text:
 heywhatsgoingon Sun 15-Jul-18 19:45:14

Have name changed. My 6 year old son wants a full class party for his 7th birthday in August. The class are really nice and all get on well ... aside from one child. I don't know if he is on the spectrum or not but what I do know is that every day he is physically abusive to the other kids - but mainly the girls. He has only punched my son once but some of the other kids have had continuous physical abuse from him on a regular basis. My son doesn't want to invite him to the party at all - which is if course an option - however I would feel bad not inviting one child - and before anyone says anything I am not going to have a scaled down party just because one child doesn't behave - that's not fair on my son or the other kids. However I don't want to carry the responsibility of watching him as I will have 30 other kids to watch over. I also don't know how to deal with the child if he starts behaving like this. AIBU to say to his mother that I need her to fart to ensure there are not incidents?

 Canwejustrelaxnow Sun 15-Jul-18 19:46:44

[grin]

 fixingabrokenhesrt Sun 15-Jul-18 19:47:33

I'm sorry but had to giggle at the last part 😂 not sure what her farting will achieve!

 savingmysanity Sun 15-Jul-18 19:48:14

not sure what her farting will do stop incidents.....[grin]

 Twotinydictators Sun 15-Jul-18 19:48:57

Howling...sorry! [grin]

 pilates Sun 15-Jul-18 19:49:15

YANBU but YABU to make her fart 😀

 LadyRussell Sun 15-Jul-18 19:49:22

“Not sure if he’s on the spectrum” [hmm]

Yes because all badly behaved children are on the spectrum.

 NotMyCircusMonkeys Sun 15-Jul-18 19:49:29

This is going to be like the snapped and farted thread isn't it? [grin]

 DobbyLovesSocks Sun 15-Jul-18 19:50:11

Uh-oh. Autocorrect fail [blush]

 Harrykanesrightsock Sun 15-Jul-18 19:50:26

Oh dear. Hilarious auto correct there. But YANBU to ask her to stay. Do most parents not stay anyway at that age?

 SkivingSnackbox Sun 15-Jul-18 19:50:32

Yanbu, especially if the farting helps [grin]

 marylou1977 Sun 15-Jul-18 19:50:39

I think I might ask her to stay. Farting will just smell up the place🤣

 DoJo Sun 15-Jul-18 19:50:48

Could his father not fart instead?

 Alienspaceship Sun 15-Jul-18 19:51:41

Howling [grin]

 jarhead123 Sun 15-Jul-18 19:51:44

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

 Samesituation Sun 15-Jul-18 19:51:45

 Knittedfairies Sun 15-Jul-18 19:51:52

It was all going so well....
Yes, ask her to stay. You could also ask some other parents to stay; you’ll need lots of people to ride shotgun if you have 30 children to wrangle.

 mangomama91 Sun 15-Jul-18 19:51:59

 Merryoldgoat Sun 15-Jul-18 19:52:03

What is mother of boy like? Is she aware of the violence and trying to stop it? Are you friendly?

If she knows what he’s like then she’d probably stay anyway (I would), if she’s oblivious it’s a bit trickier. Could you ask her to give you a hand?

Alternatively, if she’s approachable tell her you’d love her son there but know there are a few friendship issues in the class and you’re asking a few parents to stay to help supervise.

 ThroughThickAndThin01 Sun 15-Jul-18 19:52:05

 starzig Sun 15-Jul-18 19:52:44

I wouldnt invite him at all

 TroubledLichen Sun 15-Jul-18 19:53:14

[grin] great typo! That seems like a fair compromise; that he can attend and not be the only one left out on the proviso that his mum stays to manage his behaviour.

 Applecrumble999 Sun 15-Jul-18 19:53:28

YABVU just for the "on the spectrum" comments alone [shock]

In terms of the actual question, asking only her to attend the party would be quite rude and probably make you a few enemys. I think your options are either putting on the invite that parents are asked to stay (you could say not enough adults to supervise lr whatever), or downscaling the party to maybe 15 friends or so.

Wouldn't a large proportion of the parents stay? My DC is the same age and a good 75% of parents stay at the parties.

So that's all there is to making your kids behave, good to know

 Typhers Sun 15-Jul-18 19:54:19

Don’t invite him, you can’t help everyone.

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question: When is the author's son's birthday?

answer: In August.

question: What does she want to do for his birthday?

answer: Organize a birthday party and invite all his classmates.

question: What is she worried about?

answer: She is worried about this kid from his son's class that she thinks will disturb their party.

question: Is the kid really on the autistic spectrum?

answer: Information not found.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The text is a forum thread of a mom wondering if she should invite a kid that displays disruptive behavior to his son's birthday party.


split: test

text:
This is just the first bit of a story I wrote for an intro to electrical engineering class.  Huzzah!

I wake up at the crack of 4pm every day for a vigorous workout regimen of trying to vomit the shame out of my body and watching Teletubbies reruns.  Then, I remember that cyborgs can’t vomit, and I haven’t paid the cable bill in three months, so the only form of entertainment I get is looking for rats in my apartment and throwing them out of the window.  On a normal day, I might crawl back into bed and shut off my audio/visual receptors for another couple of hours, but my in-eye interface opens up my calendar for today.  Looks like I’ve got a client in half an hour.  Better find a clean shirt.
	As soon as I finish putting on my Hawaiian button up with hardly any stains on it, there’s a knock at the door.  Not the standard three-knock shindig, but a more aggressive than usual intro to “Shave and a Haircut.”  Leaving off those last two knocks is supposed to make me rush to the door to usher them in, but it only serves in making every micrometer of my cybernetic thought processors overheat and lower in efficiency, something humans call “hate.”  It happens all too often with me.  I’m going to not have a good time with this job.  I get the door anyway.
	“Come in.  Don’t touch any of the furniture; I’m pretty sure it’s growing some type of fungus.”  It’s not actually growing anything, but I tell every client this because it’s my apartment and I’ll be damned if I’m having strangers come in and touch all of my stuff.
	“Uh, okay.  Should I just stand then?”  The dame walks in with a look on her face like she’s better than me, but with the posture and grace like she has polio.  I shouldn’t have answered the door.
	“I don’t care if you sit on the floor, do a handstand, or just leave.  Although frankly, it would be pretty impressive to see you get that fat center of gravity over your fat stupid face.  What do you want?”  The dame wasn’t even overweight, but just like in high school, if you put them down enough, they’ll put out more.  Or in the case, pay more.
	“I hear you’re Jake Bullet.  I hear you’re the meanest private dick this side of the pond, and you have what it takes to get the job done.”  The dame was easily six feet tall and the voice coming out of her sounded like a grizzled ex-con.  I could almost see her five o’clock shadow.
	“Lady, when you moonlight like I do, you don’t use words like “private” and “dick” so close together unless you got the green to throw down.  Now tell me what the job is, Golden Girls is on soon.”
	“It’s my husband, Jake.  Every night he goes out, and I don’t see him again until morning, right before he leaves for work at the energy plant!  I think he’s cheating on me, with prostitutes no less!  I checked our bank statement from last month, and, well. . .”  Her optical moisture ports starts spouting like the zits on an eighth grader.  Humans can just be so illogical.  That moisture could be used for a lot of other things, like spitting on the homeless (one of my favorite Sunday past times), or sweating for thirty minutes on the treadmill.  Her story was boring me, so I started checking her out with my peripheral scanners, and she could definitely stand to drop a few.
	“All right, quit your blabbering.  I charge fifty bucks a day, not including meals, snacks, expenditures imperative to the job, expenditures not imperative to the job, movie tickets, pony rides, salsa lessons, etcetera.  I’ll call you when I have something.”
	After getting her nasty human-eye-watering face out of my apartment, I write down in my schedule that I should probably go check this creepy guy out.  Just then, I notice I have an appointment today.  The appointment is written in blue ink.  Looks like I’m missing Golden Girls today.

title: Cyborg Detective Prostitute.

question: How does the cyborg receive the woman who walks into his office?

answer: The cyborg attempts to insult the woman in order to get her to pay more cash. The cyborg does not feel much sympathy for the woman, and becomes impatient when she cries.


text:
They told me that hell was a horrid place filled with fire and brimstone. The devil's supposed to be here.

