text:
ARTHUR COUNTY is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 460,[1] making it Nebraska's least populous county and the fifth-least populous county in the United States (behind only Loving County, Texas; Kalawao County, Hawaii; King County, Texas; and Kenedy County, Texas). Its county seat and only incorporated community is Arthur.[2]

In the Nebraska license plate system, Arthur County is represented by the prefix 91 (it had the 91st-largest number of vehicles registered in the state when the license plate system was established in 1922).

Arthur County contains the historic First Arthur County Courthouse and Jail, believed to be the smallest courthouse in the United States.[3]

History

Arthur County was established in 1913 from the western part of McPherson County following an effort to move the McPherson County seat from Tryon to the more centrally located Flats: rather than lose the county seat, the residents of Tryon, Nebraska agreed to have the county divided approximately in half, according to boundaries for sandhills counties originally proposed in 1887. The half which became Arthur County had been in the process of settlement by 1884, by ranchers seeking open grazing land. The placement of a post office at Lena in 1894 and the passage of the homesteading act in 1904 (which allowed claims of 640 acres compared to the previous 160 acres in this area) further influenced the county's founding and expedited the new county's establishment processes.

The new county was named after President Chester A. Arthur, and the village of Arthur, similarly named, was established to serve as the county seat.[4] Principal postal service moved from Lena to the village of Arthur in 1914, which also held the county's public schools, general store, bank and co-op, principal churches, newspaper and other businesses and services, all aimed at continuing and facilitating the county's rural lifestyle.

The 1920 United States Census counted 1,412 residents in Arthur County, which was then and has remained entirely rural, essentially ranching. Although the village of Arthur underwent electrification in the 1920s, most of the county did not see power or telephone services until 1950–1951. At that time also, highway construction and improvements facilitated transportation, which was especially dependent upon the north-south State Highway 61 and the east-west Highway 92: motor vehicles were the sole means of mechanical transportation throughout Arthur's history as it had no railroad or canal. Irrigation of the sandhills land started by 1900 and continued through the first half of the twentieth century, with center-pivot irrigation dominating. The population peaked around 1930 at 1,344 persons, but declined with the Great Depression. By 1950, the county population was down to 803, by 1980 down to 513.

Geography

According to the US Census Bureau, the county has an area of , of which is land and (0.4%) is water.[5]

Major highways

-   [] Nebraska Highway 61
-   [] Nebraska Highway 92

Adjacent counties

-   Grant County - north
-   Hooker County - northeast
-   McPherson County - east
-   Keith County - south
-   Garden County - west

Demographics

As of the 2000 United States Census,[6] of 2000, there were 444 people, 185 households, and 138 families residing in the county. The population density was 0.618 people per square mile (0.239/km²). There were 273 housing units at an average density of 0.380 per square mile (0.147/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 96.40% White, 0.23% Native American, 0.68% Asian, 0.23% Pacific Islander, 0.90% from other races, and 1.58% from two or more races. 1.35% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 50.4% were of German, 13.1% English, 6.2% Irish and 5.7% Swedish ancestry.

There were 185 households, out of which 27.60% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.20% were married couples living together, 7.60% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.40% were non-families. 21.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.80% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 2.80.

The county population contained 23.90% under the age of 18, 5.40% from 18 to 24, 29.50% from 25 to 44, 24.80% from 45 to 64, and 16.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 101.80 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.40 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $27,375, and the median income for a family was $31,979. Males had a median income of $21,544 versus $13,125 for females. The per capita income for the county was $15,810. About 7.90% of families and 13.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.10% of those under age 18 and 7.80% of those age 65 or over.

Religion

More than 50% of the county residents are Baptists, making it the northernmost Baptist majority county in the United States.[7]

Politics

Arthur County has voted strongly for Republican presidential candidates since 1936. Each one since 1952 has gotten over 60% of the vote, with the exception of George H. W. Bush in 1992.

  Year                               Republican                                Democratic                                Third Parties
  ---------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- -----------------------------
  style=“text-align:center;” |2020   style=“text-align:center;” |91.6% _260_   style=“text-align:center;” |7.4% _21_     1.1% _3_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2016   style=“text-align:center;” |89.4% _244_   style=“text-align:center;” |6.2% _17_     4.4% _12_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2012   style=“text-align:center;” |86.6% _227_   style=“text-align:center;” |11.5% _30_    1.9% _5_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2008   style=“text-align:center;” |82.5% _217_   style=“text-align:center;” |14.8% _39_    2.7% _7_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2004   style=“text-align:center;” |90.2% _240_   style=“text-align:center;” |9.0% _24_     0.8% _2_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2000   style=“text-align:center;” |86.4% _235_   style=“text-align:center;” |9.6% _26_     4.1% _11_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1996   style=“text-align:center;” |72.5% _187_   style=“text-align:center;” |9.7% _25_     17.8% _46_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1992   style=“text-align:center;” |56.1% _148_   style=“text-align:center;” |6.8% _18_     37.1% _98_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1988   style=“text-align:center;” |78.1% _210_   style=“text-align:center;” |21.6% _58_    0.4% _1_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1984   style=“text-align:center;” |88.3% _248_   style=“text-align:center;” |11.7% _33_    style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1980   style=“text-align:center;” |76.8% _245_   style=“text-align:center;” |17.9% _57_    5.3% _17_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1976   style=“text-align:center;” |73.7% _193_   style=“text-align:center;” |24.4% _64_    1.9% _5_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1972   style=“text-align:center;” |84.0% _236_   style=“text-align:center;” |16.0% _45_    style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1968   style=“text-align:center;” |77.9% _218_   style=“text-align:center;” |16.8% _47_    5.4% _15_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1964   style=“text-align:center;” |65.9% _243_   style=“text-align:center;” |34.2% _126_   style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1960   style=“text-align:center;” |80.6% _283_   style=“text-align:center;” |19.4% _68_    style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1956   style=“text-align:center;” |78.5% _248_   style=“text-align:center;” |21.5% _68_    style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1952   style=“text-align:center;” |83.2% _307_   style=“text-align:center;” |16.8% _62_    style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1948   style=“text-align:center;” |57.5% _199_   style=“text-align:center;” |42.5% _147_   style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1944   style=“text-align:center;” |63.7% _268_   style=“text-align:center;” |36.3% _153_   style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1940   style=“text-align:center;” |64.2% _348_   style=“text-align:center;” |35.8% _194_   style="text-align:center; |
  style=“text-align:center;” |1936   style=“text-align:center;” |56.7% _312_   style=“text-align:center;” |42.7% _235_   0.6% _3_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1932   style=“text-align:center;” |39.8% _237_   style=“text-align:center;” |56.7% _338_   3.5% _21_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1928   style=“text-align:center;” |69.4% _402_   style=“text-align:center;” |29.2% _169_   1.4% _8_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1924   style=“text-align:center;” |34.9% _143_   style=“text-align:center;” |24.6% _101_   40.5% _166_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1920   style=“text-align:center;” |57.0% _167_   style=“text-align:center;” |32.1% _94_    10.9% _32_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1916   style=“text-align:center;” |32.1% _143_   style=“text-align:center;” |64.3% _286_   3.6% _16_

  : PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS RESULTS[8]

Communities

Village

-   Arthur (county seat)

Unincorporated communities

-   Bucktail
-   Calora
-   Lena
-   Velma

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8] http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS

title: Arthur County, Nebraska

question: Summarize the geography of the county.

answer: The county has two major highways - Highway 61 and Highway 92. They have five adjacent counties - Grant county, Hooker county, McPherson county, Keith county, and Garden county.

question: How was the county established?

answer: The county was established from the western part of McPherson county. This was done to move the McPherson county seat from Tryon to the more centrally located Flats.

question: Who named the county?

answer: It may be implied that the name was decided with the help of the McPherson county council.


split: test

text:
_SYMPHYOTRICHUM FIRMUM_ (formerly _Aster firmus_), commonly known as SHINING ASTER, GLOSSY-LEAVED ASTER, SMOOTH SWAMP ASTER, or SMOOTH-STEMMED ASTER, is a perennial herb native to Canada and the United States.

