text:
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Whenever I pose one of my thought experiments, I do so with the hope of inspiring novel, entertaining ideas that get people thinking for all the right reasons. Ideally, these ideas are fun and enlightening. If they make people horny in the process, then that’s just a bonus.

Every now and then, however, it’s not enough for an idea to be enlightening or sexy. Sometimes, for a thought experiment to work, it needs to make people feel uncomfortable. It needs to create some sort of mental distress.

I know that’s something most people avoid. I’ve even pointed out how our brains are wired to do anything and everything to avoid mental distress, even if it leads to outright hypocrisy.

[]

Well, as uncomfortable as it is, mental distress has a purpose. It forces us to contemplate an idea that highlights a major problem in the world. It’s often one of those problems we know is there on some level, but avoid thinking about because it’s too daunting. For this particular thought experiment, it’s not so much that the idea is overwhelming. It’s more that it reveals something about our attitudes that we don’t often scrutinize.

So with that in mind, here’s the experiment. Think back to any action scene in any major action movie of the past couple decades. Given the glut of superhero movies and “Die Hard” rip-offs out there, that shouldn’t be _too_ difficult. Specifically, think of a scene where a female character was kicking ass. Given the rise of strong female characters, that shouldn’t be too difficult either.

A good example comes from the memorable Black Widow fight scene in “Iron Man 2.” By any measure, it’s a wonderfully entertaining scene. It has Scarlett Johanssen kicking ass in a skin-tight outfit. What’s not to love about it? Most people who watch this scene, especially comic book fans and people who find Scarlett Johanssen sexy, would be rightly entertained.

Here’s where the thought experiment comes in. This is where it gets really uncomfortable. Watch the scene above once as you usually would. You don’t need to know the context too much. This is just Black Widow beating up the hired goons of Justin Hammer, the primary antagonist of the movie. Use that first reaction as a baseline of sorts.

Now, watch the scene again. This time, though, reverse all the genders of the characters involved. Make Black Widow a man. Make Justin Hammer’s goons women. Let it play out in your mind, this lone male character beating up all these women. Does the scene evoke the same reaction? For most people not named Chris Brown, it probably makes you sick to your stomach.

This goes beyond the typical double standards between men and women, which I’ve talked about before. It even goes beyond strong female characters, which I’ve also touched on in various ways. This is one of those dynamics that has always been there right in front of us. We just don’t take the time to scrutinize it.

[Image result for stressed out man]

We can watch scenes of James Bond beating the crap out of a bunch of SPECTRE henchmen and be entertained. We can also watch scenes of Black Widow, Sarah Conner, and Furiosa do the same and be entertained. Swap the genders, though, and it becomes extremely distressing. We don’t see powerful characters kicking ass anymore. We just see a man beating up multiple women.

Find a scene like the one above from “Iron Man 2” and do the same thought experiment. Look for a scene where a woman beats up a much of male thugs. Then, swap the genders. Chances are, the feelings it evokes are just as distressing.

[Image result for Furiosa fighting]

For a greater sense of context, I came up with this thought experiment after reading an article on Cracked.com about the way Hollywood treats men. I’ve cited Cracked before because and while I don’t always agree with them, they’re good at tackling serious topics in a humorous way, even sexy topics. This one, however, had a hard time being funny.

  _6 BACKWARDS IDEAS HOLLYWOOD STILL HAS ABOUT MEN_

Some parts of the article were more inane than others, like pointing out how every leading man has to be at least a half-foot taller than the average guy or how tortured men are somehow compelling. Some of those details are just quirks, blatant examples of style over substance.

[]

Beyond the quirks, though, there are some genuinely _disturbing_ dynamics at work. We find such entertainment in women beating the crap out of men. We also find entertainment in men beating the crap out of men. However, when it’s men beating the crap out of women, context doesn’t matter. It _always_ makes us feel disgusted and repulsed.

The thought experiment I just posed highlights that. However, it goes beyond violence as well. Rape is one of those super-sensitive issues that’s _impossible_ to make funny or sexy. However, if you put it in the context of prison rape where men rape men, then that somehow changes things, so much so that jokes about rape will even find their way into an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

[Image result for Spongebob Soap]

Then, there are the cases where women rape men. Yes, that _does_ happen in real life. Women _are_ capable of domestic violence against men. However, it’s still okay to joke about. Christopher Titus has even worked it into his standup. It even finds its way into cartoons that air on prime-time.

The best example of this is the “Futurama” episode, “Death By Snu Snu.” In that episode, the cast encounters a planet populated by big, hulking, hostile Amazonian women, albeit _not_ of the Wonder Woman variety. Through a series of hilarious antics that are entirely appropriate for a show that has a hard-drinking, sociopath robot, the male characters end up captured.

This is where the line between hilarity and distress blurs if you dare do the same thought experiment. Once captured, the Amazonian women decide to “torment” their prisoners with “snu snu,” which is their alien verbiage for sex. The reaction of Fry and Zap Branigan is a mix of horror and intrigue.

[Related image]

Granted, it’s presented in a funny way, but that doesn’t change the actual substance of what happens. The women _rape_ these men. They _rape_ them and it’s portrayed as humorous. I’m not going to lie. I did laugh somewhat at how the episode played out. Most people with a healthy sense of humor would.

However, if you do the same thought experiment with the Black Widow scene in “Iron Man 2,” it takes on a _very_ different context. Watch the episode again, but turn the hulking Amazons into men. Then, turn Fry and Zap into women. Suddenly, that scene takes on a _much_ darker undertone.

It would push the line even for the most hardcore porn. Think about how that would play out, a group of warrior men taking a couple of women who just stumbled upon their world and deciding to rape them to death. It wouldn’t just be rated NC-17. It would be outright banned and subject to protest from every women’s group in the world.

[]

What does it say about our attitudes, our culture, and our standards when we’re okay with one gender dynamic and not the other? Now, there are inherent differences in those dynamics. Human beings are a sexually dimorphic species. That means there are inherently different traits within the genders that are impossible to overlook completely.

However, the sheer _breadth_ of the disparity here is cause for concern. If flipping the genders of a story or scene evokes such a different reaction, then that’s a serious disconnect that’s worth scrutinizing.

That’s not to say that the scenes in “Iron Man 2” or “Futurama” are wrong or not entertaining. There’s just something inherently revealing about ourselves when we flip the gender dynamics and react to the same scene. We may not like what that reveals, but it’s not something that can or should be ignored.

question: What is the article about?

answer: Gender role reversal in action movies.

question: What does the author call this article?

answer: A thought experiment.

question: What does the author say about the thought experiment?

answer: That it might be disturbing.

question: What is the article trying to point out?

answer: That we treat men and women differently as victims.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The article is about how we treat men and women differently when they are victims, and analyzes several superhero and action movies to deduce this.


split: test

text:
Biz & IT —

Talking with the Digg team about its future plans for the reader application.

While many are still mourning the impending closure of Google Reader, some companies see the situation as an opportunity to reach new, previously unattainable users. Take Digg, for instance. Once a well-known brand, the socially driven news site attracted millions of users on a daily basis. But as the Internet evolved, Digg did not. Traffic eventually waned, and the brand was split up in a major sell-off last year.

These days, it's not all grim. Digg has undergone quite a makeover in the last year. While two-thirds of the company and its staff were traded off to LinkedIn and the Washington Post Company, the name “Digg” stayed with Betaworks. This kept the brand alive in some form or another, and the company has since received a major facelift—a new layout, a new objective, and a new business plan. Digg wants to fill the Google Reader-sized hole in the current RSS landscape.

This plan all started back at the drawing board. “The idea was that we would try to answer the question that Digg has always been useful for, but to do it a different way,” Andrew McLaughlin, CEO of Digg, told Ars. “That old question was: what is the most interesting stuff on the Internet right now?” Rather than go back to Digg’s old ways of aggregating crowdsourced content and asking users to vote up the Internet’s biggest hits, Digg hired a small team of editors who could pull in data from different sources, read it as much as they could, and then curate it for their readers.

“That’s what you see right now on the homepage—that’s the 60-70 stories that you see every day,” McLaughlin continued. Digg's current website is editorialized, showcasing stories that Digg’s editors find the most interesting and relevant for its audience. Most of the stories fit within technology and science—a true testament to who Digg considers its main demographic to be—but this isn’t the extent of the plan.

The Google news came in March. Digg soon after announced that it would be re-prioritizing its product roadmap for the year in order to focus on building an RSS reader from scratch. “While we had long planned to build something like this, we had no idea we’d be attempting to do it so soon or within such a tight timeframe,” the company wrote in a blog post. “But after Google’s announcement last week and Reader’s imminent shutdown, we think it’s the right thing to do. It’s certainly the self-interested thing to do, given how much we all relied on Google Reader.”

Building a better reader

“If you’re an individual out on the Internet, you’re likely being confronted with a massive flood of stuff every day,” said McLaughlin. “It’s just too much.” Rather than build a site where a reader’s content is dumped onto one page in reverse chronological order, the team set out to create a way for users to sort and rank what they’re interested in so that it’s simpler to peruse. “We’re going to start to move toward more ways to rank and distill content,” McLaughlin continued.