Lucifer...wielding a three-pronged pitchfork (overcompensating for his rarely reported "sullen wang," no doubt) and more than prepared to shove it elbow deep into a sinner's rectum.

THEY TOLD ME...As a matter of fact, THEY PROMISED! They promised that it would be something so trivial as infinite and unyielding torture.

They swore--from Gospels to Revelations--that my soul would burn and I would feel every whimsical millisecond upon nanosecond of relentless pain until my woe-ed screams filled its ringed caverns.

YES! That IS what they said!

Either, they lied or they were wrong. I'm not quite sure which act of incompetence had led them so horribly askew.

BUT, I can promise! Oh, how I've promised, that if it is the eternal, insufferable, incubator of flame that you fear, FEAR NOT! It isn't real. No more than God and his pigeons are "down here".

Do you wish to know? If not then read no further.

Hell is not the devil's plaything or a pit where evil goes to fester. Hell is not some tilted spear splicing into your gullet, retreating, then resplicing--retreating then resplicing--until your genitalia quiver.

No! Hell is none of those awful things. In fact, it's quite pleasant at first.

Hell is a single moment, (any old moment will do). It's every feeling that moment's brought to you multiplied by six, then four, then two.

Hell is every simple satisfaction you've taken for granted to hold dear. It's every single smile. Every frown or either's tears.

It's a bone-dry steak in the process of a thorough molding. Wine before fermentation. Hell is detention, less the scolding.

Hell is a very instance played in succinctness with the last. Hell is tiring of the time and yet no time at all has passed.

Hell is having all sense of sense removed from your cerebellum and if you wish to share your grief, hell is the inability to tell them.

Lucifer is a concoction of angst and brittle will. His demons are no more or less than the thoughts of warming chills.

So you see you shouldn't fear at all the moment of death or just before.

You are correct in fearing hell, however.

...Poe's down here too.

"Say the raven, nevermore."

"Shut up, Edgar!"

title: [HM] Three Seconds in Hell

question: Why is the narrator disappointed about Hell?

answer: Because he had certain expectations about Hell that weren't met.

question: If Hell isn't all brimstone and torture, why does the narrator say it must be feared?

answer: Because Edgar Allan Poe is down there and he never stops talking.

question: What is the narrator's description of Hell?

answer: Hell is not awful and quite pleasant at first. It is every simple satisfaction taken for granted. Hell is like wine before fermentation. It's like detention less the scolding. Hell is the inability to share grief, where time doesn't pass.

question: What are the narrator's thoughts on Lucifer?

answer: He initially thought Lucifer carries a big pitchfork to overcompensate for his small penis. After spending time in Hell, the narrator says Lucifer is a concoction of angst and brittle will.


text:
POLK COUNTY is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 5,406.[1] Its county seat is Osceola.[2] The county was formed in 1856, and was organized in 1870.[3][4][5] It was named for President James K. Polk.[6]

In the Nebraska license plate system, Polk County is represented by the prefix 41 (it had the 41st-largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922).

Geography

The Platte River flows northeastward along the northwest boundary of Polk County. The lower portion of the county is drained by a local drainage, flowing east and east-northeastward into Butler County. The county terrain consists of rolling hills, dropping off to the river valley in the northern portion, and sloped to the east-southeast in the lower portion of the county. The county terrain is largely devoted to agriculture.[7][8]

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.5%) is water.[9]

Major highways

-   [] U.S. Highway 81
-   [] Nebraska Highway 39
-   [] Nebraska Highway 66
-   [] Nebraska Highway 69
-   [] Nebraska Highway 92

Adjacent counties

-   Butler County – east
-   Seward County – southeast
-   York County – south
-   Hamilton County – southwest
-   Merrick County – west
-   Platte County – north

Demographics

As of the 2000 United States Census,[10] there were 5,639 people, 2,259 households, and 1,570 families in the county. The population density was 5/km² (13/mi²). There were 2,717 housing units at an average density of 2/km² (6/mi²). The racial makeup of the county was 98.92% White, 0.02% Black or African American, 0.28% Native American, 0.09% Asian, 0.28% from other races, and 0.41% from two or more races. 1.08% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 2,259 households, out of which 29.90% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62.90% were married couples living together, 4.10% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.50% were non-families. 27.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.40% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.43 and the average family size was 2.97.

The county population contained 25.10% under the age of 18, 6.00% from 18 to 24, 24.40% from 25 to 44, 23.10% from 45 to 64, and 21.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 100.50 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.70 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $37,819, and the median income for a family was $45,081. Males had a median income of $30,286 versus $19,595 for females. The per capita income for the county was $17,934. About 4.40% of families and 5.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.20% of those under age 18 and 4.70% of those age 65 or over.

Communities

Cities

-   Osceola (county seat)
-   Stromsburg

Villages

-   Polk
-   Shelby

Unincorporated communities

-   Durant
-   Swedehome or Swede Home

Townships

-   Canada
-   Clear Creek
-   Hackberry
-   Island
-   Osceola
-   Platte
-   Pleasant Home
-   Stromsburg
-   Valley

Politics

Polk County voters have been reliably Republican for several decades. In only one national election since 1936 has the county selected the Democratic Party candidate (as of 2016).