Description

_Symphyotrichum firmum_ can reach heights of up to . It forms large colonies with long, creeping rhizomes. The stem is hairless or it may have stiff, short hairs, often formed in vertical lines. It is sometimes dark red or purple at the nodes (where the leaf connects to the stem). The leaves are alternate, up to long and broad, and clasp the stem. The main vein on the lower leaf surface is hairless or slightly hairy near the tip.[1][2]

It flowers between August and October. The flowerheads are across with up to 40 ray florets and 50 disc florets. The ray florets range from white to pale blue or lavender. The disc florets are yellow to cream-colored, becoming pink or purple with maturity. [3][4]

Compared to _S. puniceum_, this species is less hairy overall, has denser inflorescences of smaller, whiter flowers, and grows in larger, denser patches.[5][6]

Taxonomy

_Symphyotrichum firmum_ is closely related and morphologically very similar to _S. puniceum_ (purple-stemmed aster), and is not always treated as a separate species. However, there is little evidence of intergrades between the two taxa, and most sources now treat them as distinct.[7][8]

Distribution and habitat

Its range is poorly known due to confusion with the closely related _Symphyotrichum puniceum_.[9] In Canada it has been recorded from Alberta to Quebec.[10] In the United States, it occurs in the Midwest, some parts of the Northeast, and in the Appalachian Mountains south to Georgia.[11][12][13] It is more common in the western part of its range.[14]

_Symphyotrichum firmum_ grows in moist, sunny areas, such as fens and wet prairies.[15][16] It is often found growing with _S.puniceum_.[17] Unlike _S. puniceum_, it sometimes spreads into drier areas.[18]

Ecology

Many species of bees have been observed visiting the flowers, including _Agapostemon virescens_, _Bombus_ spp., _Ceratina_ spp., _Halictus ligatus_, and _Melissodes druriella_.[19]

Conservation

NatureServe lists it as Secure (G5) worldwide but Critically Imperiled (S1) in North Carolina, Vulnerable (S3) in Quebec, and Presumed Extirpated (SX) in New Jersey.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

title: Symphyotrichum firmum

question: Where is the Symphyotrichum firmum native to?

answer: It is native to Canada and the United States.

question: When does the herb normally flower?

answer: The herb flowers between August and October.

question: What types of environments does the herb enjoy?

answer: It grows in moist sunny areas, such as fens and wet prairies.

question: What does the herb look like?

answer: The stem of the herb is hairless or has stiff short hairs, often in vertical lines. They are sometimes dark red or purple at the nodes, or where the leaf connects to the stem.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Symphyotrichum firmum is a perennial herb native to Canada and the United States. It prefers moist and sunny areas.


text:
How much does a Clinical Ethicist make hourly in the United States? The average hourly wage for a Clinical Ethicist in the United States is $48 as of October 28, 2020, but the range typically falls between $44 and $55. Hourly rate can vary widely depending on many important factors, including education, certifications, additional skills, the number of years you have spent in your profession. With more online, real-time compensation data than any other website, Salary.com helps you determine your exact pay target.

[] The Top 9 Hottest Jobs during the Pandemic

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Job Description for Clinical Ethicist

CLINICAL ETHICIST offers guidance to patients, their families, and professional staff on ethical, legal and policy issues and concerns stemming from clinical interactions between health care professionals and patients. Provides guidance to the institutional ethics committee pertaining to policy formulation and educational and case review activities. Being a CLINICAL ETHICIST develops institutional policies concerning ethical issues such as "do-not-resuscitate" and "withdrawal of life-support". Requires a master's degree or doctorate related to health ethics. Additionally, CLINICAL ETHICIST typically reports to a manager or head of a unit/department. To be a CLINICAL ETHICIST typically requires 4 to 7 years of related experience. Contributes to moderately complex aspects of a project. Work is generally independent and collaborative in nature. (Copyright 2020 Salary.com)... View full job description

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Norman R. Hames, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER - WESTERN OPERATIONS

RadNet, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides outpatient diagnostic imaging services in the United States. Its services include magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, nuclear medicine, mammography, ultrasound, diagnostic radiology, fluoroscopy, and other related procedur... More

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What does a CLINICAL ETHICIST do?

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Seek to mediate and resolve conflicts within teams, within patients' families, and between teams, on the one hand, and patients and their families on the other.

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 CLINICAL ETHICIST PAY DIFFERENCE BY LOCATION

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| City, State                       | Compared to national average      |
+===================================+===================================+
| CITY, STATE San Francisco, CA     | COMPARED TO NATIONAL AVERAGE      |
|                                   | + 25.0%                           |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| CITY, STATE Washington, DC        | COMPARED TO NATIONAL AVERAGE      |
|                                   | + 11.3%                           |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| CITY, STATE Miami, FL             | COMPARED TO NATIONAL AVERAGE      |
|                                   |  -2.6%                            |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| CITY, STATE Chicago, IL           | COMPARED TO NATIONAL AVERAGE      |
|                                   | + 6.1%                            |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| CITY, STATE Boston, MA            | COMPARED TO NATIONAL AVERAGE      |
|                                   | + 12.7%                           |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| CITY, STATE New York, NY          | COMPARED TO NATIONAL AVERAGE      |
|                                   | + 20.3%                           |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| CITY, STATE Dallas, TX            | COMPARED TO NATIONAL AVERAGE      |
|                                   |  -0.7%                            |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

 SIMILAR JOBS to CLINICAL ETHICIST

LOADING RESULTS...

[]

+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Job Title       | Experience      | EDUCATION       | Salary Compared |
|                 |                 |                 | to This Job     |
+=================+=================+=================+=================+
| JOB TITLE       | EXPERIENCE 5 +  | EDUCATIONMaster | SALARY COMPARED |
| Clinical        |                 | s               | TO THIS JOB     |
| Education       |                 |                 |  - 2.6%         |
| Manager         |                 |                 |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| JOB TITLE       | EXPERIENCE      | EDUCATIONBachel | SALARY COMPARED |
| Clinical        |                 | ors             | TO THIS JOB     |
| Educator        |                 |                 |  - 18.4%        |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| JOB TITLE       | EXPERIENCE 0 -  | EDUCATIONBachel | SALARY COMPARED |
| Clinical        | 2               | ors             | TO THIS JOB     |
| Outcomes        |                 |                 |  - 41.1%        |
| Analyst         |                 |                 |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| JOB TITLE       | EXPERIENCE      | EDUCATIONBachel | SALARY COMPARED |
| Clinical        |                 | ors             | TO THIS JOB     |
| Outcomes        |                 |                 | + 59.0%         |
| Director        |                 |                 |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| JOB TITLE       | EXPERIENCE      | EDUCATIONBachel | SALARY COMPARED |
| Clinical        |                 | ors             | TO THIS JOB     |
| Outcomes        |                 |                 | + 16.9%         |
| Manager         |                 |                 |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

 Clinical Ethicist Salary by STATE

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These charts show the average hourly wage (core compensation), as well as the average total hourly cash compensation for the job of Clinical Ethicist in the United States. The average hourly rate for Clinical Ethicist ranges from $44 to $55 with the average hourly pay of $48. The total hourly cash compensation, which includes base and short-term incentives, can vary anywhere from $44 to $55 with the average total hourly cash compensation of $48.

question: Summarize what a clinical ethicist does.

answer: A clinical ethicist offers guidance to patients, their families, and professional staff on ethical, legal and policy issues and concerns stemming from clinical interactions between health care professionals and patients. They provide guidance to institutional ethics committee pertaining to policy formulation and educational and case review activities.

question: What is the pay for a clinical ethicist?

answer: As of October 28, 2020, the hourly wage for a clinical ethicist typically ranges between $44 and $55. However, the rate can vary widely depending on many important factors, including education, certifications, additional skills, and the number of years spent in the profession.

question: What must one study in order to become a clinical ethicist?

answer: A clinical ethicist requires a master's degree or doctorate related to health ethics.


text:
"La Mejor Versión de Mí" is a song by Dominican singer Natti Natasha. It was released on February 11, 2019, as the fourth single from her debut studio album, Iluminatti. On October 3, 2019, a bachata remix version featuring Dominican-American singer Romeo Santos was released. The song was listed as one of Billboards seven Latin songs taking a stance against domestic violence.
 Music videos
A music video for the original song was released on February 2019. It shows Natti emotionally singing in front of a black background setting. The music video was compared to Gwen Stefani's "Used to Love You" video. The video has over 125 million views as of April 2020.
The music video for the remix version featuring Romeo Santos was released on October 3, 2019. Directed by Fernando Lugo, the videoclip shows Natti and Romeo in somber settings, such as Santos being trapped in a car that is sinking underwater and Natti in front of a burning car. The music video has over 300 million views on YouTube as of April 2020.
 Charts
 Weekly charts
 Year-end charts
 Certifications

title: La Mejor Versión de Mí

question: Who is Natti Natasha?

answer: the article does not answer this question

question: Who is Romeo Santos?

answer: the article does not answer this question

question: Who is Fernando Lugo?

answer: the article does not answer this question

question: What is the political relevance of the song La Mejor Versión de Mí?

answer: The song takes a stance against domestic violence.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: La Mejor Versión de Mí is a song by Dominican singer Natti Natasha released on February 11, 2019. The official music video for the song has over 125 million views as of April 2020.


text:
Picture it: you’re racing through the cobblestone streets of downtown Paris, driving with the flawless precision of The Stig from Top Gear. You’re miles ahead of the competition. You come to the Arc de Triomphe and drift expertly around its base. A smirk crests your lips, only to die as you catch a glint of metal in your rear-view mirror. 2nd place is right behind you, with 3rd and 4th trailing a few lengths back. Where the heck did they come from? That should be impossible, right?