One of Digg's solutions is a feature called Popular. This lets users rank the last thousand unread items from their feed by popularity. The service exists now on its site, though it’s not especially curated for each individual’s interests and social circles. McLaughlin added that Digg would like to implement a way to show what is trending globally, locally, and even within a user’s social feed by pulling in data based on the people they follow and the things they like and share on Facebook or Twitter. Additionally, the team is toying with the idea of ranking items within a feed by length and by “grade level." McLaughlin explained this idea in an e-mail:

  There's a technique called the Flesch-Kinkaid readability test that tries to measure how difficult an English text is to understand... We've been playing around (nothing more than that, so far) with the idea that we could measure the reading level of Internet content, so that the Digg Reader could rank pieces by the most difficult to the easier to comprehend (or vice versa).

“The trick for the user interface is going to be for us to add these capabilities in but to make them comprehensible, not contribute to clutter,” he added.

The Digg team has also started brainstorming how to provide relevant information about an article that might otherwise be hidden in what McLaughlin refers to as a “baseball card type of way.” “You might be looking at a story in Reader and then flip it around to see which of your friends are tweeting it, which countries are talking about it the most, [or] what are some other stories that are similar or current,” he explained. “The big picture is: we’re trying to build a basic extension of the Digg thing, which is to try to give people ways to cut through the noise and pull signal out of it—pull interestingness, relevance, or importance out of the flood of content that’s out on the Internet.”

An iOS app window to the future

As part of its plan, Digg will also launch Reader for mobile users, beginning with an iOS application for both the iPad and iPhone (now available) and following suit with an Android application next month. We got a chance to look at the beta build of the application and it looks entirely promising, though it's not quite there just yet.

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    The Digg Top Stories options will show you what's been curated and promoted on Digg.

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    Under "All," you can view an entire listing of your feed in chronological order, starting with the most recent story.

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    You can also choose to view individual feeds, as you would with Google Reader.

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    If you enjoy a story, you can choose to share it in a variety of ways.

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    Under "Diggs," you can view the stories that you've personally "dugg."

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    You can also view stories you've favorited, as well as previously starred stories you've imported over from Google Reader.

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    You can manually add URLs of RSS feeds you want to follow, in addition to pre-sorted RSS feeds that Digg offers.

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    Unfortunately, there's no search function for websites and feeds—only URLs. I tried to find the Talking Dead podcast here.

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    The Settings menu offers an array of options, including the ability to sign in with Facebook, Twitter, and your Google account. You can also set up push notifications, reading sync (which lets you continue reading where you left off on any support iOS devices), and an option to sign up for the Daily Digg, which are Digg's top stories delivered to your inbox.

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    What individual feeds look like within Digg.

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    As mentioned, you can enable experimental features, like the ability to play podcasts within the app. In this instance, I added NPR's daily newscast to my feed...

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    You can then play it from within the application.

Fortunately, Digg's reader application has made the transition easy for veteran users of Google Reader. Once you fire up the app, you can immediately import your feed over from Google Reader. (After the service closes down on July 1, Levine said that users will most likely be able to add their Google Takeout OPML file.) Afterward, you can view content that’s making it big on Digg’s front page or cycle between your feeds as you see fit. You can also read saved articles—even ones that you’ve starred on Google Reader—and any that you’ve personally dugg. So far, this is extent of the Digg feature for the application. Rob Haining, iOS Engineer for Digg, says the team is working on bringing more functionality to it. “We’re looking for ways to share a list of things you’ve dugg with other people… maybe offering an RSS feed of those things.”

You can link your Facebook and Twitter accounts for sharing, in addition to Instapaper, Pocket, and Bit.ly. Haining even described one “hidden” feature of the app that allows users to subscribe to and listen to podcasts. “We definitely didn’t build a full-fledged podcast app, but we knew that people that [use] RSS might also subscribe to podcast feeds so we wanted to offer basic support for that." When you subscribe to a podcast feed, you’ll be able to listen to it within the Digg Reader app without having to navigate to a specific media application to do so. On devices like the iPhone, the app will even show media controls on the lock screen, and you’ll be to AirPlay it out to other media.

For the most part, the Digg Reader is just like any other RSS reader available in the iTunes App Store. It features a simple interface with some sharing and archiving abilities, but there isn’t much else that sets it apart from the rest of the bunch. It’s Digg’s foray into RSS aggregation—or rather, curation—that could be the real force here. McLaughlin mentioned Digg had the idea to release this kind of product before Google ever hinted that it would shut down reader. He said that releasing the unfinished piece of work now allows Digg to capture this market of users in search of a new reader. Hopefully, the product can also get that audience interested in what’s to come.

question: How has Digg risen from the ashes?

answer: Though portions of Digg were sold off and some staff moved on, the brand stayed alive with Betaworks. The company received a major facelift and it plans to fill the hole left by Google Reader which is closing. Digg hired a small team of editors who would read items from various sources and then curate them for the readers.

question: What plans does the Digg team have to make their reader more attractive and easier to use?

answer: The Digg team already reads and curates content that they believe is most useful for the users. They will introduce a Popular feature that will allow users to rank the top 1000 items in order of popularity. They would also like to allow readers to rank items according to readability.


text:
My exposed, bare feet, covered in open wounds gracefully dashed through the knee deep snow. Feelings of numbed out, pure instincts drove me to force my body through the impossibly large heaps of glossy, powdery snow. Of course, in all cases instincts must be driven by something, and as my feet moved, the very relevant fact that a whole pack of wolves were making mad dashes through the snow, nipping at the air my heels passed was the very rational drive towards my minds instinct to run until those wolves, their fur coats covered in blood from the other dozens of shoeless men they have mauled in the middle of the wilderness were nowhere to be seen.
I barely made it up the hill ahead, but with vicious wolves trying to consume me I forced my way up; not allowing my body to quit. Ahead of me she stood, graceful and inevitably beautiful, smiling upon seeing me being chased by these wild animals. My dear wife proceeded to possess a large sincere grin, coincided with her waving to me as if she hadn’t seen me in years. The wolves barked behind me as I ran to her, hoping I could sweep her off her feet and get the two of us to safety. I sprinted to her, reaching out to grab her.
Suddenly my perceived reality was nothing but pure whiteness, as if the snow below me has absorbed my entire field of vision. Was I falling? Had I passed on, following the wolves tearing me to pieces? No, none of these things could be true. Everything felt too peaceful, too real. More real then anything I’ve ever felt, then I focused my eyes on what was in front of me. She stood once again, but this time she didn’t look happy to see me, not offering a warm grin and a wave. No, tears made their way down her soft, red cheeks. She looked as if she was terrified that I was seeing her like this. I couldn’t move, only watch her... taking in her overarching sadness. I watched as her right hand made its way upwards, towards her head. Gripped within her palm was a Glock 22 handgun, the barrel was aimed directly to her temple. She wiped the tears with her free hand, and tried to smile to me, looking at me directly in the eyes as she slowly…squeezed the trigger.

I awoke and desperately, filled with the deep motivation of terror, reached over to the other side of the bed frantically. I was alone, she’s gone. She had been for around seven months. I sighed, feeling distressed like I often do after waking up from a night terror. I stared at the ceiling of my quarters. It felt like I was in fucking solitary confinement when I slept without her by my side.
 I rolled on my side and listened to the soft hissing coming from the release of pressure in heat valves outside my designated quarters, besides that nothing was audible but my breathing. Light-years away from the planet in which I reigned from; Earth, sounds besides for those given off by the interstellar ship I traveled upon is an unknown entity in the depths of space. This chilling soundlessness kept reminding me of the fact that she was gone.

Our ship has been traveling across the Milky Way galaxy for the past five years, the ultimate destination was a habitable, “super earth”, capable of sustaining life for over eighty billion humans, in attempt to halt the overpopulation issue that has ravaged my dear home planet. I was selected along with my wife to travel on this ship to attempt to procreate and attempt to progress human life on another planet.
Five years aboard a cramped piece of metal, soaring at unimaginable speeds through the cosmos can really damper an extreme threat to your sanity. You start to become alone with your thoughts, and generally turn on yourself if you do not have something or someone to keep you stable. My wife had these thought patterns and ceased to be affectionate towards me. She preferred to be alone and was obviously heavily depressed. Maybe it was her comprehension of how alone we truly were here, or maybe it was because I didn’t love her enough, but all I know now is that she’s gone.

I arose from my bunk, slowly bringing myself to the door to the upper deck hallway. I pressed the dimly lit touch screen interface button. The door slid to the side swiftly, I stepped through peering down both ends of the hall. The hallway lights were dimmed, just enough for myself to navigate; all the ships passengers and crew were asleep. I made my way down the hallway that led towards the observation deck. My steps echoed throughout the hallways, nobody was around, I couldn’t be more alone. I entered the observation deck; even the various computers in the room were off, leaving myself in a very dark room to observe the most magnificent sight I’ve ever peered upon.