  Year                               Republican                                  Democratic                                  Third Parties
  ---------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
  style=“text-align:center;” |2016   style=“text-align:center;” |78.5% _2,028_   style=“text-align:center;” |16.0% _413_     5.5% _141_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2012   style=“text-align:center;” |76.9% _1,890_   style=“text-align:center;” |21.5% _528_     1.6% _39_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2008   style=“text-align:center;” |71.7% _1,822_   style=“text-align:center;” |26.3% _668_     2.1% _53_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2004   style=“text-align:center;” |78.7% _2,146_   style=“text-align:center;” |20.1% _549_     1.2% _32_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2000   style=“text-align:center;” |73.7% _1,925_   style=“text-align:center;” |23.3% _610_     3.0% _78_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1996   style=“text-align:center;” |58.8% _1,504_   style=“text-align:center;” |29.3% _750_     11.8% _302_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1992   style=“text-align:center;” |49.3% _1,437_   style=“text-align:center;” |22.7% _661_     28.1% _820_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1988   style=“text-align:center;” |64.9% _1,769_   style=“text-align:center;” |34.7% _944_     0.4% _11_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1984   style=“text-align:center;” |77.4% _2,149_   style=“text-align:center;” |22.0% _610_     0.6% _17_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1980   style=“text-align:center;” |75.1% _2,206_   style=“text-align:center;” |18.3% _538_     6.5% _192_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1976   style=“text-align:center;” |58.9% _1,797_   style=“text-align:center;” |39.0% _1,190_   2.2% _66_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1972   style=“text-align:center;” |71.3% _2,050_   style=“text-align:center;” |28.8% _827_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1968   style=“text-align:center;” |66.8% _1,795_   style=“text-align:center;” |25.7% _690_     7.5% _201_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1964   style=“text-align:center;” |48.2% _1,607_   style=“text-align:center;” |51.8% _1,730_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1960   style=“text-align:center;” |66.9% _2,397_   style=“text-align:center;” |33.1% _1,184_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1956   style=“text-align:center;” |68.6% _2,482_   style=“text-align:center;” |31.4% _1,135_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1952   style=“text-align:center;” |76.7% _3,008_   style=“text-align:center;” |23.3% _916_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1948   style=“text-align:center;” |59.2% _2,026_   style=“text-align:center;” |40.8% _1,396_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1944   style=“text-align:center;” |60.8% _2,357_   style=“text-align:center;” |39.2% _1,517_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1940   style=“text-align:center;” |61.9% _2,653_   style=“text-align:center;” |38.1% _1,635_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1936   style=“text-align:center;” |46.8% _2,256_   style=“text-align:center;” |52.2% _2,519_   1.0% _48_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1932   style=“text-align:center;” |35.4% _1,636_   style=“text-align:center;” |63.5% _2,939_   1.2% _53_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1928   style=“text-align:center;” |67.2% _3,096_   style=“text-align:center;” |32.4% _1,494_   0.4% _19_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1924   style=“text-align:center;” |56.5% _2,354_   style=“text-align:center;” |29.5% _1,229_   14.0% _584_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1920   style=“text-align:center;” |63.8% _2,393_   style=“text-align:center;” |33.0% _1,236_   3.3% _122_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1916   style=“text-align:center;” |38.3% _1,060_   style=“text-align:center;” |57.8% _1,600_   3.9% _108_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1912   style=“text-align:center;” |19.4% _485_     style=“text-align:center;” |39.9% _996_     40.7% _1,015_[12]
  style=“text-align:center;” |1908   style=“text-align:center;” |44.3% _1,171_   style=“text-align:center;” |47.8% _1,264_   7.9% _208_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1904   style=“text-align:center;” |51.9% _1,235_   style=“text-align:center;” |10.1% _239_     38.0% _905_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1900   style=“text-align:center;” |41.3% _1,023_   style=“text-align:center;” |55.5% _1,376_   3.3% _81_

  : PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS RESULTS[11]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]  Retrieved on March 15, 2008.

[7] [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Polk+County,+NE/@40.999582,-97.7683626,204016m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8790b099bfc81c37:0x491543b0c776c756!8m2!3d41.1526688!4d-97.5680595 _Polk County NE_ Google Maps (accessed 27 January 2019)]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11] Election Results

[12] The leading “other” candidate, Progressive Theodore Roosevelt, received 784 votes, while Socialist candidate Eugene Debs received 142 votes and Prohibition Eugene Chafin received 89 votes.

title: Polk County, Nebraska

question: What does the text say about life in Nebraska?

question: What does the text say about Polk County?

answer: Polk County is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska with a population of 5,406 as of the 2010 United States Census. The county was formed in 1856 and organized in 1870. The Platte River flows northeastward along the northwest boundary of Polk County. The terrain in Polk County consists of rolling hills, dropping off to the river valley in the northern portion, and sloped to the east-southeast in the lower portion of the county. Five major highways pass through Polk County: U.S. Highway 81, Nebraska Highway 39, 66, 69. and 92. The racial makeup of the county shows that it is predominantly White (98.92%) with the rest of the residents divided between Blacks, Hispanics (Latinos), Asians, Native Americans, and others. Polk County voters have been Republicans for several decades.

question: Summarize some interesting facts about Polk County.

answer: Polk County was named after President James K. Polk. Its county seat is Osceola. In the Nebraska license plate system, Polk County is represented by the prefix 41, meaning it had the 41-st largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922. The county's terrain is devoted to agriculture. Water makes up 0.5% of the total land area. Overall, males slightly outnumber females (100.50 males for every 100 females), but the numbers go down for females aged 18 and over. The pay disparity between the sexes is quite large, with males getting paid an average of $10,000 more than females. The Democratic party has only won once in Polk County, way back in 1936.

question: Summarize the important demographics of Polk County.

answer: As of the 2000 United States Census, there were 5,639 people, 2,259 households, and 1,570 families in the county, giving it a population density of 5/km² (13/mi²). The population makeup of Polk County was as follows: 18 years old and below - 25.10%, 18 to 24 years - 6.00%, 25 to 44 years - 24.40%, 45 to 64 years - 23.10%, and 65 years or older - 21.40%. The median age was 42 years. The median household income was $37,819 while the median income for a family was $45,081. The per capita income of the county was $17,934. About 4.40% of families and 5.80% of the population were below the poverty line.


text:
Whistling at the dark

He stood in the blackness, his lips pursed together in a defiant sneer against the night. A soft sound escaped his lips, a pliant, fleeting tone that slipped through the night like the soft cries of a cornered prey. But it was with that sole musicless tone that he fought the night. It was like a dirge to him, a requim to be repeated over and over lest a chaotic fate take his life, some form of protection. The night carried dangers, of course. The night always carried danger, slow predators, fast prey, the ever present spiral of life and death. The forest in the distance was a trap. A slow death for those found within, pressed by others who would take their life for sustenance, and by the slow grind of the human machine which presses in on the trees like a vice, both metaphorical and not. The roads nearby hummed with motorcycle engines and the low drum of tractor trailers. The night was barely audible. The trees' rustle was sorrowful, as though they were aware of the sparse environment in which they grew. Perhaps they knew that their seeds, their children, would find pavement and poison. Perhaps plants were aware of the damage we did them. Perhaps not.

These were not the questions that He pondered as his tones and scales passed into the night. The question he pondered was a simple one. Does the night threaten, or protect? If a man finds his way into the forest at night, can he use the night as another tool, like a hammer to be weilded against the nails of the world? Humans were so good with tools. They used their world and changed their world and were positively okay with changing with their own alterations. Each new hell we press upon the world is one  which we will pay for. We are punished by our sins, not for them.

The tone changed. The man's face twitched, like he had caught the odor of something wistfully foul in the enveloping black. The whistling was a bit faster now, more of a plaintive groan than a playful twist of wind.  The man had made a realization. His mind had pierced the slow gloam of humanity to find a small point of universality. 'We are all trees' he breathed softly through his pursed lips. Then the meteor struck. The large rock flying through the universe had picked his small backwater planet and found his small backwater field where he stood whistling in the night. It was so massive, he had no chance of escape. By the time the news had reported the scientist's findings, the blast radius covered his entire nation. No vehicle could bear him from the damage now. He and his family would be lost, his home burned beyond even molecular recognition, with a force like an atomic bomb striking so close. He would be lost. But life would not be. The meteor was a predator, a cosmic wolf with gnashing teeth and cracked claws. But prey could be clever. Humans were so good with tools.

