and was recorded in a few texts. It gained popularity in the mid 19th century when early attacks were widespread but it declined with the improvements in defensive techniques. Now it is occasionally seen at the amateur level.

answer: The move appeared in the 16th century and was recorded in a few texts. It gained popularity in the mid 19th century when early attacks were widespread but it declined with the improvements in defensive techniques. Now it is occasionally seen at the amateur level.

text: The answer should mention the first recorded game.

text: "a few texts" - is vague and should be replaced with "a Neapolitan player's game in Alessandro Salvio's "Il Puttino" published in 1634"

text: "when early attacks were widespread" is a bit unclear and should be rewritten.

text: This is a summary of the article, not just the popularity of the move.

text: Not the 16th century


text:
The Girl

There is a pulse to everything in life; a steady rhythm that resonates through this world, setting a pace for the mad race to nowhere we all seem to be competing in. Whether it is the catchy beat of a song stuck in our head as we bike to class, the violent rumbling of a towering thunderstorm, or the pounding heartbeats of two lovers beating in unison at the start of a sleepless night, every moment in life has a distinct cadence that seems at times to be the only thing pushing time forward. It can inspire euphoria or strike fear in our hearts, but with no regard for anyone else it presents itself and begs for our attention.

It was the chaotic ringing of my alarm clock and subsequent pounding in my head that woke me up this morning. Like a bat out of hell the shrieking of that damned machine cut through the peaceful realm of my dream, dragging me into reality from some beautiful fantasy forever lost to the deep crevices of my subconscious.  Sometimes I feel as though the hardest thing in life is dragging my ass out of bed after a long night. My dorm room is small and my roommate is either miraculously still sleeping or trying to salvage his own fantasy from the rude awakening of my alarm clock as I fumble to turn the damn thing off. Contrary to what most people believe, there is no such thing as silence. In the absence of my alarm, silence does not settle on us but rather the subtle vibrations of a hundred other students quietly preparing for the morning class we never should have signed up for. The scraping of my toothbrush, the hum of the AC kicking in, the roar of water rushing out of the shower head to meet me head on; one noise leading to another to compose the jumbled melody that echoes through the dorm hall and out into the crowded streets where it joins a symphony of cars, bikes, morning joggers, and disgruntled youth on their way to class.

Soon I was a part of that symphony, playing my own part as I crawled to class. I put my headphones in to drown out the cacophony around me with something a little more familiar. I pressed the shuffle button and the song reminds me of a girl. My heart beat speeds up and joins the music as a wave of emotions rolls over me. Just as the different sounds of my morning routine had given way to one another so did my emotions. Joy at first, that she was coming in town to see me. Then doubt, that she would still feel the same as she did when we last spoke. Fear, that I wasn’t good enough. Anger, that I had once done wrong by her, putting me in such a delicate and unsure situation. Hope, that maybe we were still recoverable. It had been almost two years since I messed up, and here she was driving 6 hours just to see me.

The fluctuations of my emotions settled into a steady drone of uncertainty as I crossed the street. The blaring of a car horn interrupts my favorite part of the song and I flick off the driver who was apparently so inconvenienced by a 5mph decrease in speed that he needed to let the whole block know. Asshole.

The sun is warm on my back but a cool breeze pushing against me sends shivers down my spine. The thud of each footstep sends unwanted vibrations through my sore legs, and a stronger gust of wind presses against me. I imagine that with a mind of its own the wind was begging me to turn around. “Sorry,” I think, “my math professor probably won’t accept “the wind told me not to come” as an excuse for missing the quiz today.” I hate this class. While it may be easy, it’s also all the way across campus and at 9 in the morning.

I miss summer with no responsibilities: when I could stay up late and look for trouble without a care in the world. We got in a big fight this summer; me and the girl did. It had been the first time we had spoken in over a year, and we were both drunk. She told me I didn’t deserve her. The worst part was that she was right. We didn’t talk again for a long while after that. Then out of the blue, about 2 months ago, she texted me. Somehow the conversation never ended. We talked everyday, and while it was strange at first, we slowly evolved, or perhaps regressed, to a level of comfort neither of us had known for years. It was great. Is great.

Nine impressive booms brought me back to the present as the clock towers time reverberated across campus. I picked up my own pace knowing I hade 10 minutes to get there, my footsteps matching the beat of Mr. Kanye West’s music. I almost tripped stepping off the curb to cross the final street, my math building directly ahead. Embarrassed I glare at the chubby kid passing on my right who had let out a short laugh at my expense. Another car horn from my left requests a vulgar reply but my world is spinning before I have the chance to accommodate it.