At the front of the room was the large, crystal clear observation window. I’ve been here in the past, but the only sight I could see was the vast array of passing lights given off by stars as we soared through space. My eyes were wide as I stared out of the glass; I slowly crept forward to the bench that sat in front of the glass. I did not shift my gaze as I moved, I couldn’t look away it was so empowering. Land stretched out in all directions from where I could see. I could see the water, the trees, the deserts, the mountains, the plains all from the stiff metal bench I sat upon. I placed my hand on the glass, staring at the various biomes visible to my naked eye. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, the complexities that made up this land made it intoxicate me with overwhelming feelings. I felt so alive yet so small, I felt as I if I could just walk down from the ship onto the patch of desert in my field of view, traveling the vast span of sand with her searching for adventure. I felt as if I could stand on the edge of one of the mountain ranges, staring off at the horizon as the sun sets with her. I felt like I could swim in the ocean, observing the exotic creatures with her. I felt free for the first time in seven months. But I was alone, was it truly a bad thing? I’ll always be alone without her, but the loneliness didn’t mean as much right now, I felt like she sat beside me and watched the world we could have discovered together.

As I sat, pondering on the grand possibilities that could have occurred if she was still here, hours passed and the ships interior lights began to flick on as movement stirred among the ship, it didn’t have the slightest significance to me. I just stayed where I was, staring at the sights. Announcements were made on the intercom several times, but they didn’t catch my attention. I heard the voices dim as they made their way to another part of the ship, nobody was present once again. This made me smile solemnly, realizing that it was just me and her in my beautiful thoughts again. The hours passed and I didn’t move, I watched as the drop capsules containing all the passengers that were once aboard the ship descended towards the planet. The sight of the various drop capsules began to become smaller until they faded from my field of vision; as if the planet with all its empowering features absorbed them into its vast lands.

I was truly alone now; my thoughts were the only nurturing aspect left with me. And as I attempted to become fully content with my situation, it dawned on me how minor my predicament truly was. I sat there, staring at the most remarkable view that any living human could set their eyes on. A view that meant everything for the future of newborn civilization that would thrive years from now, experiencing the love and hate, the questions left unanswered… The true feelings that in embed themselves deep within my soul. They would come to understand that they can never truly understand the reason things happen, the mysteries that arise when everyone operates as a collective whole. Nobody could answer this, not on earth, not on the moon and defiantly not fucking here. This will to live that pushed these so called “colonists” to land on planets exactly like this is the human condition in a finely wrapped nutshell of mysteries that drive people to do what they do.
I was supposed to be one of them, riding a cube of steel and reinforced titanium down to the depths of discovery and wonder, but she possessed my thoughts like a fucking parasite, she clouded my internal judgment, distorted my constant strive to live and flourish. With her possessing my every thought, it’s like a hell spawned demon had ravaged my mind with his sly manipulative thoughts to achieve his primary goal; create a psychotic canvas within my unstable dreamscape of a mind.
I stood, making my heavy feet across the metallic floor. I crept to stand a couple inches away from the glass separating me and the vast open space that separated me and the massive, beautiful life sustaining planet that slowly faded into blackness as the sun dipped behind the large mass. The time it took for darkness to fully engulf my sight of the various details of the once visible planet passed like a mundane task, I simply did not think as if I were an unconscious hunk of mass that had no perception of time. It was ages, but the process of the sun fading behind the planet was so peaceful and slow that it melded the time together as a whole, subjective experience that would change depending on what mind state you’re in.
But in this case I wasn’t thinking anymore, the overwhelming fact that I have let my emotions take hold of my urge to live had numbed out any comprehensible thoughts; as I stood and stared at the light slipping over the land I felt nothing. I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I’d likely just sacrificed my life to be alone. But I was alone with her, right? Shit, I’m starting to question my sanity, she’s not fucking here, yes she is, and she’s in front of me, right? Fuck I can contradict my observations all day, anything I state to be true or false can be proved wrong internally through the methods of pure thought. Alone, the physical world that I’ve been subjectively teetering through my entire life didn’t seem to represent any sort of relevant plane of existence when compared to the one present within the subconscious thoughts my mind produced. Nobody was here to question my subjectivity, so everything here was as I saw it, my dawning insanity didn’t matter here; they think they can lock up what they call “insane” but here, my mental wellbeing isn’t a psychiatric definition rather then the only mind state that exists here. Not one person or conscious mind can question the authority of my internal state. So why not embrace it.

Double take, blinking I could see nothing but the whitest of snow out the observation window. I quickly blinked numerous times attempting to adjust my eyes to the overwhelming whiteness. I focused on the sight before me, there she stood; her ankles buried in the snow. She smiled to me, her display of emotion made my entire self feel warm with the empowering feeling of undeniable love. A harsh smile became strung across my face, accompanied by a single tear of the purest of joy. I reached out and realized the glass still stood in between her and me. I slammed the palm of my hand hard into the glass, my smiles quickly fading into a devastating frown. I swiftly made my way to the nearby fire extinguisher hanging on a nearby wall. I lifted it carelessly, holding it high above my head. I looked to the glass, staring her in the eyes. I darted my feet along the floor, keeping my vision focused on my direct target. I propelled my body, metal extinguisher first at the obstacle in between me and her.
The glass slammed forward, splitting into various pieces as my body pushed its way through. I became weightless as I dove into the snowy atmosphere. My body slowly drifted to her side, slowly as I became close to her once again, our lips locked in the most powerful experience of interconnected body and soul derived directly from a kiss. It was like we were one with each other, like the universe’s fabric of material existence tore apart around us. As if any worry, fear, ambition or desire didn’t matter to me anymore. The white world around me slowly began to dim as if the sun were setting again; I kept my lips locked to hers. Time didn’t mean anything anymore, this moment couldn’t end as any concept of time that was once in tune with my brain was now gone. I was with her for eternity now, stuck within the one moment that made my feel vibrant and full of the emotion that made me once love the universe I strived in.

title: Alone with the horizon and her, [Sci-Fi Story]

question: What is the narrator experiencing at the beginning of the story?

answer: The narrator is sleeping. What he is experiencing is a night terror. He dreams that his wife is in danger. He is trying to save her from wolves. Then he dreams that she is about to shoot herself in the head. He awakes in terror and despair.

question: What is the setting of the story?

answer: The setting is a spaceship traveling along the Milky Way looking for a habitable planet. The narrator and his wife have been selected to procreate on the new planet. They have traveled together for five years in a cramped space.

question: What happens to the narrator at the end of the story?

answer: After five years of traveling through space, the spaceship finally reaches its destination. The narrator decides not to leave the spaceship with everyone else. The loss of his wife and the constant dreams about her finally take his sanity.


text:
Floyd breathed a deep sigh of relief.  He had just finished his shift at Pizza Hut, which, while not a horrible job, sometimes seemed to drag on forever.  He always looked forward to getting off and getting home to his cat, Artemis.  She had a beautiful calico coat and the most pleasant attitude of any cat he had ever known.  They got along great.  He could talk to her about anything, and she would meow back like she knew exactly what he was saying.  There were times he would swear she was as smart as any human.  She would try to turn door knobs and would constantly get into the cupboards  for no other reason, seemingly, other than to explore/

The most interesting thing she did, however, was watch movies with him.  Not just any movies, but movies with cats.  When he watched the Lion King on his laptop, she sat there and stared at the screen, enraptured.  Artemis did the same thing when Aslan appeared on the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  She came over and meowed like she was trying to tell him something, then curled up next to him and appeared to watch the rest of the movie.  Floyd could tell that Artemis was no ordinary cat, and that made his life seem better than it might have seemed to the ordinary person looking in from the outside.

So there he was, 7:30 at night, just getting home when Artemis greeted him at the door, rubbing on his legs like she always did.  He reached down and scratched between her ears and told her what a good girl she was.  Apparently satisfied, she went to the kitchen to wait for her food.  He always kept out dry food for her.  But in the morning and at night, he gave her some good wet food.  Opening a can of salmon pate and chicken in gravy, he held them both down for her to pick which she wanted.  She chose the chicken, so he scooped it into her ceramic bowl then went to fix himself something to eat.  Not wanting to cook anything fancy, he made some shrimp-flavored ramen noodles and called it good.

When he finished, he opened his door to have a cigarette.  Artemis shot out the door.  Normally he didn’t have a problem with her going outside, because she would come back when he called.  But he never let her out at night.  He called for her, but she ignored him, going instead for the fireflies in the lot behind his house.

He needn’t have worried, though.  She was utterly transfixed by the fireflies.  She stood there for a while, watching them, as if confused by the way they seemed to disappear and reappear in a totally different spot.  But then she leapt for one as it flew by her.  Unable to catch it, she went for the next one, unfazed.

Floyd was mesmerized by the sight.  Growing up, he had always loved catching fireflies with his brothers and sister, but he had grown out of it somewhere around the age of fourteen when he started getting into girls.  But the way Artemis was methodically hunting them was magical.  He saw her catch one, and lift up her paw to look just to see the firefly zoom off again.  She figured out she was surrounded by them and started to get overwhelmed, trying to catch two or three at a time.  She would go for one, it would vanish, and she would contort her body trying to catch the next one mid-leap.  A couple of times she almost did a complete backflip trying to catch one that was behind her.

Floyd reached for his phone to record this wondrous sight, but realized he had left it inside.  He didn’t want to leave to go get it, so he would just have to store this amazing scene in his memory banks.  It was definitely a defining moment in his life, probably the best moment he had so far with Artemis.  He lit up his cigarette and continued to watch her.  He felt he could do this all night and not get bored.