Inside a small black box buried feet under the ground lay a seed. A small seed, a tiny oak rock filled with all of the DNA and potential and history of life on Earth. The box was cracked, and water from the new storm clouds forming over the planet found its way to the cushioning around the seed. It took time. The little life had to crack its way out of its own shell; then the shell of the man, the little black box designed to handle even the force of an atomic bomb. It found its way out. Through the ashey dirt it fled, past the atoms of He and his family and their home and the ashphalt and chaos of humanity. Past humanity it fled, reaching towards light, unsure if the earth above it would bury it. But humans were so good with tools. A sharp metal stab rang out near the plants' new growth. It could feel the earth above it rended, torn from its roots and sent flying into the air. But its roots were strong, buried in humanity. The rending stopped. Above the plant, a small something opened up. It could not tell what it was; had never seen sunlight before. But there was a mass there, a white shining mass of hydrocarbons and polycarbonates. It was a human, come to sample the soil from the strike. 'Hello' said the plant in its own indiscernible language. 'and thank you.'

Later, a mighty oak grew in that spot. The small metal box rose to the surface over the years, and was discovered years after the tree was fully grown. On it, it said; “Humanity does not refer to human beings' selfish nature for self preservation. It refers to the quality within us which protects all life, both ours and others.”

title: Please judge this rough draft I would like to know if I have "writer chops." Thanks

question: What is the scientists discovery and what does he do with it?

answer: The scientist discovers that plants are sentient, and that they deserve to be treated as human beings. He inscribes this message into a metal cube, which is eventually revealed to the world when an oak tree grows up from the place where it was buried.


text:
[]

There’s no getting around it, the instant torque of electric vehicles can be quite hard on tires – especially with the heavier and more powerful models, like Tesla’s.

Goodyear claims to have a solution with a new tire aimed at the electric vehicle market.

After testing, Goodyear says that “traditional tires can wear out up to 30% faster on electric vehicles.”

At the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show this week, they unveiled the “EfficientGrip Performance with Electric Drive Technology”, which they claim will reduce the wear from high torque.

Chris Delaney, President of Goodyear Europe, Middle East and Africa, says that they are working to bring the technology to market next year:

  “The combination of increasing regulations to reduce emissions, the desire to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and rapid gains in battery technology is creating an ideal environment for electric vehicles. We are working with automakers to introduce our Electric Drive Technology next year designed to address the unique performance requirements of this growing vehicle segment.”

Here’s the tire:

They claim that it will also help energy consumption and therefore increase range:

-   Extended Mileage from Innovative Tread Design: The tread’s thinner sipes (small channels) allow for a larger rubber contact patch on the road surface than traditional radial grooves. With more rubber on the road, the tire can better cope with high levels of torque while maintaining high performance in wet conditions. The tread design also prevents sound waves from entering its grooves, reducing interior and exterior tire noise.
-   High-Load-Carrying Construction: The tire cavity shape has been optimized to support the additional vehicle weight from batteries while maintaining an optimal tread footprint for high performance.
-   Extended Driving Range: The material properties of the tread compound have been tuned for ultra-low rolling resistance to extend the vehicle range while coping with high levels of torque. In addition, the sidewall has been designed to reduce aerodynamic drag and the profile yields less rotating mass, resulting in reduced energy consumption.

Goodyear says that they are also working on making the tires quieter since road noise often appears greater in electric vehicles due to the lack of engine noise.

_FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links._ More.

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

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About the Author

[]

Fred Lambert

@FredericLambert

Fred is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at Electrek.

You can send tips on Twitter (DMs open) or via email: fred@9to5mac.com

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Fred Lambert's favorite gear

question: What are electric vehicles?

answer: Apparently, cars that do not run on fossil fuel, but use electricity instead.

question: What is Goodyear introducing?

answer: A new tire designed specifically for improving the performance of electric cars. They claim that electric cars wear out traditional tires faster.

question: How is the new tire better?

answer: It uses thinner sipes on the treads for better traction and durability, is able to support higher loads with a new cavity shape, and increases driving range with its new tread compound.

question: What other features does the tire have?

answer: Goodyear says their new tires also produce less road noise -which is more noticeable in electric cars due to the lack of engine noise.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Goodyear introduces a new tire designed for use with electric vehicles. It uses thinner sipes on the treads for better traction and durability, is able to support higher loads with a new cavity shape, and increases driving range with its new tread compound. Additionally, since electric cars produce very little engine noise, the new tires are made to produce less road noise as this will become more noticeable to the vehicle's occupants.


text:
A little introduction to this writing: The year is 1997. You have to realize that this year was significant as how we contacted our friends. We were at the start of the mobile generation. People my age, 16 at the time, did not have mobile phones unless their parents were rich, mine weren’t and even if they were, my friends didn’t have mobile phones. So to contact friends you would call to their house and ask their parents if they are present. If not, you would probably have to search for them at spots they might be at.

----------

It's the last Friday evening of summer holiday. I had received my student travel card (free travel in public transport) earlier that day and even though I hadn’t planned anything that evening, I decide to catch a train and try to find my friends who live in a city nearby. I grab my bike, light up a spliff and head of to the train station. At this time of evening, there aren't much people at the station. I'm glad because smoking weed makes me paranoid sometimes. It makes me feel as if people are staring.

As I enter the train, the sun has already set and the absence of most of the moon, because of the time of the month, makes it darker than usual. As the train starts to leave I get the sudden urge to get out. Is it the weed that drives me or some outside force? I don’t know why but I lost the interest of visiting my friends that evening. So I get out at the next station and head for the platform for the return train. I’m the only one there.

As I light a cigarette and just sit there with not much to distract me other than my thoughts, I notice a girl is passing me by. A beautiful girl with long black curly hair and large dark eyes. I can see that she has been crying, because of the red and puffy eyes. She looks middle-eastern to me. Young, probably just a little older than me. She is wearing a white summer dress. Not tight but it outlines her butcheeks by the way she is standing. Her back shows just enough skin and my teenage hormones are starting to rage. I can only imagine the things I want to do to her before I awaken from my thoughts. I hear the rumbling of the train and see the girl standing on the edge of the platform, about 60 feet away from me. It’s dark, but the lanterns shine bright enough for me to see that her shoulders are shaking a bit. I hear a faint cry. I realize what is about to take place.
I need to act. I do not want to see her organs all over the place, nor do I want to be stuck there for hours. There is nothing heroic about this, I am just thinking about my own interests. Might she even go down on me? My hormones still rage. I walk to her, she hasn’t noticed me yet. She jumps on the tracks.

At this point my focus shifts. I hear no sound but see everything so clear. Because of the bright lights of the incoming train I can’t estimate the distance but it looks like I can make it. My heart skips a beat. I jump on the tracks and pick her up as if she weighs nothing. The fabric of her dress is so thin it feels like I am toughing her skin. I don't want to let go, I want to keep my hands on her. So soft. I lift her on the platform and jump on there just in time as I feel the warm summer wind of the passing train. It was too close. Sound returns and I hear the ear deafening sound of shrieking brakes on the train. The girl is crying frantically. She speaks English with a thick accent: “I don’t want to live, I don’t want to live, why, why?”. I realize I can’t help her. What do I know of her problems? I’m just a 16 year old horny boy with a pretty easy life. I don’t understand her pain. I decide to hug her, my hands on her waist. She feels warm. The only reason she doesn't feel my excitement against her belly is because she is in shock. The train engineer is suddenly standing behind me and asks "Do you need help?" I let go as I realize he is talking to her. He walks to the girl. She clearly doesn’t want to be helped and runs off. The engineer turns to me: “Thanks. I don’t know what else to say, just thanks.” I realize why. I can see his eyes are watery and just say: “No problem, mind if I get in?” I ask because this is the intercity that isn’t supposed to stop at this train station. He doesn’t mind. I get in the (nearly empty) train and after a minute the train conductor joins me. He sits down and stays silent for half a minute as he looks at me. He thanks me for preventing a ruined weekend. His daughter is going to celebrate her 4th birthday. He wanted me to know that. I don't understand why he tells me. He hands me a flyer about how to contact some -help after trauma- center. I throw it away, I don’t need help.