Videogames, though, eat the impossible for breakfast. Messing with the physics of a race is not only trivial, it’s common enough to have earned itself a name: rubber banding. As the name suggests, this phenomenon mimics the behavior of elastic, artificially speeding up competitors at the back of the pack and slowing down those at the front. By drawing the field closer together, rubber banding purports to heighten the excitement of a race, preventing long, uneventful leads and foregone conclusions. In practice, though, it serves only to undermine the very spirit of competition.

Of the many games that resort to rubber banding, the following five are the most diabolical. If a fair test of skill is what you’re after, these are not the games you’re looking for.

Mario Kart

No series better exemplifies the hostility of rubber banding than _Mario Kart_. Anyone who’s been hit by a Blue Shell just as they’re about to cross the finish line knows how frustratingly cheap the kart racer can be. Watching helplessly as 2nd place cruises on by and steals your win is devastating, especially when there’s nothing you could have done to prevent it. The Blue Shell cares little for your silly notions of fairness; it seeks only chaos.

From its first appearance in Mario Kart 64, the notorious shell has rewarded skillful racing with naught but misery and despair, homing in on the race leader with the single-minded determination of a ravenous hawk. A ravenous explosive hawk, ever since _Mario Kart: Double Dash_. Along with other powerful items like the Golden Mushroom and Lightning, the Blue Shell drops far more frequently for racers at the back of the pack than those at the front, ostensibly giving them a chance to catch up and make the race more ‘exciting.’ In truth, this bias simply encourages us to drive slower in order to get the best items, saving them for the final stretch and leveraging their chaos for our own come-from-behind victory.

While practical, this approach fosters a dangerous mindset. By encouraging us to take the path of least resistance, _Mario Kart_’s rubber banding appeals to our slacker side, the part of us that wants to coast through life on as little effort as possible. Like the welfare cheats who intentionally flub job interviews in order to preserve their lazy lifestyles, we are compelled to drive poorly to set ourselves up for a cheap win. Driving fast would only make it easier to lose, demanding greater effort for no appreciable gain, and all in service of the exact same outcome. The message is clear: why work for something if you don’t have to?

When this mentality is not only permitted but encouraged, it undermines the very foundation on which our society has flourished. Trying your best is not just something we preach to our children; constantly pushing our limits is what has elevated our species from primitive cave-dwellers to a globally-connected intelligence capable of bending the world to our whim. Without the drive to better both ourselves and our species as a whole, we’d still be swinging from trees and flinging poop at each other.

[need-for-speed.jpg]

Need for Speed

Rubber banding isn’t confined to kart racers. In its original state, 2015’s _Need for Speed_ leaned heavily on the elastic phenomenon, leading to bizarre scenarios where you’d be rocketing along in your sleek Lamborghini, only to see a crummy little Volkswagen Golf boost right past you, its engine as jacked up as the game’s bombastic characters. The reverse held true, too: some races would seem impossible from the outset, with first place always one corner ahead of you no matter how well you drove. As the finish line neared, however, they would inexplicably slow down, paving the way for your last-second victory. Exhilarating? Not really. A win doesn’t feel like a win when it’s handed to you on a silver platter.

_Need for Speed_’s artificial victories echoed a refrain that’s becoming increasingly common lately: the notion that everyone is special, that we are all remarkable in some meaningful way. As a tool of positive thinking, such a claim helps remind us that we all have value, even if we fail an exam, get passed over for a job, or have the love of our life dump us for someone ‘better’. In some cases, though, the notion is taken too far, used as a salve for the slightest of bruised egos. It becomes a crutch for over-protective parents too afraid to let their kids know the pain of defeat, for a society too scared to let anyone go home empty-handed. And so we get un-birthday presents to ensure no one feels excluded, participation awards for just showing up, A grades for being only slightly better than the average. In turn, because everyone is special, no one is.

Rubber banding reflects this attitude at its most extreme. Victory is treated as a universal right, divorced from skill and effort and handed out so freely as to lose all meaning. Forced uniformity erases our racing ability, trapping us in a hamster wheel of impotence and artificial equality. Cynically, one might draw parallels with the tenets of communism, the abolition of class separation and the disregard for individual contributions. And, just like communism, the theory seems sound until it’s put into practice.

Fortunately, _Need for Speed_ developer Ghost Games received so many complaints about what it dubbed ‘AI catch-up’ that community manager Ben Walke came out and addressed the issue, promising that the studio was taking to heart player feedback and changing the AI behavior to ‘improve [the] overall experience’. The rubber banding was eventually patched out, and the game was markedly better for it.

[oblivion2.jpg]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Racing games aren’t the only culprits when it comes to rubber banding. Leveling systems in RPGs are equally ripe for abuse, punishing excellence with an endless cycle of stronger enemies and stiffer challenges. _The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion_ is notorious in this regard. As you level up your anthropomorphic lizard or magical cat person, the province of Cyrodiil levels up with you. Petty bandits trade in their filthy rags and blunt knives for gleaming cuirasses and razor-sharp swords; feeble mudcrabs suddenly become fearsome monsters capable of killing your hardened warrior in just a few hits. Allied NPCs, meanwhile, do not scale along with you and your enemies, making any quest that involves AI companions far more difficult the stronger you are. In defiance of long-standing RPG tradition, the more you grind, the tougher _Oblivion_ gets.

Bethesda copped a lot of flak for _Oblivion_’s leveling system, and for good reason. If we’re to strive for greatness, we need to know our efforts will be rewarded, or else why should we bother? Consider how the technology world deals with this dilemma. Giving away the inner workings of your revolutionary invention might be nice and altruistic, but it won’t pay the R&D bills. Never sharing your secrets, though, denies others the chance to improve upon your design, depriving our collective intelligence of the fuel to move it forward. To balance the two opposing interests, we developed the patent process, granting applicants the exclusive right to make and sell their invention for a set period after which anyone can build and iterate on it as they see fit. While in practice the patent system can be flawed, the theory of motivation behind it is solid.

The same cannot be said for rubber banding. The incentive to level up in _Oblivion_ is outweighed by the advantage doing so confers upon your enemies; the stronger you are, the stronger they are. Individually, your best option is to never level at all, condemning both yourself and Cyrodiil to evolutionary stasis. For any society founded on cooperation, this attitude is disastrous, anathema to the spirit of mutual improvement at the heart of civilization. When individual excellence is robbed of its reward, the drive to better ourselves withers and dies—and the progress of our species goes along with it.

[nba-2K.jpg]

NBA 2K

The curse of rubber banding goes beyond player-vs-AI competition. In recent installments of the NBA 2K franchise, matches between two human players are frequently plagued by artificial homogeneity, the very laws of physics bent in service of manufactured drama. If one player has a comfortable lead going into the fourth quarter, their AI teammates will inexplicably start making mistakes and missing easy shots to give the other player a chance to catch up. Meanwhile, the other player’s teammates will sink impossible buckets and use the force to teleport the ball into their hands. Realism and consistency get tossed out the window in favor of the clutch victory.

The method behind this madness isn’t entirely flawed. By making the threat of defeat inescapable, _NBA 2K_’s rubber banding does foment tension—and, theoretically, excitement. At the same time, however, it effectively renders moot everything prior to the final quarter; whether you’ve been leading or losing up to that point, your chances of winning will be effectively identical. The journey itself becomes meaningless, the destination all that matters. It’s a decidedly myopic perspective, one that places more stock in a few minutes of frenzied fortune than a history of consistent, stable performance. Like the volatile oscillations of the share market, such short-sightedness sees patterns that aren’t really there, assuming that excellence is as perfectly scalable as a fractal honeycomb. One need only look at the brief surge and swift decline Nintendo stock experienced in the wake of _Pokemon GO_ to see how misleading that approach can be.

[homeworld.jpg]

Homeworld

Some games are so infatuated with rubber banding that they eschew difficulty levels entirely, relying instead on a one-size-fits-all solution regardless of player skill. The _Homeworld_ series of space strategy games is infamous for this. In their single-player campaigns, you maintain the same fleet of ships from mission to mission, your losses carrying over from one to the next. In theory, this approach lends the story a sense of permanence and danger absent in a string of stand-alone missions; scrape through one battle with just a handful of ships left, and you’ll start the next one feeling appropriately underpowered. In practice, however, the persistence clashes with the game’s dynamic difficulty scaling, which adjusts the strength of the enemy’s forces based on the size of your own fleet at the start of every mission. The better you do, the tougher the enemy becomes.