After a while Artemis started moving farther and farther out.  He followed behind, not wanting her to get too far away but also not wanting to interrupt the magic.  Eventually he noticed a change.  The moon seemed closer, somehow, and the stars brighter.  Even the landscape didn’t look the same.  Instead of a meadow, they were on a craggy plain surrounded by rolling hills.  He glanced back at Artemis and noticed something strange.  The fireflies she was pursuing were now different.  They were bigger and brighter, and seemed to have a white glow instead of the yellow phosphorous.  This was all very odd.

Then Artemis caught one of the strange fireflies, and Floyd, curious, went over to take a look at it. She had it trapped between her paws, a weird glowing thing.  Upon closer inspection, Floyd saw it was a little man.  In fact, it was a faery of some sort; it had two luminescent wings and an outfit that seemed composed of light.  It was struggling to get free, but stopped once it saw Floyd.

“Tell this creature to let me go,” the faery pleaded, his voice melodic.

Floyd was still in a state of shock and disbelief.  It blew his mind that Artemis had caught a real life faery.  And it could talk!

The faery took his shocked silence for a refusal.

“I get it, you caught a faery, now you want your wish,” it said.  “Well you have to release me to get it.”

Artemis chose that instant to let the faery go, and it soared up into the air, eye level with Floyd.  It looked him up and down appraisingly, then turned and flew off towards a copse of trees Floyd didn’t notice until that moment.  Floyd was all for trying to figure out how to get home, but Artemis ran off in pursuit of the faery, leaving Floyd no choice but to follow.  Luckily the faery wasn’t flying too fast, like it wanted them to follow.

When they entered the grove, the faery stopped and hovered.  Floyd only had a second to notice the ring of mushrooms before he stepped in the middle of them and found himself falling like Alice down the rabbit hole.  The ground was soft and made for a gentle landing.  A glowing green moss lined the rocky walls, illuminating a long passageway.  The faery appeared before them.

“Well, are you coming or not?”  it asked.  “She’s waiting for you.”

Without waiting for an answer, it flew off down the passageway.  Floyd and Artemis made their way, curious to what they would find.  As they neared the end, Floyd could make out music and laughter.  What were they getting themselves into, he wondered.

They came out in a large chamber lit by faery lights, and Floyd was surprised by what he saw.  There were faeries everywhere, and people too, dancing and laughing, and drinking strange, glowing drinks.  Floyd couldn’t even see the faery they had been following anymore, or tell it apart from all the other faeries.  At the front of the room were two wooden thrones, with vines spiraling up the arms.  Sitting on them were two faeries, but these were larger, almost the size of a human.  As he was looking at them, the lady on the left throne gestured for him to approach.

As Floyd and Artemis got close, he could see how stunningly beautiful the lady faery was, and how majestic she looked.  Her blonde, shoulder-length hair was shone like sunrays and her eyes were a piercing violet.  The faery male on the throne next to her also had a royal look to him.

“I’m Titania, queen of the faeries, this is my husband Oberon.  What are your names?”

“My name is Floyd Echoes, this is my cat Artemis.” Floyd said, finding his voice.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.  I hear you caught poor Puck out in the meadow.  Letting him go entitles you to one wish.”

Floyd could think of a million different things he could wish for, but what was forefront in his mind was how much he disliked his job.  Why not wish for enough money to never work again, so he and Artemis could live in California, or Greece or something.

“I wish for a billion dollars, so that I can spend all my time with my cat in a palace in a beautiful place.”

“Well, actually it was Artemis who caught Puck, and released him, so it is her that gets the wish.” Oberon said.

“And I grant you your wish, young Artemis,” Titania said.

Titania waved her arms, sending a fine multi-colored mist descending over Floyd.  He expected it to be damp, but instead it felt almost electric.  His skin started to tingle and his bones made an odd crunching sound.  All of a sudden he was a lot closer to the floor, and his vision was different, more intense somehow, colors more vibrant.  He looked at his hands and they were white paws.  He was a cat. Then he saw Artemis and his world changed.
	She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, an extraordinary being, every bit a goddess like her namesake.  He could see each individual hair on her body in high definition, and her eyes were like twin stars gazing into the depths of his soul.  She approached him cautiously, as if to gauge his reaction to her.  All at once her scent hit him, and he realized he was in love.  She rubbed up on him, and the sensation was like a first kiss.  She nipped him in the ear and he was overwhelmed by a desire to bite her.  They started rolling around, playfully nipping and biting and batting each other with their paws.
	Floyd didn’t notice it, but he and Artemis were back in the meadow outside the faery party, surrounded by faeries who were observing Floyd’s foray into catdom.
	“It is good,” Titania said.  “Puck picked a good soul.”
	“I think they will be happy,” Oberon said.  “Artemis loved Floyd more than he ever knew.”
	They watched Floyd and Artemis as they started chasing each other around the meadow.  This was a summer night that would go on forever, a wish made by a cat made reality.  Titania nodded to Oberon and they flew off, leaving the two cats to explore their new life together.

title: [FN] A Midsummer Night's Dream

question: Why did Artemis wish for Floyd to be a cat?

answer: Unknown; however, it seems Artemis loves its owner and wants to communicate with him as a member of the same species so they could be closer. It seems to work as they both fall in love as soon as they lay eyes on each other after the wish was granted.


text:
I had this dream.

I was sitting, nervously waiting in some sort of office room with too many chairs.
I knew that I was outside of a conference room, though.
The room had a fairly simple setup. There was a secretary scribbling something on a notepad, a fake plastic fern in the corner, and a plain black-and-white clock up on the wall.

I was nervously rehearsing my answers for the interview that I knew that I was about to go to. I don’t remember what my answers were. I was just ready to tell the interviewers what they wanted to hear.

I became aware that the clock’s ticking was quite loud.

A pepper-haired man stuck his head out of the conference room door and said
“We’re ready for you now. Come on in.”
He went back into the room but left the door open.

I followed the man into the room and looked around.
Outside the window, off in the distance, I could see the sparkling ocean.
It looked so peaceful.

Someone’s bike reflector flashed in the sun and caused me to blink.

I looked in front of me and saw the pepper-haired man sitting across the table with two men that were sitting to his right and to his left.
To his right, there was a slim, tall man with nice blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore a suit and had a welcoming smile.
To his left, there was a tall, fat man with long greasy hair. He wore glasses, a wrinkled polo shirt, and had a sense of arrogance about him.

I donned a fake smile, shook their hands, and took my seat across from the three men.
My heart was no longer pounding.
I was relaxed and confident.

“So, tell me, why do you want to come to our school?” the blonde man asked.
“Yea, what makes us so special?” the fat man followed up.

This was a typical interview question, but for some reason it made me pause.
This was the point of no-return. My response would change my life forever.

 ...

I thought about my entire life up until this moment:

One time when I was only six years old, I remembered stubbing my toe while opening a door. I looked down at my foot, saw blood, and immediately panicked. I sat down and cried until my mother came to clean it up for me. She told me that there was no reason cry, because I had to be strong. I remembered the sense of duty I had to show no weakness.

No more than a year later, when I was seven, my mother first told me about college. She told me that I could be anything that I wanted to be in life. I was a winner, better than the rest.
However, she told me that I must always be happy.
Live your life for you, and nobody else. Only you have to deal with the decisions you make.

When I was nine, I was first told that I needed glasses. I remember trying on those black plastic frames at the optometrist’s office and wondering if I would look like this for the rest of my life. Later that day, I was inspecting my appearance in the bathroom mirror at home when my mother came in to talk to me. She told me that I could never be a pilot, because of my new glasses.
Maybe this meant that I couldn’t be whatever I wanted to be in life.

I remembered playing “Truth or Dare” when I was twelve at Brittany Winter’s birthday party. I was dared to kiss the most popular girl in school, and I did it. I spent that night lying next to her, being careful not to touch, and worrying the entire night what would happen if my mother found out what I had done.

When I was thirteen, I first stole beer from my friend’s father. As I was throwing up, I remembered wondering what would happen if she saw me then. This was not a part of the path to success.

When I was fifteen, I made my first drug deal. As I sat there waiting with my Ziploc bag in my pocket, constantly looking over my shoulder for the police, I realized that I was more afraid of my mother driving by and asking me what I was doing standing on the street corner by myself.

I remembered deciding at sixteen that there was more money in becoming a doctor. From there, I told myself what I wanted to hear and said that my chief motivation was to “help people.”
From then on, there was nothing stopping me from going to medical school.
After all, I was the best.
I was the smartest, most clever, and physically fit person around.
I was the one for the job.

 ...

It was then that I realized I had been staring at my feet for some while.
I looked up at the men to see all three of their faces unpatiently waiting for a reply.
The pepper-haired man re-iterated their questions:
“So, son, why do you want to come here?”

I thought about this question for a while and wondered how I managed to find myself sitting in that chair.
I realized that I wasn’t happy.
I didn’t know who I was anymore, or what I was doing with my life.
I have never felt so lost.

I finally lifted my head and looked the pepper-haired man right in the eyes.
I slowly stood up and said

“I don’t.”

title: The Interview of a Lifetime

question: What does the story say about the narrator's relationship with his mother?

answer: When the narrator was seven, his mother told him that he could be anything that he wanted to be in life. She told me that he must always be happy; to live his life for him, and nobody else; only he has to deal with the decisions he makes. When he was fifteen, he made his first drug deal. Then he realized that he was more afraid of his mother finding him standing on the street corner by himself than the police.

question: What does the story say about why the narrator changes his mind about going to medical school?

answer: The narrator wants to go to medical school and become a doctor. However, he realizes that it does not make him happy. He feels lost and decides to give it up.

question: What does the story say about which school the narrator enrolls in?


text:
I am a first time poster here and unsure if this sub frowns on linking to my own site. A heads up would be nice. In the mean time. Here is a story I wrote in 2008 about socks. It has been denied publication after sitting in slush piles 10 or 12 times. My website is [joerdie.com](www.joerdie.com). The first half is below, the second is the first post as the story is over 10k. Thanks!