Fast forward 3 weeks. School has started. It’s a new school for me by the way. We are having lunch and a class mate is telling me about her aunt, who saw a few weeks before that, from her home, how some guy selflessly saved a girl from getting run over by a train on that station. I said nothing while my hormones started to rage again.

note: I don't write. I have never written anything other than this and will probably never write again. Besides my mother, who doesn't live anymore I never told anyone so I decided to write it down.
Also, English isn't my native language so I will blame any mistake/error/grammatical flaw to that.
Lastly, I have never heard about the girl again. I sometimes wonder if she tried again, why she was crying and didn't want to live. I hope she is happy.

title: [NF] Selfishly

question: What does the text say about cell phones?

answer: The narrator points out that in the year 1997, mobile phones weren't as accessible. It was only the start of the mobile generation. The narrator notes that most people's children didn't have mobile phones unless their parents were rich. His parents weren't and neither were his friends. Without mobile phones, they had to call each other's house phone if they wanted to talk.

question: What does the text say about the girl passing the narrator by?

answer: The narrator spots a teenage girl passing him by while he waits for the train. He is attracted to her, as her dress shows some skin and he's a hormonal teenager. He thinks about all the things he wants to do her. He sees that she is standing on the edge of the platform before she jumps onto the train tracks - a supposed suicide attempt. The narrator rescues her, but the girl only cries frantically that she doesn't want to live. The narrator hugs her, and a train engineer ask if she needs help. The girl runs away in response.

question: Summarize what happens when the narrator goes back to school.

answer: The narrator starts his school year at a new school 3 weeks after he saves the girl from her suicide attempt. When he is having lunch, a classmate is telling him about an incident her aunt witnessed. The aunt saw some guy selflessly save a girl from being hit by a train. The narrator realizing this is him, feels his hormones rage again. He opts not to say anything.

question: Summarize how the narrator pursued the girl on the train.


text:
December 30, 2017
_—\ You\ can\ find\ the\ source\ code\ for\ this\ blog\ series\ here._

[header]

Over the last several months, I’ve been looking for ways to produce _physical_ outputs from my generative code. I’m interested in the idea of developing real, tangible objects that are no longer bound by the generative systems that shaped them. Eventually I plan to experiment with 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC milling, and other ways of realizing my algorithms in the real-world.

My interest in this began in March 2017, when I purchased my first pen plotter: the AxiDraw V3 by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. It’s a fantastic machine, and has opened a whole new world of thinking for me. For those unaware, a pen plotter is a piece of hardware that acts like a robotic arm on which you can attach a regular pen. Software sends commands to the device to raise, reposition, and lower its arm across a 2D surface. With this, the plotter can be programmed to produce intricate and accurate prints with a pen and paper of your choice.

[plotter-wide]

_—\ Early\ prints,\ March\ 2017_

Unlike a typical printer, a plotter produces prints with a strangely human quality: occasional imperfections arise as the pen catches an edge or momentarily dries up, and the quality of the ink has the subtle texture and emboss that you normally only see in an original drawing.

  🖨 Plotters have been around for a while — if you are just starting off, you might be interested in some of the older but more affordable HP plotters.

Often, these plotters and mechanical devices are controlled by formats like HP-GL or G-code. These formats that specify how the machine should lift, move, and place itself over time. For convenience, AxiDraw handles most of the mechanical operation for you, providing an Inkscape SVG plugin that accepts paths, lines, shapes, and even fills (through hatching).

[plotter-wide]

_—\ Tesselations,\ August\ 2017_

You don’t need to be a programmer to use the AxiDraw pen plotter. You can create SVG files in Adobe Illustrator or find SVGs online to print. However, the machine is very well suited to programmatic and algorithmic line art, as it can run for hours at a time and produce incredibly detailed outputs that would be too tedious to illustrate by hand.

One recent series I developed, _Natural Systems_, is composed of 4 different algorithms. Each time these algorithms run, they produce different outputs, allowing for an infinite number of unique prints.

[natural1]

_—\ Natural\ Systems,\ November\ 2017_

This isn’t a new concept; Vera Molnár, an early pioneer of computer art, was rendering pen plotter prints in the 1960s!

[molnar]

_—\ Vera\ Molnár,\ No\ Title,\ 1968_

In this post, I’ll try to explain some of my workflow when developing new pen plotter prints, and show some of the tools I’ve been building to help organize my process.

So far, all of my work with the AxiDraw has been with JavaScript and an experimental tool I’ve been building, aptly named penplot. The tool primarily acts as a development environment, making it easier to organize and develop new prints with minimal configuration.

  💡 This tool has recently evolved into a more mature framework called canvas-sketch.

You can try the tool out yourself with node@8.4.x and npm@5.3.x or higher.

    # install the CLI app globally
    npm install penplot -g

    # run it, generating a new file and opening the browser
    penplot test-print.js --write --open

The --write flag will generate a new test-print.js file and --open will launch your browser to localhost:9966. It starts you off with a basic print:

[penplot]

✏\ See\ here\ to\ see\ the\ generated\ source\ code\ of\ this\ print.

The generated test-print.js file is ready to go; you can edit the ES2015 code to see changes reflected in your browser. When you are happy, hit Cmd + S (save PNG) or Cmd + P (save SVG) to export your print from the browser — the files will save to your Downloads folder.

For algorithmic work with AxiDraw and its SVG plugin, I tend to distill all my visuals into a series of polylines composed of nested arrays.

    const lines = [
      [
        [ 1, 1 ], [ 2, 1 ]
      ],
      [
        [ 1, 2 ], [ 2, 2 ]
      ]
    ]

This creates two horizontal lines in the top left of our print, each 1 cm wide. Here, points are defined by [ x, y ] and a polyline (i.e. path) is defined by the points [ a, b, c, d, .... ]. Our list of polylines is defined as [ A, B, ... ], allowing us to create multiple disconnected segments (i.e. where the pen lifts to create a new line).

  📐 Penplot scales the Canvas2D context before drawing, so all of your units should be in centimeters.

[code]

So far, the code above doesn’t feel very intuitive, but you will hardly ever hardcode coordinates like this. Instead, you should try to think in geometric primitives: points, squares, lines, circles, triangles, etc. For example, to draw some squares in the centre of the print:

    // Function to create a square
    const square = (x, y, size) => {
      // Define rectangle vertices
      const path = [
        [ x - size, y - size ],
        [ x + size, y - size ],
        [ x + size, y + size ],
        [ x - size, y + size ]
      ];
      // Close the path
      path.push(path[0]);
      return path;
    };

    // Get centre of the print
    const cx = width / 2;
    const cy = height / 2;

    // Create 12 concentric pairs of squares
    const lines = [];
    for (let i = 0; i < 12; i++) {
      const size = i + 1;
      const margin = 0.25;
      lines.push(square(cx, cy, size));
      lines.push(square(cx, cy, size + margin));
    }

Once the lines are in place, they are easy to render to the Canvas2D context with beginPath() and stroke(), or save to an SVG with the penplot utility, polylinesToSVG().

The result of our code looks like this:

[squares]

✏\ See\ here\ for\ the\ final\ source\ code\ of\ this\ print.