In some missions, this can lead to enemy forces so powerful, they might as well be invincible. To compensate, players developed a strategy where they sell off the majority of their fleet at the end of every mission so that the next one would scale to easy. Once the new mission starts, they simply buy back the ships and trounce the enemy with overwhelming force. It’s an effective strategy, but it raises a troubling question: if the only way to win is to game the system, what’s the point of playing at all?

This is the existential quandary lying at the heart of rubber banding. Why do we compete? What are we fighting for? The roar of the crowd and the praise of our peers? The glory of looking down from the top of the leaderboard? Or is it for the simple satisfaction of personal triumph?

The answer lies in our actions. If we give our all against a field of rubber-banding opponents, even when doing so will have little impact on our chance of victory, we reveal of ourselves a strong self-concept, our self-esteem built on a sturdy foundation of personal reflection. While we might be able to win by cheesing systems or coasting along until the last lap, doing so would lead to feelings of guilt and cognitive dissonance, threatening our perception of ourselves as hard, studious workers. Deliberately underperforming would contradict our self-image and leave us in a state of existential discomfort, so instead we truck on in spite of the rubber banding and seek satisfaction from inside, rather than out. The leaderboard might not reflect it, but so long as we know we did our best, we can be content.

On the other hand, if we decide that winning is the only reason to compete, we confess to an identity mired in the superficial. The gold trophy, the #1 spot, the bragging rights: we build our self-esteem atop a rickety framework of extrinsic approval. By committing ourselves only when doing so will be witnessed and acknowledged by others, we reveal a fragile self-concept reliant on third-party succor to survive. Like rubber banding itself, our worth is only skin deep.

Rubber banding is hostile game design. It punishes drive and rewards stagnation. We are compelled to hold back, to only give of ourselves the bare minimum since any more will go unrecognized. Wins feel unearned, losses unpreventable. The illusion of competition replaces the real thing, our diversity of skill expunged in favor of facile ‘equality’. Just as a utopia built on forced conformity inevitably crumbles, a race steeped in rubber banding is destined to end in disappointment.

question: Summarize the negative effects of rubber banding in video games.

answer:
Rubber banding is a phenomenon in game design where competitors are strengthened while the main player is deliberately weakened to create an illusion of competitiveness.
Rubber banding cares little for how skillful a player is. It fosters a bit of a slacker mindset which punishes skill. It treats victory as everybody's right and reward. Even those who do not try at all while making those who gave their best feel as if their effort was not worth it. Rubber banding encourages cheesing game mechanics in a way to find artificial advantages without going through the motions needed to develop skill and get good at the game.

question: List some of the games that use extreme rubber banding and some of its manifestations.

answer:
Mario Kart is one of the games that use rubber banding. The game possesses some over-powered items that can be used to stop a car that has almost won a race in its tracks in order to allow cars coming behind to pass it.
The Elders Scroll IV: Oblivion uses a mechanic that allows AI enemies to power up just as a player powers up his or her characters. The stronger a character grows the stronger the AI NPC becomes. This rubber-banding technique sucks out the joy out of leveling up a character.
The 2015 Need For Speed is a game where the rubber banding mechanic makes the opposition stronger as you are winning but weakens them just in time so you can take back your position, handing you a win on a silver platter.

question: What are the positives of rubber banding in video games?


text:
_Every week, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will always be interesting. You can_ _READ THE ARCHIVES HERE__. The episode of the week for January 28 through February 3 is_ _“BE THE PENNY,”_ _the fourth episode of the third season of Syfy’s_ The Magicians.

If there’s one thing that unites all of my favorite television shows — and I mean _favorite_ shows, the ones I will go to the mat for every time — it’s a sense of playfulness.

My definition of playfulness might differ from yours. I would, for instance, define _The Wire_ — a dead serious show, but one that never tired of finding new angles and perspectives on its stories (or, indeed, finding the humor in any given situation) — as fundamentally playful. The same is true of _Mad Men_, which has a reputation in some circles as a slog but which I felt like always had as much fun as it possibly could with everything it was doing.

I would define playfulness, then, not as “fun” or “wackiness” or anything like that, but rather as a show’s willingness to constantly pull itself apart at an almost sub-atomic level, to keep twisting and turning core assumptions on their ear, to be willing to try anything in order to tell a great story. Grim though it was, _The Leftovers_ was a playful show; so is the spritely, brightly colored _The Good Place_.

And so is Syfy’s _The Magicians_, which is pulling together a third season that might be as big a step up over its second season as the second season already was over the first.

“Be the Penny” takes an established TV trope and completely upends it

[The Magicians]
Penny looks on as his friends look at his corpse.
Eike Schroter/Syfy
The fourth episode of _The Magicians_’ third season, “Be the Penny,” is a great example of how playful the show can be — even though it follows the death of a major character and contains lots of scenes where other characters grieve their fallen friend, crying over the toll that this fantastical adventure has had on them.

The best example of this sort of episode is probably _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_’s 2001 hour “The Body,” in which Buffy and her friends mourn the death of Buffy’s mother, Joyce, but if you’ve watched any TV drama worth its salt in the past 20-some years, you’ve seen an episode dedicated to the grieving process, to characters who grapple with mortality as surely as the rest of us do.

The big difference with “Be the Penny” is that it’s told from the point of view of the deceased.

The end of _The Magicians_’ previous episode featured the death of Penny (Arjun Gupta), the surly magician who had found love with Kady (Jade Tailor) and a grudging friendship with just about everybody else on the show, but especially protagonist Quentin (Jason Ralph). As season two wound to its close, Penny acquired a kind of magical cancer, which ate away at him from the inside, and season three began with his nearest and dearest racing to find a cure while he took a job with the Library, a magical interdimensional space, which could drastically slow the progress of his disease so long as he remained within its walls.

But the Library wasn’t a great place to work, and Penny just wanted to be with Kady, so he returned to our plane, only to have his disease very quickly catch up to where he was in the timeline, leaving him stricken and in bed. Kady and her pal Julia (Stella Maeve) found a magical being who could hopefully treat Penny, but as they looked on, Penny died — only to then pop up in the corner (unseen by them), wide-eyed, staring at his own corpse. End of episode.

Penny, see, is a “traveler” — someone who can astrally project, traveling out of his body and across essentially all of space, should he need to. In the midst of the pain he suffered while the magical being administered his treatment, he left his body behind, perhaps instinctively — but when he returned, he no longer had a body to reenter. So he wasn’t a ghost, not really. In _The_ _Magicians_’ universe, ghosts are stuck in time loops, while Penny still had autonomy (more or less). He was just stuck in a place where none of his friends could see or hear him, and thus doomed to watch as they mourned his death, then tried to figure out how to free his soul from indentured servitude to the Library. (His body might have died; his contract didn’t.)

“Be the Penny” — the title refers to Penny’s attempts to possess inanimate objects in order to communicate with his friends — thus becomes a typical episode of _The Magicians_, with four or five plots running at full speed right alongside each other, but with Penny constantly in frame, occasionally commenting on the action.

He’s joined by a fellow traveler, one who was trapped in a similar dilemma in the 1920s and has now watched essentially everything the characters have done since the show began, which makes him something of a stand-in for _Magicians_ fans. And this is just one of the wild plot devices “Be the Penny” cooks up, with others including Penny possessing a golem to try to communicate with his friends and getting into a fight with an actual ghost, in hopes of disrupting the ghost’s routine just enough that he can get it to say his name (thus alerting his friends to his presence).

As a result, the _Buffy_ episode that “Be the Penny” ends up resembling the most is 1999’s “The Zeppo,” in which perpetually undervalued normal dude Xander has his own wild adventure while a typical episode of _Buffy_ unfolds on the sidelines. Except “Be the Penny” goes one step further, by pushing the typical _Magicians_ episode to center stage while simultaneously constructing a meta-narrative about Penny trying to save his own skin. It should have toppled under its own weight. That it didn’t makes it kind of magical.

At its best, _The Magicians_ feels like it might never run out of ideas

[The Magicians]
Even in the midst of everything else, a normal episode of _The Magicians_ proceeds.
Eric Milner/Syfy
Here’s the thing: Without spoiling what’s coming, I can say that future episodes of _The Magicians_’ third season continue this sort of wild experimentation. There’s an overarching narrative — about restoring the flow of easy magical energy to human beings, after ancient beings cut them off from it at the end of season two — but each and every episode gives the characters a “quest of the week” that plays into that larger narrative while also wildly changing the tone of the show.

“Be the Penny,” for instance, is a very funny meta-commentary on the established rules of the series to this point, but it’s _also_ a genuinely poignant look at being forced to watch how your friends behave at your own funeral. The following episode (airing Wednesday, February 7), meanwhile, plays around with space and time in even more dazzling ways.

Even more impressive, _The Magicians_ pulls off all of this playful experimentation without ever losing sight of its more potent thematic and emotional narrative about becoming an adult, about what it means to realize how badly the world is stacked against you and how little power you have to change that. Season three, in particular, has offered some beautiful commentary on female anger, as Julia, Kady, and the show’s other women have attempted to navigate the messy gender politics of our own world (and said gender politics’ favoritism toward men), but with everything amplified several dozen times by the presence of magical creatures.