All I see is the blue sky; it really is a nice day. Something hurts, but I don’t know what. My head feels wet, and somebody is kneeling over me yelling something. I want to ask her to talk slower but my voice escapes me.

I remember six years ago when I first met her, the girl that is. A teacher kicked me out of my reading class because I would finish my work too fast and pester the other kids. I was placed into an advanced program for students who “though outside the box” as they said. I didn’t really care at the time, I wasn’t the most popular kid and another class just meant another group of assholes who wanted to prove they were better than me. This class was no exception. Some guy spent most of class pretending to yawn as he flexed for the whole class, and girls just loved it. But she was in there. She liked him, but that was to be expected. He was confident and athletic, me: not really either.

I hear a siren coming, and I want to tell them that it really is unnecessary; I’m fine.

It’s Valentines Day and I’m anxiously sitting in second period. I had bought her flowers the day before. Two roses to be delivered sometime this period. I can hardly contain myself. My best friend runs into my class laughing hysterically. He says I spelt her name wrong on the card, first and last. I can’t believe it. I’m so embarrassed. That familiar racing of my heart, the loud anxious beating that seems to have been ever present in my youth, sends blood rushing to my cheeks.

Somebody is pressing on my chest, and blowing into my mouth. I think about asking the paramedic if he plans on buying me dinner after, but that would probably be awkward. The tempo of his hands weighing into my chest reminds me of my own heartbeat, which strangely is suddenly so much quieter.

It’s been a month since I butchered my Valentines Day plans, and I pass the girl and her new boyfriend walking down the hall. I decide to take the long way to class from now on, and I’m swallowed by a sea of noisy students performing a piece unique to the depravity of middle school.

The paramedic’s head is eclipsing the sun behind him, and I realize for the first time this morning just how cold it is. I feel the cool breeze flowing over me. Sandwiched between the cold ground and the paramedic, I remember the gust of wind that had asked me to turn back. I wish I had listened.

It’s 3 years ago. I’m a sophomore and a little more mature than the awkward preteen who barely survived middle school. Through some bad experiences with girls I’d become a little jaded. The disappearance of the ignorant nice guy persona ironically gave way to a more confident attitude that some described as me being, well, an asshole. I walked through the door of my Spanish class and my eyes immediately fell on her. The girl, who sat right next to me, was dating some other kid in the class, but that didn’t stop me from trying to occupy all her attention right in front of him. She was temporarily out of reach, but I was making an impression. As the teacher’s instructions began to fill the room with the unfamiliar tone of a foreign language, I glance over at her, she at me, and I wink.

The paramedic stops performing CPR. His tireless effort seems to have finally found success. But the sad expression on his face and the stillness of my chest forces me to realize the alternative.

It’s October 10, 2009, a little over two years ago. Or maybe it’s the 11th, I’ve been drinking and time loses meaning on nights like these. I pull my shirt over my head, my pants long gone. The girl pulls me on top of her, and we kiss. Four long years brought me to her, and there is nothing in my world except the pounding of her heart against my chest, the rhythm of our tongues, and the room spinning around me. But before we could proceed a thundering knock interrupts our perfect moment. Somebody calls up that my dad is drunk and at the front door.

I realize that this might not end the way I’d hoped. Everything seems distant, surreal. I want to look around me but I cant. I want to get up and run back to my dorm but I cant. I’m stuck on the ground surrounded by the pulsating whaling of police sirens that for once in my life is comforting.

It’s December 28, 2009, and I’m carrying flowers towards her front door. It’s her birthday, and I hear the gentle hum of Christmas music from the other side of the door. She answers the door in a bra and Santa skirt, her perfect body greeting me in a fashion I could never have fantasized. She leads me up the stairs as our footsteps echo through the empty house, and I am truly happy.

The ever-present pulse that prods life along doesn’t miss a beat, and I can feel it leaving me. All the beautiful sounds of the city are slowing down, and the cries of people around me have all but faded away, but I can’t be mad that the rhythm is leaving me. It has a job to do and I wouldn’t deny the rest of the earth its soothing presence.

It’s April 12, 2010, a year and a half ago. She is crying. I’m crying. Were standing in the parking lot at sprouts. I’m begging for a second chance, and she doesn’t know what to do. She can’t trust me she says. She doesn’t understand why or how I could do this to her. I don’t either. She drives away, and I’m left standing in the punishing cold, unwilling to admit this is real. I close my wet eyes, and the roar of the wind envelopes my senses.