This is starting to get a bit more interesting, but you may be wondering why not just reproduce this by hand in Illustrator. So, let’s see if we can create something more complex in code.

A simple starting task would be to explore Delaunay triangulation. For this, we will use delaunay-triangulate, a robust triangulation library by Mikola Lysenko that works in 2D and 3D. We will also use the new-array module, a simple array creation utility.

Before we begin, you’ll need to install these dependencies locally:

    # first ensure you have a package.json in your folder
    npm init -y

    # now you can install the required dependencies
    npm install delaunay-triangulate new-array

In our JavaScript code, let’s import some of our modules and define a set of 2D points randomly distributed across the print, inset by a small margin.

We use the built-in penplot random library here, which has the function randomFloat(min, max) for convenience.

    import newArray from 'new-array';
    import { randomFloat } from 'penplot/util/random';

    // ...

    const pointCount = 200;
    const positions = newArray(pointCount).map(() => {
      // Margin from print edge in centimeters
      const margin = 2;
      // Return a random 2D point inset by this margin
      return [
        randomFloat(margin, width - margin),
        randomFloat(margin, height - margin)
      ];
    });

  💡 I often use new-array and map to create a list of objects, as I find it more modular and functional than a for loop.

If we were to visualize our points as circles, it might look like this:

[code]

The next step is to triangulate these points, i.e. turn them into triangles. Simply feed the array of points into the triangulate function and it returns a list of “cells.”

    import triangulate from 'delaunay-triangulate';

    // ...

    const cells = triangulate(positions);

The return value is an array of triangles, but instead of giving us the 2D positions of each vertex in the triangle, it gives us the index into the positions array that we passed in.

    [
      [ 0, 1, 2 ],
      [ 2, 3, 4 ],
      ...
    ]

For example, to get the 3 vertices of the first triangle:

    const triangle = cells[0].map(i => positions[i]);

    // log each 2D point in the triangle
    console.log(triangle[0], triangle[1], triangle[2]);

For our final print, we want to map each triangle to a polyline that the pen plotter can draw out.

    const lines = cells.map(cell => {
      // Get vertices for this cell
      const triangle = cell.map(i => positions[i]);
      // Close the path
      triangle.push(triangle[0]);
      return triangle;
    });

Now we have all the lines we need to send the SVG to AxiDraw. In the browser, hit Cmd + S and Cmd + P to save a PNG and SVG file, respectively, into your Downloads folder.

[triangles]

For reference, below you can see how our original random points have now become the vertices for each triangle:

[code]

  💡 The random module includes a setSeed(n) function, which is useful if you want predictable randomness every time the page reloads.

If we increase the pointCount to a higher value, we start to get a more well-defined edge, and potentially a more interesting print.

[code]

✏\ See\ here\ for\ the\ final\ source\ code\ of\ this\ print.

In the next instalment of this series, we’ll attempt to reproduce a fracturing algorithm for a more interesting composition.

CONTINUE READING: Pen Plotter Art & Algorithms, Part 2

557

Kudos

557

Kudos

question: What is a pen plotter?

answer: A pen plotter is a piece of hardware that acts like a robotic arm on which you can attach a regular pen. Software sends commands to the device to raise, reposition, and lower its arm across a 2d surface. The plotter can be programmed to produce intricate and accurate prints with a pen and paper of your choice. A plotter produces prints with a strangely human quality: occasional imperfections arise as the pen catches an edge or momentarily dries up, and the quality of the ink has the subtle texture and emboss that you normally only see in an original drawing.

question: How does one control the designs printed by the pen plotter?

answer: Generally, plotters and mechanical devices are controlled by formats like HP-GL or G-code. These are formats that specify how the machine should life, move, and place itself over time. For convenience, AxiDraw handles most of the mechanical operation for you, providing an Inkscape SVG plugin that accepts paths, lines, shapes, and even fills. You don't need to be a programmer to use the AxiDraw pen plotter. You can create SVG files in Adobe Illustrator or find SVGs online to print. However, the machine is very well suited to programmatic and algorithmic line art, as it can run for hours at a time and produce incredibly detailed outputs that would be too tedious to illustrate by hand.

question: What can you do with the prints created by a pen plotter?


text:
“Why do they make this so goddamn hot? They must want to burn your tongue so you can’t taste how much they water it down. I can barely taste anything anymore. Maybe I should sue them; get my big pay out and open my own shop that sells coffee at the proper dilution and temperature. Ground breaking idea---coffee that doesn’t leave my customers writhing under the pain of a blistering tongue everyday of their miserable lives. I guess I should just stop coming here. But, then I’d have to find a new place to go and find new things to complain about there. Seems like a lot of hassle over a tongue with a few burned off taste buds....”

Kurt stared at his laptop screen, glowing blue in the ambient mood lighting of *Brew-Ha-Ha,* the non-alcoholic version of the local dive in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, tucked away down a little side street off the main drag. Few ever went looking for it unless they already knew where it was. He had just arrived, and already there was a bitter taste in his mouth. He had run through nearly the same monologue in his mind day in and day out, for the better part of the year since he had started going there.

Today was the day, though. Today, he was going to make real progress on this story; this pulitzer-potential Great American Novel that he merely needed to coax from the ends of his neurons. He looked at the thousand or so words he’d managed to choke up: something about a guy in a coffee shop in front of a laptop trying to look like he was doing something important in order to avoid social discourse.

“Fuck.” He mouthed the word as he thought it to himself.

He set his coffee down to the side and popped the cheap plastic lid off so it could cool down. He watched for a moment as the steam rose gleefully from the surface. Glee had no business here. Moving his hand in a well practiced multi-touch technique, he was able to have his Facebook screen up in less than a second.

The blue-motif world of Facebook was calming for him. Every second spent wasted checking up on the friends he once had was a second spent away from making any real progress. Progress was hard. It took concentration; motivation. It was far easier to scroll this infinite tome the internet had written for him. And it was an illustrated novel. There were pictures of his elementary school friends looking chiseled as they hung out by some undisclosed body of water with beers in hand and faceless tan girls in little pink bathing suits that always seemed one size to small.

“Those stupid parties are never any fun anyway. I always end up drinking too much on my own and doing something stupid. Remember that time I thought it was funny to dump the contents of the punch bowl down the front of my pants like I was drinking it from my crotch? And then I thought it was also funny to moon the cops when they came because apparently I didn’t leave when I was asked. Actually that is still pretty funny. Anyway, look at those stupid assholes. They’re never going to amount to anything beyond their quaint little small town parties. I’m better off not being there. Even if they invited me, I still wouldn’t go.”

He scrolled down some more to a picture of his high school best friend, Max, and his golden retriever. It was a sunny, and they were alone together in some field with tall grass.

“Pfft. How silly. Why is he posting a picture of him and his dog as a profile picture? That’s a bit sad. Doesn’t he have any real friends to post pictures with? That stupid dog is probably all he has in the world. How pathetic.”

In the midst of his spewing of thoughts, Kurt remembered his own golden retriever that he had when he was growing up. He remembered the day they had to take him to the vet and how he stayed with him as they poked him that long needle. He remembered watching his eyes close for the last time. And he remember crying in a heap on the floor harder than he ever had in his life. His expression was dazed, backlit by the monitor like a ghost wandering in the moonlight. He absentmindedly clicked ‘like.’

*Cute puppy! Reminds me of my own when I was growing up.* He mouthed the words as he typed them in to the comments section. He read them over twice before holding down the backspace deleting his words from existence.