Julia is _The Magicians_’ only human being (that we know of) to still have ready access to magic at her (literal) fingertips, without resorting to reality hacks or magical batteries charged before magic was shut off at the end of season two — but she has that access because of a deeply traumatic sexual assault she suffered in her past, at the hands of a god. The show never does anything so simple as suggest that Julia’s survivor status is _why_ she’s so strong, but it is interested in the ways these questions intersect and boomerang back to each other, in how trauma can both destroy you and give you a better sense of systemic loopholes that allow for such horrors, thus making you better able to combat them.

If I’ve had a criticism of _The Magicians_ in the past, it has been that the series sometimes feels like it’s running at such a frantic pace that it will never figure out how to slow down and really dig into the meaningful ideas that do exist within its universe. But the more season three races along, to the beat of its own drummer, the more I realize that the show’s “quest of the week” storytelling style means it can essentially do whatever it wants, throw as many tones as possible into the blender and have whatever emerges come out deliciously.

That, I think, is what ultimately qualifies _The Magicians_ as “playful”: a strong enough grasp of the idea that any individual installment of a TV series can (and should!) break wildly from what’s been established, to tell a story that can cede to something else in the weeks to come. Down with dour, plodding stories that get stuck in the same style and tone ruts for seasons at a time. Up with shows like _The Magicians_, where every episode makes you feel like a brand new TV series is unfolding around you.

The Magicians _airs Wednesdays at 9 pm Eastern_ _on Syfy__. The first two seasons are available_ _on Netflix__._

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

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question: What negative things does the article say about the episode Be The Penny?

question: What does the article say about characters suffering in The Magicians?

answer: The characters in the episode Be the Penny are grieving over their deceased friend. Penny was suffering from a magical cancer that ate away at him from the inside. The disease left him stricken and in bed. Because of the pain he suffered while undergoing treatment, he left his body behind. Another character, Julia, suffered a traumatic sexual assault at the hands of a god.

question: What does the article say about other shows?

answer: The author defines The Wire as a dead serious show that always finds new angles and perspectives on its stories. They believe the same is true of Mad Men. They found both The Leftovers and The Good Place to be playful shows. They cite the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Body" as the best example of a grieving episode. The episode of The Magicians being discussed, however, is more akin to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Zeppo".


text:
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Illinois local governments generated more than $1 billion in red-light camera revenue from 2008 to 2018, according to new analysis by the Illinois Policy Institute.

Each red-light camera ticket in Illinois costs drivers up to $100, depending on the municipality.

Chicago has long been a poster child for red-light camera abuse. The city is home to the nation’s highest count of red-light cameras, a former high-ranking transportation official serving jail time for taking bribes from a red-light camera company, and a pricey settlement for drivers who a judge ruled did not receive proper notifications in the ticketing process.

But the first-ever comprehensive look at red-light camera revenue across Illinois shows Chicago is far from alone.

In fact, when taken together, smaller local governments outside the city have installed almost as many red-light cameras as Chicago and collect nearly as much revenue. Further, federal investigations are raising questions of whether pay-to-play politics played a part in their proliferation.

Camera cash

The annual haul from red-light camera tickets statewide has more than doubled over the decade, with local governments collecting more than $113.2 million in 2018 compared with $53.5 million in 2008.

Red-light camera revenue outside Chicago city limits drove almost all of that increase, with $56.6 million generated in 2018 compared with $5.4 million in 2008.

These collection figures generally reflect what motorists paid in fines, as local governments reported red-light camera revenue before subtracting payments to companies that operate those cameras, with some slight reporting differences.

[red light camera tickets Illinois suburbs]

The number of cameras outside the city more than tripled from 2008-2018, to 301 from 86, nearly overtaking Chicago. At least 89 municipalities outside Chicago currently operate red-light camera programs.

[red light camera tickets Illinois suburbs]

To see the number of red-light cameras operated by each municipality, click here. To see the red-light camera revenue generated by each municipality, click here.

Although the number of cameras statewide has remained relatively flat since 2010, each camera on average is generating more revenue than ever. Revenue per camera in 2018 was more than $185,600, compared with less than $150,000 in 2014, when the number of red-light cameras in Illinois was at its highest.

Almost all red-light cameras in Illinois are confined to Chicago and its suburbs, save for Granite City in Madison County, which has been operating two cameras since 2010, generating over $1.6 million.

Red-light cameras in the Chicago suburbs have been a gold mine for local governments and a headache for drivers.

Well-traveled suburbs such as Elk Grove Village and Gurnee operate 10 and 15 cameras respectively. Southwest suburban Crestwood operates eight cameras, despite having only about 10,000 residents. Those Crestwood cameras have generated more than $13 million since coming online in 2016.

The three municipalities outside Chicago that have generated the most red-light camera tickets are Berwyn, Country Club Hills and Lakemoor:

-   Berwyn generated $19.2 million from three cameras or less since 2009, the highest lifetime total of any municipality outside Chicago.
-   Lakemoor positions three cameras at the busy intersection of IL Route 120 and US Route 12, which have generated $19.2 million since 2012.
-   Country Club Hills generated $16.5 million with seven cameras since 2009.

Some suburbs continue to add new cameras to their existing collections. Alsip and Maywood have both added two cameras in recent years. Highland Park, Justice, Oakbrook Terrace and Wayne all installed their first red-light cameras over the last two years. Evergreen Park installed its first four cameras in 2018.

But not all suburbs have taken extra steps to squeeze money from drivers. Algonquin, Bolingbrook, Countryside, Geneva, Lake in the Hills, Naperville, and Warrenville have all removed their red-light cameras. Schaumburg removed its camera in 2009 after only nine months of operation, citing lack of improved safety at the intersection and backlash from the public.

Oakbrook Terrace is home to perhaps the most eye-popping numbers. Since installing two cameras in August 2017, the city of just over 2,000 residents has collected over $9.3 million before vendor payments. Oakbrook Terrace’s fiscal year 2019 revenue from red-light cameras was $5.4 million, far more than any other suburb. The city made more than one-third of its total revenue in fiscal year 2018 from red-light cameras, according to city budget documents. The city paid red-light company SafeSpeed LLC $1.5 million of the $3.8 million it collected from the cameras that year.

The story of how those cameras came to be points to an appearance of pay-to-play politics in Illinois’ red-light camera business.

Camera corruption

Oakbrook Terrace obtained its cameras after state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, lobbied the Illinois Department of Transportation, or IDOT, to allow SafeSpeed to operate cameras in the city, even though the need for a camera had dropped significantly, according to a 2017 Chicago Tribune report.

IDOT had previously rejected red-light camera requests from Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Tony Ragucci, for whom SafeSpeed has long been a top political donor. But the agency repeatedly found the intersections to be sufficiently safe. IDOT reversed its denial and approved the camera installations at Sandoval’s request, two months after the senator received a political contribution from SafeSpeed.

A year after IDOT reversed its decision on the Oakbrook Terrace cameras, Sandoval received the largest political donation in SafeSpeed’s history, $10,000. SafeSpeed investor Omar Maani gave Sandoval $5,000 around the same time, according to the Tribune, on top of a $10,000 contribution from SafeSpeed parent company Triad Consulting, where Maani is a principal.

Sandoval is just one red-light connection in a run of recent federal raids.

In September, a series of raids involving the FBI and IRS targeted Sandoval’s home and political offices, but also the village halls of Lyons, McCook and Summit. On Oct. 5, the Chicago Tribune reported federal agents were seeking information on SafeSpeed, “among other companies and individuals.” The search warrant for Sandoval’s office at the Illinois State Capitol revealed FBI agents were instructed to find numerous documents relating to SafeSpeed officials and red-light cameras.

SafeSpeed maintains a red-light camera contract with Summit, and employs as a consultant Patrick Doherty, the chief of staff for Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski, who also serves as mayor of McCook. As a consultant, Doherty receives a percentage of the revenue from tickets issued through SafeSpeed in municipalities where he lands the company contracts.

More recently, federal authorities subpoenaed Worth Township Supervisor John O’Sullivan, a former state lawmaker who also works as a consultant for SafeSpeed, to give a deposition in a lawsuit against the neighboring village of Crestwood over its red-light camera program. Crestwood Mayor Lou Presta in August received $1,000 in political contributions from O’Sullivan’s consulting company, according to the Sun-Times.

Worth has operated four cameras since 2008, generating more than $5.6 million.

The Illinois Policy Institute confirmed the following municipalities contracted with SafeSpeed to operate red-light cameras, as of 2018: Summit, Matteson, Chicago Heights, Berwyn, Lakemoor, Hillside, Skokie, Westchester, Alsip, Oak Lawn, North Riverside, Country Club Hills, Crestwood, Tinley Park, Evergreen Park, Justice, Oakbrook Terrace and River Forest.