I looked down to see two drops of blood on the green carpet. They had come from my nose, and there would be more. The clerk, a woman in her 40's, began walking toward me from the counter with a concerned look on her face. It occurred to me that she may find it odd that I was standing in the sock aisle, with a nose bleed, after closing time, at a Boy Scout Store.

My love affair with the Boy Scout sock started innocently enough. I had graduated from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts in the fall of 1990, around the time I turned ten. Reading about the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) now, I can only imagine the amount of angst within its ranks. The membership controversies over sexual abuse, homosexuality, and religion make me wonder if I will let my son join. But my time with the Scouts was nothing but sunny skies and clean, safe times. Well, mostly anyway. There was that one summer camp when my patrol leader ran out of cigarettes and gave us all tea leaves wrapped in parchment paper saying, "Look, it's the same thing, okay?" Or the time that we filled another Scout's bellybutton with tooth paste the first night of a trip. A week later, we watched in horror as the same scout took off his shirt before jumping in the pool. The once green and white toothpaste had turned black and molded into the folds of his overweight... folds. Or the time that we wiped an entire can of catfish bait under another scout's tent at the National Jamboree. The poor kid smelled like a cow pasture for the rest of the week. Even at my wedding a Boy Scout story was told, about earning my wilderness survival merit badge when my best man and I rolled over one another down a hill because we decided to sleep on too sharp an incline. (Many in my family already thought that I may be gay. The story of two boys rolling over one another down a hill didn?t help.) The Boy Scouts was a great experience for me, filled with excitement and adventure.

I earned the rank of Life before dropping out and clearly remember the night that I told my scoutmaster I was leaving the troop. I cried and stuttered. I knew I was never going to make Eagle. It wasn't in me. I had been drifting away from Troop 674 for a year. It was my time to leave. I grew out of my uniform. I left the dreams of Eagle behind me. I even started growing my hair to lengths the Beatles would never have gotten away with. But I never took off those socks. When I started with the Scouts, the uniform sock was worn up to the knee, puce green, and had a three-inch red rim that was meant to be folded over. A uniform change in the early 1990's brought the red trim to a logical half inch. That sock was the one I fell in love with. It was called "The Boy Scout Crew Sock," but was changed later to, "Boy Scout Thorlo Hiking Sock." The sturdy socks were made from a blend of acrylic, nylon, and spandex. If you bought them from an official Boy Scout store they were treated with Triclosan, an antibacterial, antifungal agent that stopped odors and athlete's foot dead in its tracks. The sock wicked sweat away from the foot and into the shoe. You could hike all day without an extra pair and never give it a second thought. You never had to wear two pairs to stop blisters. These socks were thick and clung to your foot with the force of super glue. They were, by far, the best sock ever produced.

I haven't worn another sock since their release. I wore them to job interviews, funerals, and of course, hiking. I wore them on my first date, wedding, and to the birth of my child. Every year, my mother bought a few more pairs at Christmas, and I waited until they were beyond threadbare to throw them away. I gave serious thought to learning how to darn socks just to make old pairs new. Ask anyone who knows me well about my clothing. Invariably, my socks will come up. But I never learned how to darn socks. I never savored the pairs I owned. Standing in that aisle at the back of the Boy Scout Store, I came to the realization that my sock was not there. After eighteen years, the uniform had changed, and left me in the cold.

That's when my nose started to bleed. I was tempted to bolt to my car at the speed of shame, my embarrassment following a few seconds behind. I pictured myself in the car, nursing my nose with an old Wendy's napkin from the glove box for almost a minute before a knock on the window would catch up with me. That's when I saw the woman with the concerned look walking toward me.

title: Short Story: Memories, Blood, and Socks.

question: What is it that has upset the narrator?

answer: The narrator has worn boy scout socks every day of his life since he discovered them eighteen years earlier. He discovers when he goes to buy replacement socks that the uniform had changed and he can't get his favorite socks any more.

question: Considering the narrator had so much fun in the scouts why has he got doubts about letting his son join the scouts?

answer: Reading about the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) he understands the angst within its ranks. The membership controversies over sexual abuse, homosexuality, and religion make him wonder whether he will let my son join.

question: According to the story, what will the narrator do for socks now that he can't get scout socks?


text:
[Boubacar Yattara had to flee when his unit was deserted by fellow soldiers during a battle.]

Credit...Marco Gualazzini for The New York Times

-   Jan. 24, 2013
-

DIABALY, Mali — At first, the battle went well.

Boubacar Yattara, a 25-year-old Malian soldier, fed the heavy machine gun atop an armored vehicle. His unit fired on a truck full of Islamist militants, destroying it. He radioed for reinforcements, but his commanding officer had bad news. His fellow soldiers had already fallen back, beating a hasty retreat.

So Mr. Yattara did what other soldiers had done as the fighting intensified: He stripped off his uniform, waded through an irrigation canal and melted into the town’s civilian population.

“They abandoned us,” Mr. Yattara said of the other soldiers, speaking from the hospital bed where he was being treated for a concussion. “We barely escaped with our lives.”

In many ways, the battle for Diabaly was over before it even began, the latest in a long string of humiliating defeats for an army that the United States once hoped would be a model for fighting Islamic extremism in one of the most forbidding regions of the world. Instead, it is a weak, dysfunctional force that is as much a cause of Mali’s crisis as a potential part of the solution.

Beyond fleeing in the heat of battle, hundreds of Malian soldiers, including commanders of elite units trained by the United States, defected to the rebels who swept across the desert last year, according to senior Malian military officials. Then an American-trained captain toppled the democratically elected government in a coup, creating a chaos that allowed half the country to fall into the hands of Islamist militants.

Image[Malian soldiers in Diabaly. “Without the help of the French,” the mayor said, Islamists fighters “would still be here. They would have gone all the way to Bamako.”]

Credit...Marco Gualazzini for The New York Times

Now that same Malian Army, which the United Nations expected to be rebuilt over many months of training, has been thrust into the fight once again after a sudden militant surge this month — though it is no better prepared than it was before. Indeed, diplomats in the capital, Bamako, and at the United Nations say that if French warplanes and troops had not joined the effort, the Islamist fighters would have overrun the entire country.

“We thought the army would protect us,” said Gaoussou Keita, a 57-year-old radio repairman in Diabaly, who spent nearly a week hiding from militants who occupied his hometown this month. “But they simply ran away.”

Worse than that, human rights groups say, Malian soldiers have been accused of atrocities in recent weeks, including summary executions of at least 11 people suspected of being insurgents.

“These acts of reprisal combined with the extreme tension between communities constitute an explosive cocktail that makes one fear the worst,” said Souhayr Belhassen, the president of the International Federation for Human Rights, in a statement.

The army has abused its own soldiers as well, a reflection of the bitter divisions that have often kept the army more focused on its critics and internal rivals than on the militants controlling the nation’s north. According to Human Rights Watch, defiant soldiers have been beaten and forced at gunpoint to perform anal sex on one another.

Instilling a respect for human rights and international law was supposed to be a cornerstone of the training for Malian forces, according to the United Nations Security Council resolution that passed in December. Suddenly, the unexpected Islamist advance and the French intervention inverted those tortuously negotiated plans — forcing some Malian units to fight right away while others wait for training later.

Image

Credit...Marco Gualazzini for The New York Times
[]

But the army’s frequent defeats and spotty human rights record have rekindled longstanding doubts about whether it can — or perhaps even should — be left to hold on to the gains French troops have made.

“Given that the Malian Army is internally divided, lacks the capacity to effectively project force, has been implicated in human rights abuses, and is very small,” said a report by the Congressional Research Service this month, “it is uncertain whether Malian forces will be able to effectively follow up on French military strikes by securing and holding territory.”

So far 1,600 troops from Nigeria, Togo, Niger and Benin have arrived in Mali to form part of an African-led force to drive back the militants and ultimately recapture the northern half of the country. But many more are expected, and it will take months to begin retooling Mali’s ragtag army to the point that it can play any major role in the fight to chase militants from the north, analysts say.

In the meantime, many Malians, who have watched their government and country be thrown into turmoil since the army coup last year, have grown frustrated at the military’s failure to stop the militant threat.

“Without the help of the French,” said Diabaly’s mayor, Oumar Diakite, the Islamists fighters “would still be here. They would have gone all the way to Bamako.”

Mr. Yattara’s account of the battle for Diabaly helps illustrate some of the myriad troubles plaguing Mali’s army. Assigned with reloading the heavy machine gun atop an armored vehicle based in this central Malian town, Mr. Yattara had long complained to the chief of matériel that his weapon was unfit for service.

Image

Credit...The New York Times
[]

“It was wobbling on the top of the vehicle and not firing effectively,” Mr. Yattara said. “But they ignored me. I fixed it as much as I could with some stones to weigh down the gun.”