He continued the scroll stopping at a picture posted by his long ex-girlfriend, Kate. She was with her new boyfriend. The caption indicated they were engaged.

“Kate’s too young to get married. She shouldn’t give her life to some guy like that. Who knows what she’ll be missing out on. Look at that guy. Looks like a Friday night bar pick-up. I can smell the ink on the divorce papers drying from here. I guess I should be nicer. I’m sure they’re going to end up okay. I wonder if they’ll have kids. Shit, he’s a good looking guy. I bet they’re kids will be good looking and popular in school. I miss you, Kate. I wish I could tell you. ‘Kurt and Kate.’ Our names even sounded good together.... What am I doing? How is that any type of indication of two peoples’ compatibility? It means nothing. I’m actually stupid. I moved on from this many, many years ago---and yet here I am. I’ve never had another girl like her, though. She was so amazing. And now she’s boning this other fuck-stick, while here I am in this stupid coffee shop with this retarded name, burnt out from whacking off every other day. I can’t let her know this. Should I say ‘congratulations’? No, I’ll just like it. Would that be weird? Fuck, just get off Facebook, you asshole.”

Kurt closed the window with a rapid fire keyboard shortcut and saw his measly thousand words staring back at him once more. He picked up his coffee and took a swig.

“Goddammit! How is this still hot?” He spoke his mind out loud this time and the quiet little people on their own little laptops looked over his way with a combination of confusion and dismay. ‘Out loud’ is forbidden here.

Kurt closed his laptop a bit more forcibly than he was accustomed, but it still made a soft little pat sound. He looked down at his closed computer in front of him, and then up at all the other people quietly drinking their coffee and going about their work. There was an Asian girl in the corner with chin length hair and square goggle-glasses. She stared intently at her computer while sipping on some drink through a straw.

“I bet it’s a non-fat chai something something something. Asians are crazy about the chai. Great, now I’m a racist. Good going, Kurt. As if you didn’t have enough wrong with you. I wonder if she’s writing a book, too. Probably not. She’s probably studying for math or engineering or something... Goddammit, you racist fuck! I’m the worst. I should just go talk to her and ask her about herself. That’s not weird, right? Why is not talking to each other the new norm? Oh, shit...”

The girl in the corner made eye contact with Kurt, realizing she was being stared at. Kurt quickly looked away and pretended he was minding his own business and the girl quickly returned to her own endeavors.

Kurt turned his attention now to a man sitting a few places down at a table parallel to his own spot. He was drinking a coffee and reading a book.

“Great---another guy in the world who’s better looking than me. Chalk another one up. Why isn’t his coffee dissolving the taste buds on his stupid tongue? He must be blessed by the caffeine gods. Who wears a blazer to a coffee shop like this, anyway? Who’s he trying to impress? What a phony. What’s he reading?”

Kurt leaned forward and squinted to decrypt the title of the book.

“Oh hang on everyone! You’d better fasten your seat belts. This guys’s reading *The Catcher in the Rye.* How original. We got a regular literary fucking genius over here. Everyone else put your shit books away, can’t you see we’re reading *The Catcher in the Mother-Fucking Rye.* I didn’t know you were even allowed to read that once you graduated high school. He’s probably in here trying to pick up freshmen girls or something. The little airheads who walk around with their heads up their asses because their shit don’t stink because they read the *Themes Motifs & Symbols* tab on SparkNotes for stupid, wipe-my-ass *Catcher in the Rye.* You know, whatever. Good for him. I bet he gets laid tonight while I’m naked and jackin’ it in San Diego.”

Kurt chuckled to himself.

“I wonder if he watches South Park. Dammit...”

The man looked up from his book to see Kurt looking back. He was able to squeeze in a quick, but sincere smile before Kurt whipped his gaze away.

“Oh, what a guy. Reads J. D. Salinger and offers sincere smiles to strangers. I should contact the pope and see about pushing his canonization papers through.”

He looked down at his laptop again, remembering he had just closed it. Not enough time had passed from him to throw it back open again---there’s rules here. Impaired of other options, he plunged his hand in to his right front pocket and whipped out his iPhone.

Nothing. No texts. No SnapChats. No Facebook updates. Kurt flipped back and forth from page to page of useless apps. One, for instance, was called Coffee Finder. With one click you can find coffee shops that are near to your current location and read their menus and reviews from other customers.

“Solid download.”

Kurt clicked on Coffee Finder. A map popped up with a blue dot emitting little waves to indicate his current locale. It hovered over a red dot that read *Brew Ha-Ha.* He clicked on it. An image of the facade of the building popped up. He clicked on the about tab. The location apparently used to be a furniture store in the 1950s, a grocery store through the 90s, abandoned for 10 years, and then repurposed as ‘Oshkosh’s favorite gourmet coffee establishment.’

“Gourmet, my ass. Although, I am drinking shitty coffee on historical land. Or at least I would if it would ever not be scalding.”

He looked over menacingly toward his still steaming cup of French Roast.

“I hate you.”

He looked back at his phone and clicked on the review tab. The average: two and a half stars.

“Seems about right.”

He clicked on the read more button. The first review was five star. Holly J. writes: *Brew Ha-Ha is a great little whole-in-the-wall coffee shop. It offers a cozy atmosphere and really friendly service. If only the hoards of Starbucks drinkers would turn around the corner their eyes would be....*(continue reading)

The review was cut off and you had to click if you wanted to read the rest of it. Kurt did not oblige. The next review down was one star. Blueballs69 writes: *This place sucks. The person behind the counter was picking his wedgy as he asked me what I wanted. When I got my coffee, it tasted like ash and burned off half my taste buds. Go to Starbucks. Brew Ha-Ha sucks....*(continue reading)

“This guy gets it! Let’s see what he has to say. Click-a-roo.” Kurt clicked the button.

*...balls.*

“Worth it I think.” Kurt smirked slyly to himself as he rested his arm on the table staring methodically into his phone.

(continued in comments....)

title: [RF] Coffee Shop

question: What is the main conflict of the story?

answer: Kurt is attempting to write a novel, but seems to get distracted by a myriad of different things. He is frustrated by the fact that the coffee he purchased seems to be perpetually hot. He also ends up stacking a former friend and girlfriend on Facebook. His mind drifts towards making assumptions about other patrons in the coffee shop.

question: What does Kurt do for a living?

question: Why did Kate break up with Kurt?

question: What does Kurt think of the coffeeshop?

answer: Kurt is tired of going to Brew-Ha-Ha, but doesn't want to put in the effort to find a new place to go to. He dislikes the coffee that they serve, stating that it is always too hot and doesn't taste good.


text:
The 1997 SINGER AKAI CUP was held in Sharjah, UAE, between April 3-11, 1997. Three national teams took part: Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe.

The 1997 Singer Akai Cup started with a double round-robin tournament where each team played the other twice. The two leading teams qualified for the final. Sri Lanka won the tournament and US$40,000. Runners-up Pakistan won US$25,000 and Zimbabwe US$10,000.[1]

The beneficiaries of the tournament were Waqar Younis and Saeed Ahmed who each received US$35,000, and Aslam Khokhar, Israr Ali and Zulfiqar Ahmed (all Pakistan) who each received US$10,000.