Authorities may find no wrongdoing in the spread of suburban red-light cameras. Regardless, the research is mixed at best regarding the cameras’ effects on traffic safety.

Safety dance

Red-light cameras in Illinois have done little to improve safety, but plenty to take more money from residents.

The 2017 Tribune report found over half of the intersections at which IDOT approved cameras were among the safest in the state, according to the department’s own study. Many permits were also given to intersections that had no red-light camera crashes in the previous three years.

Regardless of where they’re installed, red-light cameras lack clear-cut safety benefits. A 2018 study from Case Western Reserve University found red-light cameras likely do not increase traffic safety. Researchers looked at traffic accident data from Houston, which operated its red-light camera program from 2006 to 2010, and found that while T-bone collisions did indeed decrease during that time, non-angle collisions, such as rear-end crashes, actually increased. Moreover, rather than reducing traffic accidents, the study found that red-light enforcement cameras may have increased accidents overall.

A similar study by the Tribune in 2014 found the same results: rear-end crashes were up 22%. In some cases, the number of crashes at an intersection increased after the camera was installed. Many cameras in Chicago were also placed at intersections that already had few accidents.

Although a 2017 report paid for by the Chicago Department of Transportation recommended Chicago continue its red-light camera program, the university study’s less favorable findings follow that of other independent research on red-light camera programs.

Camera reform

As the body of research on the devices grows, communities across the country are increasingly deactivating their red-light cameras. Fewer than 350 communities nationwide were using red-light cameras as of October 2019, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. That’s a significant decrease from their peak in 2012, when around 540 communities operated red-light cameras.

But while Illinois has been slow to follow the nation’s hard turn away from red-light cameras, a recent push to ban the devices has found bipartisan support in the Statehouse.

In January, state Reps. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, and Jonathan Carroll, D-Buffalo Grove, introduced House Bill 323, which would ban the use of red-light cameras statewide. On Oct. 4, state Reps. Rita Mayfield, D-Waukegan, and Sam Yingling, D-Grayslake, signed on as chief co-sponsors. On Oct. 7, state Reps. Grant Wehrli, R-Naperville, and Mark Batinick, R-Plainfield, introduced a separate proposal, House Bill 3909, which would restrict local governments’ ability to install the devices.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in June 2019 to ban red-light cameras throughout the state, joining seven other states nationwide that prohibit using red-light cameras to cite drivers (Maine, New Hampshire, West Virginia, South Carolina, Montana, South Dakota and Mississippi), while another three states ban red-light cameras altogether, (Wisconsin, New Jersey and Arkansas), according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Red-light camera programs diminish trust in local government, and impose unfair financial burdens on residents subject to questionable ticketing practices.

Whether or not they’re proven to be part of the state’s culture of corruption, Illinois should bring red-light camera programs to a full stop.

_Note: Through hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests, the Illinois Policy Institute compiled every municipality believed to operate a red-light camera in the state, the number of red light cameras operate, and the revenue generated by year. The authors cannot guarantee every red-light camera in Illinois has been accounted for, as officials with the Illinois Department of Transportation confirmed the state does not keep a comprehensive list of municipalities that have installed red-light cameras. This report will be updated should any local governments report further red-light camera revenue. To report a municipality operating a red-light camera that does not appear on this list, email_ _RLCs@illinoispolicy.org__. _

_Illinois Policy Institute Intern_ _Joe Barnas also contributed to this report._

question: What does the text say about camera corruption?

answer: Oakbrook Terrace got its cameras after lobbying the Illinois Department of Transportation by Sandoval. The lobbying was to allow SafeSpeed to operate cameras in the city even though there wasn't a need for one. IDOT had previously rejected the camera request from Oakbrook Terrace but reversed their decision at Sandoval's request two months after the senator received a political contribution from SafeSpeed. Soon, a series of raids targeted Sandoval's home and political offices to find documents related to SafeSpeed officials and red-light cameras.

question: What does the text say about the safety of red-light cameras?

answer: According to studies conducted, red-light cameras have little to do with improving safety and more to do with taking money from residents. Reports have found that the places where these cameras were installed lacked safety benefits. A 2018 study also found that in Houston, which operated its red-light camera program from 2006 to 2010, T-bone collisions decreased during the time but non-angle collisions actually increased. Additionally, these cameras didn't reduce traffic accidents but actually increased overall. A report paid for by the Chicago Department of Transportation recommended that Chicago continue its red-light program, the university study finds it less favorable.

question: What does the text say about camera reforms?

answer: Most of the communities across the county have stopped using the red-light cameras. Illinois on the other hand has been slow in following this, however, a recent push to ban the device has found bipartisan support in the Statehouse. The program reduces the trust in local government and imposes a burden on residents subject to questionable ticketing practices. Illinois should bring its red-light camera program to a full stop.


text:
The plague of Athens took place between the years 430-426 BC, at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. The plague killed an estimated 300,000 people, among which was the Greek statesman Pericles. It is said to have caused the death of one in every three people in Athens, and it is widely believed to have contributed to the decline and fall of classical Greece. The Greek historian Thucydides was infected by the disease but survived it; he reported that plague symptoms included high fever, blistered skin, bilious vomiting, intestinal ulcerations, and diarrhea. He also said that birds and animals which preyed on the animals were affected and that doctors were among the most affected by it.

 The Disease That Caused the Plague

Despite Thucydides detailed descriptions, until recently scholars have been unable to come to a consensus of which disease (or diseases) caused the Plague of Athens. Molecular investigations published in 2006 (Papagrigorakis et al.) have pinpointed typhus or typhus with a combination of other diseases.

Ancient writers speculating on the cause of plagues included the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, who believed a miasmic corruption of the air arising from swamps affected the people. Galen said that contact with the "putrid exhalations" of the infected was quite dangerous.

More recent scholars have suggested that the Athens plague arose from bubonic plague, lassa fever, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, measles, typhoid, smallpox, toxic-shock syndrome-complicated influenza, or ebola fever.

 Kerameikos Mass Burial

One problem modern scientists have had identifying the cause of the Athens plague is that classical Greek people cremated their dead. However, in the mid-1990s, an extremely rare mass burial pit containing approximately 150 dead bodies was discovered. The pit was located on the edge of the Kerameikos cemetery of Athens and consisted of a single oval pit of an irregular shape, 65 meters (213 feet) long and 16 m (53 ft) deep. The bodies of the dead were laid in a disorderly fashion, with at least five successive layers separated by thin intervening deposits of soil. Most bodies were placed in outstretched positions, but many were placed with their feet pointing into the center of the pit.

The lowest level of interments showed the most care in placing the bodies; subsequent layers exhibited increasing carelessness. The upper-most layers were simply heaps of the deceased buried one on top of another, no doubt evidence of a spike in deaths or a growing fear of interaction with the dead. Eight urn burials of infants were found. Grave goods were limited to the lower levels and consisted of about 30 small vases. Stylistic forms of the Attic period vases indicate they were mostly made around 430 BC. Because of the date, and the hasty nature of the mass burial, the pit has been interpreted as from the Plague of Athens.

 Modern Science and the Plague

In 2006, Papagrigorakis and colleagues reported on the molecular DNA study of teeth from several individuals interred in the Kerameikos mass burial. They ran tests for the presence of eight possible bacilli, including anthrax, tuberculosis, cowpox and bubonic plague. The teeth came back positive only for _Salmonella enterica servovar_ Typhi, enteric typhoid fever.

Many of the clinical symptoms of the Plague of Athens as described by Thucydides are consistent with modern day typhus: fever, rash, diarrhea. But other features are not, such as the rapidity of the onset. Papagrigorakis and colleagues suggest that perhaps the disease has evolved since the 5th century BC, or perhaps Thucydides, writing 20 years later, got some things wrong, and it may be that typhoid was not the only disease involved in the Plague of Athens.

Sources

This article is a part of the About.com guide to the Ancient Medicine, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.

Devaux CA. 2013. Small oversights that led to the Great Plague of Marseille (1720–1723): Lessons from the past. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 14(0):169-185. doi:10.1016/j.meegid.2012.11.016

Drancourt M, and Raoult D. 2002. Molecular insights into the history of plague. _Microbes and Infection_ 4(1):105-109. doi: 10.1016/S1286-4579(01)01515-5

Littman RJ. 2009. The Plague of Athens: Epidemiology and Paleopathology. _Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine: A Journal of Translational and Personalized Medicine_ 76(5):456-467. doi: 10.1002/msj.20137

Papagrigorakis MJ, Yapijakis C, Synodinos PN, and Baziotopoulou-Valavani E. 2006. DNA examination of ancient dental pulp incriminates typhoid fever as a probable cause of the Plague of Athens. _International Journal of Infectious Diseases_ 10(3):206-214. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2005.09.001

Thucydides. 1903 [431 BC]. Second Year of the War, Plague of Athens, Position and Policy of Pericles, Fall of Potidaea. _History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2, Chapter 9_: J. M. Dent/University of Adelaide.