On the day the Islamists arrived, Mr. Yattara’s vehicle was sent to a forward position, placed between two others in a string of defenders designed to protect Diabaly.

The weapon on the first vehicle failed, so the soldiers fled, Mr. Yattara said. They begged for reinforcements, but the rest of the soldiers had already retreated. Eventually he ran out of ammunition, too, and decided he had to flee as well, suffering the concussion when a bullet hit his helmet.

“Our commanders don’t listen to us, they don’t support us,” Mr. Yattara said bitterly. “It is complete chaos.”

For years, the United States worked closely with Mali’s military as part of a more than $500 million counterterrorism program to train and equip armies across the Sahara to combat militants. With only about 7,000 people in its military and other security forces, and just a handful of working helicopters and airplanes, Mali had acknowledged how daunting a task it was to defend its vast desert borders and drive out growing numbers of Islamist militants, including those aligned with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

So the Malians eagerly agreed five years ago to join a multiyear partnership between the State and Defense Departments that also included Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia. It was the most ambitious American counterterrorism effort ever in the region.

Video

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The latest from West Africa. | Voices of Malian immigrants in New York. | The calculations for American policy makers weighing intervention.
American Special Forces provided Malian infantry troops with training in marksmanship, border patrol, ambush drills and other skills. The program also offered Malian forces their first opportunity to train with more capable armies from neighbors like Senegal, a trend toward regional cooperation that budget-conscious American policy makers and military officials sought to promote.

But no one seemed to anticipate the sudden influx of heavily armed, battle-hardened fighters returning from Libya after the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. They reinvigorated a longstanding rebellion in the north, spurring as many as 1,600 Malian soldiers to defect, according to one senior Malian military official.

The remaining Malian forces were routed so thoroughly that troops overthrew the government in Bamako in frustration. As a result of the coup, the American military suspended aid and training to the Malian military.

Pentagon officials acknowledged that the training and equipping of the Malian forces failed to keep pace with the growing threat from increasingly powerful Islamist extremists.

“We provided training and equipment for many years now, but in relatively modest quantities,” Amanda Dory, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Africa, told a Senate hearing last month. “I don’t think that level of resourcing was commensurate with the threat.”

Indeed, Malian commanders say that they simply do not have the equipment or training to face the Islamist militants in battle.

“We are a poor country,” said Col. Seydou Sogoba, leader of the troops in Diabaly. “No African country can face this kind of threat alone. This is an international war that is being fought in Mali. We have done what we can. Now others need to come and help us.”

question: Summarize what happened with Boubacar Yattara.

answer: Yattara is a member of the Malian military, and was sent in a vehicle to defend the town of Diabaly against Islamic extremists. The weapon that was mounted on the vehicle wasn't working properly, causing Yattara to flee the area. He stripped off his uniform and blended into the town's civilian population. He sustained a concussion after a bullet hit his helmet.

question: Summarize the military conflict in Mali.

answer: An American-trained captain in the Malian army toppled the democratically elected government in a coup, which allowed half of the country to fall in the control of Islamist militants. There has been a sudden militant surge recently. Malian forces are also suspected of war crimes and atrocities, including the execution of at least 11 people suspected of being insurgents.

question: What are the current economic conditions in Mali?


text:
[amazon 3]
Employees outside Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood this morning.
Two very different pictures of Amazon emerged this weekend: One from the New York Times’ story depicting Amazon’s company culture, and another from CEO Jeff Bezos’ response to that article. So which is accurate? GeekWire spoke this morning with a wide range of current and former employees to get their take on the story and their insights into the company.

RELATED POST: Full memo: Jeff Bezos responds to brutal NYT story, says it doesn’t represent the Amazon he leads

On Amazon’s South Lake Union campus, you’ll have a hard time finding anyone who hasn’t read the New York Times article by now. Even a woman waiting for a bus on her way to first day orientation had at least heard about it. Most employees knew better than to talk to the media, avoiding eye contact as they walked by with their blue badges swinging around their necks. Even those who did stop to talk usually admitted they shouldn’t be.

“When it says, ‘Work hard, have fun,’ working hard is fun for me,” said one employee who declined to provide her name.

She did say she has a friend she recommended for a job at Amazon who has run into problems like the New York Times article described. It hasn’t been her experience, but there is a “small subset” of teams that were accurately portrayed. The employee said it all depends on who your boss is, and if your boss’ boss will listen to your complaints.

She said she enjoys the culture that pushes her to work harder. It takes a certain temperament to be successful at Amazon, and those who don’t have it, well “maybe they should go work at Microsoft.”

[Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.]
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
“I like that this company tries harder,” the employee said. “I think people are just different. Some people don’t belong here, maybe.”

We could hear the customer-obsessed culture coming through during our conversation. The woman said users expect things to work perfectly when they order a gift on Black Friday, but “they just don’t want to see the dirty laundry of what it took to get it there.”

Another employee echoed a similar sentiment, calling the article “ludicrously comical” and adding, “Some people like to work, some don’t.”

Others said some of what the company is being criticized for just comes with the territory in the technology industry.

The New York Times piece — based interviews with more than 100 current and former Amazon employees — cited several cases of alleged employee mistreatment, depicting managers who were unsympathetic to employees even when they were faced with illnesses or family issues. Reporters Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld describe a hard-charging environment at Amazon, with stories about employees reduced to tears at their desks.

Everyone we spoke with on the Amazon campus today said they had never seen a co-worker cry in the office. However, there was one part of the NYT article that everyone could agree on: there are no snacks in the office.

Different views from former employees

We also asked former Amazon employees to weigh in on the disconnect between the story and Bezos’ response.

[Sandi Lin]
Sandi Lin
“The reality is somewhere in between,” said Sandi Lin, the co-founder and CEO of startup Skilljar, who started as an MBA intern at Amazon in 2008, and worked full-time at the company from 2009 to 2013. She was promoted to senior manager and was a “bar raiser” — the elite class of interviewers who weigh in on potential recruits.

“Any large company will have bad apples in terms of management,” Lin said via email. “I thought the NYT piece was grounded in reality, but put a very negative spin on the company’s practices. In addition, I can think of two cases where I saw Amazon provide a great deal of flexibility for employees going through major health issues.”

She added, “Amazon has a unique culture and prioritizes customer obsession. I personally relate more to the hard-working culture depicted in the NYT article, than the fun and empathetic culture in Jeff’s memo. I had great managers and enjoyed the strive for excellence, so it was a good fit for me personally.”

[Liz Pearce]
Liz Pearce
Liz Pearce, the CEO of LiquidPlanner, worked at Amazon from 2003 to 2005 and was quoted in the New York Times story saying, in part, “The pressure to deliver far surpasses any other metric … I would see people practically combust.”

Speaking with GeekWire via phone this morning, Pearce said she was interviewed by the New York Times for two hours. She said she was quoted accurately, and her experience with the reporter was good.

“I could tell the piece was thoroughly researched. Some of the themes in there are true and good,” she said of the story. “There are a lot of positives in the article that I think are being overlooked due to some of the stories that are more dramatic. There’s a little sensationalism that’s going on in the reaction.”

She added, “I would describe the culture as intense, hard and valuable. All of those things are true.”

Asked if she would ever return to Amazon, if the opportunity arose, Pearce said, “When I first left, I didn’t think i would go back. Now, later in my career, I think there’s more of a chance that I would, because I think I’m stronger. ”

[Aakhil Fardeen]
Aakhil Fardeen
Aakhil Fardeen, co-founder and CEO of startup Lish, worked previously at Amazon for five years, in the company’s retail division and Kindle, and has worked directly with some of the people referenced in the New York Times article.

Fardeen described the portrayal in the Times as “mostly factually accurate but I would not call it fair.”

“Amazon is a demanding place to work. The expectation is to work long, hard and smart,” he said via email. “There is also a very deliberate attempt to hire and retain the best. People who don’t meet the Amazon bar are actively managed out. This was never a secret. Anyone who has friends at Amazon knows this. To be a bit quantitative on what ‘working hard’ means: I rarely worked weekends, and the office does get deserted after 6pm. I probably averaged 50-60 hours/week which was perfect for me.”

He continued, “Amazon has a culture that is quite self-selective. People who are a ‘culture fit’ thrive there. I absolutely enjoyed my time at Amazon. I worked with some of the most talented people and learnt a ton from them. I was there for 5 years because I was working on some of the most interesting things and I was constantly being challenged. There is an incredible focus on the customer, that is energizing.

“I’m glad that Jeff responded to the article and solicited feedback. I also agree with Jeff that it’s easy to paint a negative picture with isolated anecdotes. The article was definitely more sensational to drive clicks and was not a balanced story on the Amazon culture. If Amazon was such a toxic place to work people would not work there. I know of very few people who left Amazon because of its culture.”

“In my current startup, Lish, my cofounder and I actively try to recreate the Amazon culture,” he said. “If we hated it, we wouldn’t be doing this to ourselves.”

Amazon and the New York Times

A past article on Amazon and the e-book market by one the New York Times reporters, David Streitfeld, was scrutinized by the New York Times public editor, Margaret Sullivan, who concluded that the story should have been more balanced.