I feel like I’m sinking into myself. A darkness on all sides begins to encroach on my vision, and a silence settles on me for the first time. There is no pain, except regret. The girl. I wont be able to see the girl tonight.

title: THE GIRL

question: How does the narrator's day go?

text: A short summary of the narrator's history with the girl would be useful to include here.

answer: He wakes up with the alarm, groggy and grumpy for waking up so early. He doesn't like the math class because it starts early and is across the campus despite being easy. He walks to the class in a hurry while listening to music, which reminds him of his ex-girlfriend. He's excited and anxious about meeting her later that day. He almost collides with an oncoming car, and a similar event repeats a few moments later. This time he's not so lucky. While laying on the ground, slowly dying, he remembers his history with the girl. Seeing her for the first time in middle school, starting to flirt with her in high school despite her boyfriend, being happily in love, and (probably) cheating on her before breaking up. By the time he realizes he's dying for sure, he's regretful about not being able to meet her.

text: The narrator is not grumpy.

text: The narrator is not excited and anxious about meeting his ex-girlfriend. He is worried about how she will feel about him.

text: The narrator is not dying

text: The narrator is not dying. He is dead.

text: The story doesn't mention the narrator cheating on his lover.

text: Irrelevant details, not all events happening according to the chronology of the narrative, the one that needs the most change is the one on the third line (cheating on the girl), which did not actually happen in the story.

answer: He wakes up with the alarm, groggy and grumpy for waking up so early. He doesn't like the math class because it starts early and is across the campus despite being easy. He walks to the class in a hurry while listening to music, which reminds him of his ex-girlfriend. He's excited and anxious about meeting her later that day. He almost collides with an oncoming car, and a similar event repeats a few moments later. This time he's not so lucky. While laying on the ground, slowly dying, he remembers his history with the girl. By the time he realizes he's dying for sure, he's regretful about not being able to meet her.

answer: The narrator wakes up to the sound of his alarm clock, and he's not in a good mood. He's thinking about a girl he loves, and he's not sure if she feels the same way. He goes to class, and he's thinking about the girl. He's not paying attention to the road, and he gets hit by a car. He's thinking about the girl as he's dying.

text: It's omitted that the paramedics try to save him but it doesn't seem to work.

text: This should point out that he's rushing to his morning class.

text: It's omitted that he is thinking about the girl because she's driving six hours to see him after he'd messed things up two years prior.

answer: He wakes up with the alarm, groggy and grumpy for waking up so early. He doesn't like the math class because it starts early and is across the campus despite being easy. He walks to the class in a hurry while listening to music, which reminds him of his ex-girlfriend. He's excited and anxious about meeting her later that day. He almost collides with an oncoming car, and a similar event repeats a few moments later. This time he's not so lucky. While laying on the ground, slowly dying, he remembers his history with the girl. Seeing her for the first time in middle school, starting to flirt with her in high school despite her boyfriend, being happily in love, and (probably) cheating on her before breaking up. By the time he realizes he's dying for sure, he's regretful about not being able to meet her.

text: The answer contains irrelevant details (such as that he doesn't like math class).

text: The answer could be clearer about the fact that the narrator is hit by a car.

text: The answer doesn't need to go into such detail about the boy's recollections.

answer: He wakes up with the alarm, groggy and grumpy for waking up so early. He doesn't like the math class because it starts early and is across the campus despite being easy. He walks to the class in a hurry while listening to music, which reminds him of his ex-girlfriend. He's excited and anxious about meeting her later that day. He almost collides with an oncoming car, and a similar event repeats a few moments later. This time he's not so lucky. While laying on the ground, slowly dying, he remembers his history with the girl. By the time he realizes he's dying for sure, he's regretful about not being able to meet her.

text: The narrator is not dying. He is dead.

text: The narrator doesn't collide with a car, he's hit by one.

text: It's not clear what "a similar event repeats a few moments later" refers to.

text: There is an issue with continuity in the response because the response indicates that the narrator realizes he is dying, but he was already walking towards his destination, of course.

answer: The narrator wakes up to the sound of his alarm clock, and he's not in a good mood. He's thinking about a girl he loves, and he's not sure if she feels the same way. He goes to class, and he's thinking about the girl. He's not paying attention to the road, and he gets hit by a car. He's thinking about the girl as he's dying.

text: The narrator is not thinking about the girl as he's dying. He's thinking about the past.

text: It's omitted that the narrator is killed in the accident.

text: "He's thinking about the girl as he's dying." This is inaccurate. The narrator is not thinking about the girl when he's dying. He is thinking about the girl earlier in the day.

text: The narrator's thoughts about the girl come before he gets hit by the car.

text: Too speculative--never really addresses the question