Zietz BP, and Dunkelberg H. 2004. The history of the plague and the research on the causative agent Yersinia pestis. _International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health_ 207(2):165-178. doi: 10.1078/1438-4639-00259

question: What disease caused the plague of Athens, and how do we know?

answer: Thucydides provides a firsthand account of the plague of Athens of 430 BC: symptoms including high fever, blistered skin, bilious vomiting, intestinal ulcerations, and diarrhea. This has lead scholars to speculate the disease could have been  bubonic plague, lassa fever, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, measles, typhoid, smallpox, toxic-shock syndrome-complicated influenza, or ebola fever. In the mid-1990s a mass burial was discovered in Athens with Attic period vases of a style contemporary with 430 BC. Scientists did studies on the bodies and discovered the presence of typhoid fever in the teeth of the dead. However, typhus is inconsistent with the symptoms described by Thucydides.

question: What effect did the plague of Athens have on the city?

answer: 300,000 people died: among them was the famous democrat Pericles. Historians believe that the disease lead to the decline and fall of Greece. It occurred at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.


text:
CIGDEM ESKICIOGLU is a Turkish-Canadian engineer, and a professor at the University of British Columbia. She holds a Senior Industrial Research Chair in the School of Engineering at the University of British Columbia.

Early life and education

Eskicioglu was born in Turkey, and spent her first ten years in Istanbul.[1] She cites her experiences in Turkey, including traffic jams and a lack of clean water and air, as what prompted her interest in environmental issues.[2] She completed a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental engineering at the Istanbul Tech University, followed by a PhD and post-doctoral fellowship in environmental engineering at the University of Ottawa.[3]

Research career

Eskicioglu leads the UBC Bioreactor Technology Group at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, where her lab develops wastewater treatment technologies, including waste processing and biological treatment.[4][5] In 2020, She was appointed as the Senior Industrial Research Chair (IRC), awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Metro Vancouver, to conduct research into recovering resources from wastewater sludge, at the School of Engineering at the University of British Columbia.[6][7][8] Eskicioglu has been collaborating with Metro Vancouver since 2013, which has yielded a provisional patent on a bioreactor which can create renewable natural gas from wastewater treatment.[9]

Conventional fermentation methods can take several weeks, or months, to generate methane.[10][11] In collaboration with international groups, Eskicioglu has developed a new waste pre-treatment technique, where common materials in agricultural waste, including Douglas fir bark, can generate methane faster.[12][13] In addition, Eskicioglu's research has demonstrated that including combinations of metal salts during fermentation can make wastewater treatment safer and less smelly.[14]

Eskicioglu has published over 80 academic papers which have been cited over 2900 times, resulting in an h-index and i10-index of 23 and 43 respectively.[15] She has previously received an Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Postgraduate Scholarship, the British Columbia Confederation of University Faculty Associations (CUFA) Early in Career Award (2012) and the City of Kelowna’s Mayor’s Environmental Award (2011).[16]

Selected bibliography

-   Characterization of soluble organic matter of waste activated sludge before and after thermal pretreatment. C ESKICIOGLU, KJ Kennedy, RL Droste. Water research 40 (20), 3725-3736. 2006.
-   Athermal microwave effects for enhancing digestibility of waste activated sludge. C ESKICIOGLU, N Terzian, KJ Kennedy, RL Droste, M Hamoda. Water Research 41 (11), 2457-2466. 2007.
-   Fate of estrogenic hormones in wastewater and sludge treatment: A review of properties and analytical detection techniques in sludge matrix. H Hamid, C ESKICIOGLU. Water Research 46 (18), 5813-5833. 2012.
-   An overview of construction and demolition waste management in Canada: a lifecycle analysis approach to sustainability. M Yeheyis, K Hewage, MS Alam, C ESKICIOGLU, R Sadiq. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy 15 (1), 81-91. 2013.

[1]

[2]

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[4] |website=www.castanet.net|language=en|access-date=2020-02-28}}

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

title: Cigdem Eskicioglu

question: Summarize Eskicioglu's early life.

answer: Eskicioglu was born in Turkey and lived the first 10 years of her life in Istanbul. She sites her upbringing in Turkey and experiences involving traffic jams and a lack of clean water water and air as what prompted her interest in environmental issues.

question: Summarize Eskicioglu's publishing career.

answer: Eskicioglu has published over 80 academic papers which have been cited over 2900 times.

question: How much money does Eskicioglu make?


text:
As the sun rose that morning, he stood there at the stern of the ship, both hands on either side of that fat, cumbersome wheel. The sailor had spent many days and many nights clutching its wooden rim.

The wheel was stiff. It cooperated like an sick old man being forced to squeeze every last particle of existence out of his broken body.

The sailor had not been in the company of another for a very long time. His sanity had parted ways with him long ago, and he’d accepted that. He never mourned his sanity. It slipped away quietly one day, undetected.

The sailor couldn’t remember the last face he saw. One afternoon not long ago, the sailor found he hard time visualizing a face, any face, in his mind. He found this troubling. He squeezed his eyes tight, blanketed his forehead with his palm, trying very hard to recall a face, any face at all. He tried hard, but with no success. He was neurologically constipated.

He gave up, and several troubling hours passed. He was then hit with a solution to his problem, one which should have been obvious, but it hadn’t been. The sailor was relieved to rediscover that included with his human body was a human face.

His hand rediscovered his old face, and it seemed foreign. All of this sticky apparatus attached to the front of his skull. It seemed so crude, so obscene. He wondered how he ever got my in his old life ashore. How was he able to converse with another person while their head apparatus flaps around, crude and sticky just like his. He‘d regained his ability to visualize faces, but he really wish he hadn’t.

Perhaps having souls operating these faces nullifies the horrific nature of them somehow. Normalizes then over time. The sailor had not been among other beings with sticky apparatus at the front of their heads for an eternity.

The sailor’s unaccompanied mind travelled to many places which were and continue to be entirely inaccessible to the sane mind.

The sailor had a benefit in being aware of his insanity, and thus he didn’t feel he had to question and judge himself for the many odd notions and probably irrational ideas he would have from time to time. He was insane, and insane people are licensed to do insane things, he figured. He wasn’t going to attempt to suppress his eccentricity. He decided that long ago. Some fortunate people can travel beyond the sane, and return unscathed. The sailor however, had been too far gone, for far too long. He was not going to be returning to the lost world of reason and rational, linear thinking.

Sometimes the sailor would invent imaginary people. They never stuck around for more than a day. The sailor liked variety. These weren’t imaginary friends. The sailor enjoyed the company of imaginary strangers.

The sun continued it’s ascent into the empty sky. Long ago the sight of the morning sky may have raised a corner of the man’s mouth. It’s quite possible that in the man’s ancient past, he enjoyed the crisp morning air, gazed at the heavens and sighed a contented sigh. It’s quite possible that this is one of countless fragments of this man’s truth which have been whisked away by a gentle wind. All who have lived have known the work of this wind, some more than others. The delicate way of this wind seems spiteful. A gentle breeze passed by the one who walked the earth with his heart gleefully exposed, unacquainted with the wind. The sky was spectacular and the grass felt like love and smelled of something sweet and eternal.

Not one person has gone from A to B without cursing the ways of this unstoppable wind. They wave their fists, they shout vengeful violence at the great thief. Their verbal fists find themselves without satisfaction. This breeze can’t be battered, just as water cannot be strangled. Many have tried this as well, when gratitude for it’s service is replaced with resent. For some, the service of water seems to only prolong the heavy days and the bloody nights of disassembly, dissection and reconfiguration. For some, the water appears to be the wind’s accomplice. The wind, the great thief, the water, the great captor of man in disguise.

title: [MF] Today I took Adderall and wrote whatever this is. It’s definitely rough, it might not make much sense, and it doesn’t have an ending. I haven’t tried writing a story in 2+ years. I would really appreciate some honest feedback! Thanks folks...

question: Where does the story take place?

answer: On a ship

question: What is the sailor like?

answer: He is old and insane, he can't remember faces

question: What is on the sailor's face?

answer: The "sticky apparatus" is what he calls his face

question: Where is the sailor going?

answer: There's not enough information to answer the question.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: An old sailor reflects on his madness while he sails alone - he can't remember faces, he creates imaginary people to talk to, and he curses the wind. One day, he touches his own face when he remembers he has one and he feels disgusted by it.


text:
CAMP COUNTY is in Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 12,401.[1] Its seat is Pittsburg.[2] The county was founded in 1874 and is named for John Lafayette Camp, a Texas politician.