“The Times has given a lot of ink to one side and — in story choice, tone and display — helped to portray the retailer as a literature-killing bully instead of a hard-nosed business,” wrote Sullivan about that story. “I would like to see more unemotional exploration of the economic issues; more critical questioning of the statements of big-name publishing players; and greater representation of those who think Amazon may be a boon to a book-loving culture, not its killer.”

Another of the New York Times reporters, Jodi Kantor, appeared on CBS This Morning today, recounting anecdotes from employees including the mother of a stillborn child who, upon returning to work, was told that her job performance was under review.

“It does reflect the future of the workplace,” Kantor said of Amazon’s culture. “More efficiency, more data. … The question is, how far is too far? Are there limits on how hard employees can work?”

Jay Carney, the former White House press secretary who joined Amazon as an executive earlier this year, also spoke with the CBS news program. “This is an incredibly compelling place to work,” he said. “A place where people are excited to come to work. I think the fundamental flaw in the story is the suggestion that any company that had the kind of culture that the New York Times wrote about … could survive and thrive in today’s marketplace.”

One area where Amazon does appear to be reconsidering its practices is its parental leave policy, which doesn’t provide paternity leave. Carney said on that topic, “I think that a lot of companies in the tech sector and around the country are looking at their policies on maternity leave and paternity leave and evaluating them. We sure are.”

question: Summarize what Sandi Lin has to say about working at Amazon.

answer: Lin started working at Amazon as an MBA intern. She believes that any large company would have bad apples in terms of management. The company has a unique culture and prioritizes customer obsession. Sandi had great managers and enjoyed the strive for excellence.

question: What did the New York Times article say about the work environment at Amazon?

answer: The article talks about several cases of alleged employee mistreatment where managers were unsympathetic to employees in times of illness or family issues.

question: What was Jeff Bezos' reaction to the NYT article?

answer: It is stated that he responds to the article but does not explicitly mention what Bezos said.


text:
They came for him during the group session, two well dressed boys on the cusp of manhood. This wasn’t the first time a young and the restless soul had come asking questions about her, her legend, after all did precede her. Ted drew a deep breath that made his thin hospital gown rise and fall like an undulating wave, he looked at the floor. Those who knew him best recognised the act, this story was the last light of the broken man who sat before them in the New Haven Detoxification Institute. Ted meekly raised his hand, begging for silence. The regulars inched closer ready for the words they’d heard so many times before.

“Assia, Assia, ascended astrologers muse. Assia, Assia, Aphrodite’s repose. Assia, Assia, fire of life, cold when she goes.” The room hushed as if smothered, those watching felt a peculiar prickling of the skin. Ted continued oblivious.

.

It was dusk, turning twilight, when they arrived at the bar. Ted tall and thin, his companion slightly taller with a thicker build. It was darker in the bar, one of those cheap places that tries to make up for a lack of style with poor lighting. She was late. He was in love with her. Ted was oblivious of what was to come.

The friend looked up, startled. Assia stood before them. Rain dripped from her night black hair that shone with the subtlest hint of a crimson glow. Her short black dress showed of her curves, like those of a racing car. Her legs were bare. Presently her eyes met Ted’s who suddenly aware that the world was turning at an astronomical rate around the fixed point of his eyes locked with hers. Every second was eternal.

Ted’s mind raced with this new information. Who was this girl? What the hell is this feeling? Oh god, make eye contact! OH GOD too much eye contact! Confused Ted withdrew from conversation and fixed his eyes on the wall sized aquarium behind Assia’s head. A thousand fish swam to and fro together in a shoal. One fish danced alone, swishing elegantly like Mata Hari. The tank appeared empty, but for this one fish. Ted sat transfixed, stealing occasional glances at the girl, but always returning to that one solitary fish. The fish disappeared. The sea was lonely.

Ted sipped his drink quickly. Assia demurely ashed her cigarette, delicately brushing it against the crystal ashtray, all the while stealing glances at Ted of her own. That moment the dreamer in him fell in love with her, and he soon knew it. Fire, crash the next hours passed lightning fast. Growing bolder the pair revelled in ideas, wallowed, and bathed in mutual knowledge and interests. Their friend faded to grey and they were alone.

Alone on a sofa now, memories slip by as if in a film. Hand brushes leg. Leg brushes hand. Electricity. Magnetism draws them together. His hands her hips. Her hands his hair. His lips her lips. Ecstasy. Her phone rings and she goes.

.

Ted stood up, opened his eyes and spoke to his fellow New Haven Institute patients. The memory had almost seemed real.  “That was the first and last time I laid eyes Assia Do Nascimento. I chased the idea, the dream, the memory of her all my life. Trying to capture a love so pure, so intense.” Ted sat down hands trembling “You never know what will set the memory off.”

question: Who are the main characters of the story?

answer: Ted (the narrator), Assia Do Nascimento, patients at the New Haven Institute

question: Where does the story take place?

answer: The New Haven Detoxification Institute

question: Who is Ted's taller and larger companion?

answer: His friend (unnamed)

question: Who is Assia Do Nascimento?

answer: She's a girl Ted met at a bar and instantly fell in love with.

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer: Ted is a patient at the New Haven Detoxification Institute. Fellow patients are gathered around him, ready to hear his story about Assia Do Nascimento. Assia is a girl Ted met at a bar. They shared a love so intense and pure, Ted has been chasing it all his life. That night was the first and last time Ted laid eyes on Assia. The memory had almost seemed real.


text:
“Simulation ending in 5…4…3…”

“Yo, what the heck is going on?” I found myself having to yell to be heard over the deafening softness of the incomprehensibly calm, almost robotic female voice calming from the sky. Up until now, it was my typical after work routine of stopping by the gas station to grab some overpriced energy drink to keep me going.

Trying to maintain my routine, I managed a shrug as I covered my ears, yet somehow the voice was still there. It felt as if it were permeating my skull, as if it were my own internal voice.

“…1. Simulation complete. Preparing cleansing cycle.”

Darkness fell around me as if influenced by gravity, taking my breath with it. My world no longer existed. I could say it was black around me, but that would be too little. No it was not black, it was nothing. Surrounded by nothingness, I felt that intangible thing called life begin to leave my body as I was absorbed into nothing, but inexplicably, just as sudden as it began, the nothingness lifted. I was no longer in the gas station in front of the bored high schooler ringing up my drink. Everything had this strange gray glow. Now, I know what you must be thinking. How does gray glow? Well, how the hell should I know? I’m the crazy one right? Anyways, I was hooked up to this machine, but it wasn’t like the stuff they hooked me up to that one time when I got my tonsils removed. This stuff was like stickers, nothing pokey or stabbing. It was weird. The room I was in was basically a really long hallway, but with beds lined up all along the wall. I began to recognize people that were around me, from my old buddy from high school, to the girl that was behind me in line at the gas station. But my high school buddy did not look at all like the plumped up version I saw at the reunion. Instead, he looked exactly as he did in high school. It was like a ghost. Everyone looked really pale, and they seemed to be asleep. As far as I knew, I was the only one awake, or at least with my eyes open looking around. Everyone else was all hooked up too, but it wasn’t until I looked down that I finally realized just how much crap they had me hooked up to, minus that one that seemed to have fallen off.

“Glitch in system. Conscious being in chamber.”

My curiosity about the origin of this voice had quickly dried up.  At this point, I was just wondering it was ever going to shut up. In the middle of some code numbers for a protocol or something, a new, male, voice bounced into my head. This one was less annoying, so that was nice. However, what it said really freaked me out.

“Run.”

I felt a surge of adrenaline as the situation began to make as much sense as possible. I was in a prison. There was no way out. Then, on either end of the hallway, doorways appeared from what I thought to be walls. From one, I saw these masked guys that looked like the SWAT guys from Cops. I don’t think those guys got the memo from the guys that made the bed, because they were carrying sharp and stabby looking things that I wanted no part of. My heart rate ramped up as my face flushed, and I remembered about that fight or flight response my biology teacher talked about. I chose flight. Where to, I had no idea, but I knew I had to go somewhere. Trying to jump from the bed, I quickly realized I couldn’t move the lower half of my body. As quick as my shaking hands could manage, I began ripping off the sticker things. With each one I removed, I could feel that inexplicable energy of life rushing into my appendages and finally my mind. Analysis took the wheel from fight or flight instinct at this point, but my head decided maintaining that plan was for the best. The people with sharp things didn’t seem like they were looking to explain, so I jumped up and ran towards the opposite door. My feet hit the floor, and I promptly fell flat on my face. It felt like I hadn’t run in years. I knew I was out of shape, but I wasn’t that out of shape. The alarms in my head were ringing that there was much more to this, but those alarms were snoozed after the SWAT looking guys began to run. I remembered how to walk in a way that didn’t make me look like a newborn foal, and took off towards the strange gray glow that lie beyond the door.

“Turn right. Do not look back. Keep running.”

The door began to close, and as I squeezed through the narrow slit left I was nearly blinded by what I now realized was white, not gray, light. Everything was white, and I struggled for a moment just to get my bearings. I turned towards what I could best discern as right, and took off in a dead sprint.

“Oh, that is just friggin perfect!” I thought as I saw another pair of stainless steel doors ahead.

“Do not stop.”

What? This damn voice expects me to just slam face first into a door? Then it happened. The door flickered. I could’ve sworn it was a solid door, but then it flickered.  I stopped about five feet before the door. Looking back briefly, I saw the blackness from the first room begin to permeate through the now slowly opening door as they pried it open.

“This is gonna hurt so bad.”

Closing my eyes, I ran and jumped into the door. But, there was no impact. No sharp pain where I thought my shoulder would make contact. No, I kept going, and as I opened my eyes, the floor dropped out from below. Hitting the floor from about ten feet up is not something I would recommend. I looked back to where I had just come from. It was some treadmill looking thing, only about 20 yards long, with a big box, about the size of a house, just sitting over it, and something that looked like one of the slide projectors we used in grade school. Before I could wonder how I was able to run in there for much longer than 20 yards, I looked around. I never understood what people meant by their jaw dropping until I stood with jaw ajar like a Neanderthal. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of these constructs surrounding me.

I could see no exit, but I began to walk away from my machine. It was so silent that I heard my watch stop ticking as the air left my lungs like an escaping fugitive and I collapsed, facing the floor. Once again, I braced for an impact, and once again there was none to be felt. I fell through a white abyss but I felt no resistance and no pain even though I am pretty sure I had no air left in me. You’d think not breathing would hurt, right?

I fell up into a room as white as the abyss from which I came, and felt a surge of life as the stale air flooded my lungs. I opened my eyes to see masked people all around me as the most intense pain I have ever felt came running from my abdomen. The operating room was bright, and I could see blood everywhere. Trying to yell, I heard nothing but a gurgle and the tick of some machine turning on as I faded away once again, only to return to the abyss. I awoke in the cockpit of an airplane over Washington D.C. The plane was in a nosedive and the man next to me was unconscious. I saw the pillars of the Capitol rushing up to meet me as the cacophony of warning sirens and a yelling air traffic controller were silenced. My world consisted of only the white abyss again. Darkness fell like a shutter, only to depart soon after, leaving a room identical to the one I first work up in, save two differences. Firstly, there were no other people in any of the surrounding beds. Secondly, and most importantly, there stood a being in front of me, looking down on me with concern.

“Back to the land of the conscious I see?” inquired the being jokingly. As it spoke, I recognized the voice as the one that guided me out of the first room. The origin of the voice, however, was very confusing for me at first. It was not a man, yet it spoke like one. It occupied space, but looked like nothing I have ever seen.

“Do not worry about my appearance, or lack thereof. It is simply a side effect from being in the simulation for 27 years.”
27 years? How is that even possible? That is the entirety of what I once perceived as my existence.

“Where am I?” I asked, knowing I needed some sort of answer.

“Well, earth of course! We really need to do more research on prolonged exposure…” It began to mumble to itself as it paced the corridor.

This was absolute bull. I needed answers, and I needed them right then. I stood up, oddly unbounded by any of the wires I was expecting. I traced my escape path from earlier until I wound up again at the stainless steel doors. Not pausing to think, I ran full speed through them. I felt a sharp pain and burning in my shoulder accompanied with a loud smack. I removed myself from the door, and angrily walked back to the original room. All I knew at this point was that this world felt real. Hell, maybe this simulator machine was next gen or something. At the very least, I knew that there was going to be no easy escape this time.

“You are a primitive species. It is why you are limited. Your kind are persecuted, rounded up and used as a slave class by the higher evolved, the Supern. Since you have seemed to have forgotten everything, I will try to bring you back up to speed. Over time, homo sapien began to evolve, gradually over time of course, into homo sapien supernus. Now, as scientific testing allowed us to see this, mostly insignificant, difference, some people began to see themselves as superior to those who were, by their views, lesser beings. I believe though, that your kind is not so different, and that is why I created this machine. It allows you to live as all humans once lived, before the Stratification.”

“Uhm, thanks I guess? So what, does this mean none of my family or friends are real? What am I here for, as some sick science experiment? Some kind of pet? What is so bad about the outside world that you have big doors guarding it?”

“Calm down. There is no need for anger or alarm. Come let us walk. I will show you what lies beyond the doors.”
It took the lead down the corridor towards the doors, and I quickly followed. We went out the first pair of doors, turned right, and continued towards the final doors. The doors began to hiss open as we approached, but I felt a sharp jab in the side of my neck, and darkness began to fall once more.

“That’ll be $2.95 sir.” A voice I was once familiar with droned on. “Sir. Sir. Sir, are you okay?”

My eyes jolted open. I was back in the gas station. The smell of two-day-old corndogs and slushies wafted over me like a blanket from a world once known as the only. I collapsed onto the floor, hearing only the register ringing up and someone talking to 911 before I faded away.

*		*		*
I have been back in this world for six months by my watch’s time. To appease the beings in this one, I am in weekly sessions with a psychiatrist.

“Well doc, there you have it. You know the rest after, the whole ‘recluse’ thing and the storyboards on the walls, and the intervention and all that jazz. What else do you want to know?”

Before he could answer, the female voice returned. My watch stopped. Darkness fell.

“Simulation ending in 5…4…3…”

title: [SF] Turbatio.

question: Explain the range of emotions the narrator went through as he passed through the simulation into reality.

answer: The narrator had to cover his ears as the robotic female voice counted down the simulation. The narrator was also freaked out by what he perceived to be his surroundings as well as the male voice which spoke into his head, telling him to run. The narrator also felt a surge of adrenaline as he tries to escape from the soldiers who were trying to capture him in order to return his body to the room he was imprisoned in.

question: What is the narrator's perception of the male voice speaking into his mind?

answer: The narrator was first freaked out when he heard the voice telling him to run. However, he obeyed immediately and followed his subsequent directions as he evaded his captors. The narrator is also suspicious of the voice as he tells him about the simulations and that his body has been returned to earth. He tried to get all the answers he needed from the male voice but was unable to.


text:
You are less than the wind. You are not the air, but those things carried on it. You are gentle words and the fragrance of honeysuckle. You are not that quiet breeze, but those light bits of hair that it ruffles at its passing and those gentle chills that it carries in the ripeness of fall. You are those things carried amongst the bitten mountains worn down by your medium over the passage of years and years and years and years. You are the stillness of the water in this quiet lake and the hymns of the procession slowly approaching the lake over those worn mountain paths. They sing and you follow.

They are a group of not more than twenty large. They are a mix of men and women where the mix tends to fare the fairer sex and those masculine do walk emasculated with trodding steps and uncertain footing. You are the dust kicked up by the feet of these hollow men, a minority amongst those surefooted ewes. You are also the delicate steps of the child, alone amongst adults. You are also the breeze amongst his light hair and the silence at his lips. You are not the shallowness of his gaze or the timidity of his posture. You do know, though, that this one has not had enough years to be weathered as his companions are, their souls as worn as the mountains they cross.

You are the bellows of the man-mountain leading them. You are the difference in the weight of his garments compared to the others. You are not the yellow dye that provides this greater weight, but the wind that gently whips it as they approach the water. You are his words and the songs he leads his congregation in. You are not his smile or its crude comparison with the vacant expressions of his masculine peers, the gentle effeminacy of the women, or the indifference of that golden child. You are his words when he says,

“This is truly a glorious day!”

You are his words when he says,

“Today we truly bask in the radiance of the Lord!”

You are the gentle decline in pitch as footsteps amongst leaves change to those in sand and gravel. You are the difference when the sound of movement changes to sounds of silence save the proselytizing of that mountain of a man. You are his lungs and those ragged chords when he speaks,

“Come my child and let you join the kingdom of the lord!”

You are not the silence in the child’s footsteps, but you are the dissonance between the child’s graceful procession into the water and the preacher’s entrance, more akin to a battleship being put to port than a man of god sloshing to a small sandbank less than fifteen feet from the water’s edge. You are the hymns sung by the procession as the man and child walk out, but you are not the grating words and eldritch vocabulary they use. You are just the words, not their purpose or their strange vocalizations.

You are his words when the priest lays his hand on the child’s head and the mid of his back and calls out,

“Do you wish to see the promise land?”

You are not the child’s response even though it is pronounced and articulated with a certainty greater than the child’s years. You don’t even wish to carry those weary words of disagreement. You are not the unfocused gaze as the priest ignores those words you never carried. You are the sounds of submersion. You are never that gasp of air upon rising from those cold depths. You are simply the solitude of this terrible scene; the quiet, the thrashing at the waters edge, and a wind that roars through the trees like a cry of injustice and pain amongst the leaves. You are less than the wind.

edit: formatting cleanup

meta-edit: apparently I use the word "amongst" too much

title: You are Less than the Wind [MF]

question: Summarize the story’s climax.

answer: The group of travelers stops walking and listen to the priest's proselytizing. He declares that the child - the only child among them - will go and join the kingdom of the lord. It is then revealed that this is to be achieved by submerging the child in the water, against the child's will.

question: What happens to the child?

answer: The child is submerged in the water against his will, but it is unclear whether he survives or even whether he is meant to survive. The priest claims to be letting the child 'join the kingdom of the lord.' This could reference either a baptism or a sacrifice.

question: What imagery is prominent in the story?

answer: The intangible aspects of nature are personified for the second-person perspective of the story. These include particles of air moved by the wind and vibrations of sound waves that carry words, as well as silence and stillness; little pieces of awareness outside the human characters. Also present is strong religious imagery, seen in the pilgrims, the priest, the robes, and the hymns.

question: What is the child's motivation?

question: What does the text say about the man's wife?