Camp County is represented in the Texas Senate by the Republican Bryan Hughes, a lawyer in Mineola.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (3.6%) is water.[3] It is the third smallest county by area in Texas.

Major highways

-   [] U.S. Highway 259
-   [] U.S. Highway 271
-   [] State Highway 11

Adjacent counties

-   Titus County (north)
-   Morris County (east)
-   Upshur County (south)
-   Wood County (southwest)
-   Franklin County (west)

Demographics

As of the census[4] of 2000, there were 11,549 people, 4,336 households, and 3,156 families living in the county. The population density was 58 people per square mile (23/km²). There were 5,228 housing units at an average density of 26 per square mile (10/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 69.53% White, 19.20% Black or African American, 0.35% Native American, 0.17% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 9.63% from other races, and 1.07% from two or more races. 14.78% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 4,336 households, out of which 31.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.20% were married couples living together, 12.50% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.20% were non-families. 24.20% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.80% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.62 and the average family size was 3.09.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 26.90% under the age of 18, 8.50% from 18 to 24, 25.50% from 25 to 44, 22.80% from 45 to 64, and 16.30% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 96.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.90 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $31,164, and the median income for a family was $36,142. Males had a median income of $31,870 versus $18,797 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,500. About 15.90% of families and 20.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 30.00% of those under age 18 and 16.00% of those age 65 or over.

Communities

City

-   Pittsburg (county seat)

Town

-   Rocky Mound

Unincorporated communities

-   Ebenezer
-   Leesburg

Ghost Town

-   Center Point

Politics

  Year                               Republican                                  Democratic                                  Third parties
  ---------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
  style=“text-align:center;” |2016   style=“text-align:center;” |70.5% _3,201_   style=“text-align:center;” |27.7% _1,260_   1.8% _81_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2012   style=“text-align:center;” |66.5% _2,881_   style=“text-align:center;” |32.9% _1,428_   0.6% _26_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2008   style=“text-align:center;” |61.3% _2,798_   style=“text-align:center;” |38.0% _1,734_   0.8% _35_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2004   style=“text-align:center;” |59.4% _2,638_   style=“text-align:center;” |40.1% _1,778_   0.5% _23_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2000   style=“text-align:center;” |56.1% _2,121_   style=“text-align:center;” |42.9% _1,625_   1.0% _38_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1996   style=“text-align:center;” |40.6% _1,488_   style=“text-align:center;” |52.2% _1,912_   7.2% _262_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1992   style=“text-align:center;” |30.6% _1,219_   style=“text-align:center;” |48.7% _1,938_   20.7% _823_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1988   style=“text-align:center;” |47.2% _1,908_   style=“text-align:center;” |52.5% _2,121_   0.3% _13_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1984   style=“text-align:center;” |53.7% _2,238_   style=“text-align:center;” |46.0% _1,917_   0.3% _13_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1980   style=“text-align:center;” |42.3% _1,531_   style=“text-align:center;” |56.7% _2,052_   1.0% _35_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1976   style=“text-align:center;” |34.5% _1,133_   style=“text-align:center;” |65.3% _2,146_   0.2% _6_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1972   style=“text-align:center;” |60.6% _1,599_   style=“text-align:center;” |39.4% _1,041_   0.0% _1_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1968   style=“text-align:center;” |19.1% _555_     style=“text-align:center;” |43.9% _1,272_   37.0% _1,074_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1964   style=“text-align:center;” |28.3% _729_     style=“text-align:center;” |71.4% _1,841_   0.3% _7_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1960   style=“text-align:center;” |39.7% _873_     style=“text-align:center;” |59.4% _1,307_   0.9% _20_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1956   style=“text-align:center;” |47.2% _958_     style=“text-align:center;” |51.9% _1,053_   0.9% _18_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1952   style=“text-align:center;” |38.2% _951_     style=“text-align:center;” |61.7% _1,535_   0.0% _1_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1948   style=“text-align:center;” |12.1% _180_     style=“text-align:center;” |62.0% _923_     25.9% _385_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1944   style=“text-align:center;” |13.2% _180_     style=“text-align:center;” |71.4% _977_     15.4% _211_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1940   style=“text-align:center;” |12.9% _200_     style=“text-align:center;” |86.9% _1,343_   0.1% _2_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1936   style=“text-align:center;” |7.7% _78_       style=“text-align:center;” |92.3% _939_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1932   style=“text-align:center;” |4.9% _73_       style=“text-align:center;” |95.0% _1,416_   0.1% _2_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1928   style=“text-align:center;” |43.6% _494_     style=“text-align:center;” |56.4% _640_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1924   style=“text-align:center;” |13.2% _187_     style=“text-align:center;” |83.8% _1,186_   3.0% _43_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1920   style=“text-align:center;” |11.8% _156_     style=“text-align:center;” |50.0% _661_     38.2% _504_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1916   style=“text-align:center;” |21.4% _206_     style=“text-align:center;” |74.8% _721_     3.8% _37_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1912   style=“text-align:center;” |22.5% _155_     style=“text-align:center;” |68.4% _472_     9.1% _63_

  : PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS RESULTS[5]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

title: Camp County, Texas

question: Summarize the demographics of Camp County, Texas.

answer: As of the 2000 census, 11,549 people were living in the county with about 3,156 families and 4,336 households. The county is made up of 69.53% White, 19.2% Black or African American, 14.78% Hispanic, 0.35% Native American, 0.17% Asian, and 0.05% Pacific Islander. While the median age was 37 years, the population was 26.9% under the age of 18, 8.50% from 18 to 24, 25.5% from 25 to 44, 22.8% from 45 to 64, and 16.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median income for a household in the county was $31,164.


text:
LAURA WALLACE is a geophysicist who works between the University of Texas at Austin and GNS Science in New Zealand. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2018.

Early life and education

Wallace grew up in Augusta, Georgia.[1] She intended to study English literature at university and had dreamed of becoming a writer.[2] Wallace completed a geology course during her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and switched her focus from literature to earth sciences.[3] She graduated with honours in 1995 before moving to the University of California, Santa Cruz for her graduate studies. She studied the tectonics of Papua New Guinea using geodetic and geophysical data.[4] After completing her doctoral degree, Wallace moved to New Zealand to study the origins of local tectonic activity.

Research and career

Wallace was involved with designing the network of the 150 continuous Global Positioning System (cGPS) reference stations that are located around New Zealand to study local geophysics. She makes use of cGPS to understand the milli-metre scale movement of land.[5] In 2002 she was the first to demonstrate slow slip events at the Hikurangi subduction zone East of Gisborne, New Zealand.[6][7] The Hikurangi subduction zone is one of New Zealand's most significant geological hazards and can result in earthquakes and tsunamis.[8] The Hikurangi Ocean Bottom Investigation of Tremor and Slow Slip (HOBITSS) project included a network of seafloor instruments that could measure the vertical movement of the seafloor, deployed from the R/V Tangaroa.[9] This instrumentation allowed for high resolution mapping of an area that was previously inaccessible. The slow slip events that occurred in the Hikurangi occurred for about two weeks and can cause up to 20 cm of movement along the New Zealand and Pacific Plates.[10] She has shown that these slip events occur on five year cycles and at depths of up to 50 km – though some are shallow enough to permit sample collection and analysis.[11] Wallace showed that slow-slip events can cause the shallower parts of a fault – the parts that are involved with earthquakes and tsunamis – can rupture.[12]

In 2018 Wallace led the installation of sub-seafloor observatories off the coast of Gisborne, New Zealand.[13] One of the observatories, _Te Matakite_, was the first observatory in New Zealand that was located at a subduction plate boundary and can provide information that cannot be seen by the human eye.[14] She has worked with the Australian and New Zealand Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Consortium consortium to build the observatories. The instruments and components for the observatories were deployed from the Hawke's Bay coast in 2018. In 2020 it was announced that five of the thirty instruments worth $30,000 could not be located.[15]

Wallace was elected to the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2018.[16][17] She is a member of the East Coast Lab, a collective of scientists who look to understand and communicate risks associated with natural hazards.[18] In 2018 Wallace was awarded the Geoscience Society of New Zealand McKay Hammer award, which recognised the ‘most meritorious contribution to geology’.[19]

Selected publications

-   -   -

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]  East Coast LAB {{!}} East Coast LAB|website=www.eastcoastlab.org.nz|access-date=2020-02-26}}

[19]

title: Laura Wallace (scientist)

question: What does the article say about slip events

answer: The slow slip events that occurred in the Hikurangi occurred for about two weeks and can cause up to 20 cm of movement along the New Zealand and Pacific Plates. Wallace has shown that these slip events occur on five-year cycles and at depths of up to 50 km – though some are shallow enough to permit sample collection and analysis. She showed that slow-slip events can cause the shallower parts of a fault – the parts that are involved with earthquakes and tsunamis – can rupture.