Squads

Pakistan

-   Wasim Akram (captain)
-   Rameez Raja
-   Sajid Ali
-   Ijaz Ahmed
-   Shahid Afridi
-   Inzamam-ul-Haq
-   Saleem Malik
-   Mohammad Wasim
-   Mushtaq Ahmed
-   Moin Khan (wicket-keeper)
-   Saqlain Mushtaq
-   Waqar Younis
-   Mohammad Zahid
-   Shahid Nazir

[2]

Sri Lanka

-   Arjuna Ranatunga (captain)
-   Sanath Jayasuriya
-   Romesh Kaluwitharana (wicket-keeper)
-   Marvan Atapattu
-   Aravinda de Silva
-   Hashan Tillakaratne
-   Roshan Mahanama
-   Ruwan Kalpage
-   Kumar Dharmasena
-   Chaminda Vaas
-   Upul Chandana
-   Muttiah Muralitharan
-   Nuwan Zoysa
-   Sajeewa de Silva

[3]

Zimbabwe

-   Alistair Campbell (captain)
-   Andy Flower (vice-captain/wicket-keeper/coach)
-   Eddo Brandes
-   Stuart Carlisle
-   Grant Flower
-   Everton Matambanadzo
-   JA Rennie
-   Bryan Strang
-   Paul Strang
-   Heath Streak
-   Dirk Viljoen
-   Andy Whittall
-   Guy Whittall
-   Craig Wishart

[4]

Matches

Group stage

[5]

  Team   P     W   L   T   NR   NRR      Points
  ------ ----- --- --- --- ---- -------- --------
         | 4   3   1   0   0    +0.197   6
         | 4   2   2   0   0    +0.275   4
         | 4   1   3   0   0    -0.455   2

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

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

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

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

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

Final

[1]

[2] Pakistan Squad

[3] Sri Lanka Squad

[4] Zimbabwe Squad

[5] https://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/series/61003.html?view=pointstable

title: 1996–97 Singer Akai Cup

question: Summarize the main context of this text.

answer: The main context of this text is to describe the 1997 Singer Akai Cup. This is a double round-robin tournament in which three national teams take part: Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. Each team played the other two teams twice and the tournament was for money.


text:
The phone vibrates in Brian’s lap and, taking his hand off the wheel, he reaches for it only to knock it unceremoniously between the center console and the driver’s seat, where he sat in the late model gold Toyota on his way to pick up his roommate from work.

“Fuck my life,” Brian mumbles under his breath, wiping the cold snot lining his nostrils across the arm of the long-sleeved shirt he’s been wearing for the past three days.  Actually, who can count?  He may well have been wearing it the whole week.

He reaches down to the power cord plugged into the cigarette lighter, wanting to fish the slippery phone out from no-hands’ land and, attempting to stifle a sneeze, pulls the plug right out from the back of the phone which falls back into the abyss with a taunting “cli-clack”.

The decoupling causes a sudden give in the taught cable and sends him into a rage.  He pulls the plug out of the dash and proceeds to whip himself on his bare calf with the cable.

“Awrrghhh,” he whines, rearing back with the cable to strike himself again.

“Yea, take it bitch,” he commands of himself, a slight smile appearing just above what might have been a five o’clock shadow at five o’clock some four days ago.

“It hurts so good, doesn’t it?  You fucking weirdo.”

His legs, previous poster-children of restless leg syndrome, temporarily stop their rapid shaking as he rubs the red strip slowly rising up in his pale skin.  He grabs some of the ginger hair that keeps his legs from being mistaken for exsanguinated corpse flesh and twists it hard one time before rearing back with the green USB cable.  He bears down with the cable again, harder this time and lets out a yelp, seemingly of pain, but the look on his face, that silly crooked smile of someone who is truly losing it, says otherwise.  The hierarchy of pain is an odd thing, but Brian has learned to take advantage of it during these times of withdrawal.

“Moments ago I hurt everywhere.  Now I just hurt right here,” he thinks to himself, rubbing the red strip of raised flesh, trying to convince himself that he’s not some masochistic lunatic.

These symptoms happen whenever Brian goes more than 24 hours without his almighty cure-all, his heroine: heroin.  He’s already spent all the money that he so slickly conned out of his aunt on his insatiable habit and is now rushing to pick up his roommate, the wonderful Sandra, who very well may want to send him on a sketchy mission to procure more of the holy substance.  She would undoubtedly share with him, just as he had with her.  To be quite honest though, she’s carried much more of the burden in this relationship than he.  This fact makes him want to escape from the reality of it all the more.

He hits the cruise control, pulls forward on the seat belt and, like a contortionist, reaches his hand around the back of and underneath the driver’s seat, retrieving the elusive phone with his finger tips.  He pulls it into view, corrects the course of the vehicle with his knee on the wheel, narrowly missing the back end of an 18-wheeler, and reads the offending message from Sandra: “I’ve got an emergency faculty meeting and won’t need you to pick me up for at least another hour.  Why don't you go pick up new points at the pharmacy?  We’ll get well after I get off.”

“Son of a bitch,” Brian whines, thinking about the eternity that another hour of this torture will feel like.
He thinks about the difficulty of picking up new insulin syringes, what Sandra referred to as “points.”

This requires him to walk up to the pharmacy counter and act like a straight, up-standing citizen who suffers from diabetes, a simple enough task under normal circumstances, but far more difficult when sweating profusely and actively experiencing the paradoxical relief of the inflicted pain of USB cables and mini-Indian burns.

Brian would very much like both to “get off” and to “get well,” however, so he plugs “Walgreen's” into the phone to receive GPS directions to the nearest one.  There is one just two blocks further down from where he was heading already, passed Sandra’s work.  He starts taking deeper breathes, trying to calm down, and takes some Axe body spray out of the center console.  He sprays himself across the chest and under his arms, hoping that the clean smell will deter any upstanding citizen from seeing the truth of his deplorable circumstances.

The sudden smell tickles his nose and sends him into another sneezing spell.  To sneeze eight times in a row and not crash the car is no small feat, but his pride is short-lived as a cramping pain in his bowels causes him to almost double over in his seat.  A sound like a bubbling oil pool emanates from and rumbles his whole torso.  He scantly wishes for death, an end to all this needless, self-induced suffering.  He slams on the brakes, noticing the light ahead is red, but he slides too far into the intersection.  He sees the flash of the red light cameras snapping a picture of the license plate.

“God dammit!  Sandra is going to kill me,” Brian said aloud.  The car he’s driving is Sandra’s and she would be responsible for that ticket.  He has already got her a ticket once before.

“I am the worst friend ever.  I really think people would be better off if I were dead.”

The light turns green and Brian pulls forward and into the Walgreen's.  He gets out of the car and into the store, walking towards the pharmacy.  He tries to go into the men’s room but the door is locked.  He bumps into a lanky man of about six feet with a large black trench coat on in spite of the extreme heat outside.  He shoves Brian a little bit forward, saying “Watch it, ass hole.”

Brian, needing more than anything to empty his bowels, calls out “Sorry,” as he passes by him en-route to the counter waving a hand up in apology without looking back.  He asks the pharmacist quickly for the keys to the bathroom, trying not to look as desperate as he truly was.  The long-haired Indian woman with a ruby bindi in her third-eye smiles and reaches into her lab coat pocket and shifts around inside.  She pulls out the keys and slides them jingling across the counter toward Brian’s outstretched, grateful hands.  He thanks her and quickly makes his way into the restroom.  He has no time to be concerned with putting the sanitary covers over the seat and, only slightly grossed out, drops his trousers and sits immediately on the unsuspecting toilet.  He lets out a small wail of simultaneous pain and relief in accompaniment to the sound of a bucket splashing into a lake which emanates up from between and beneath his legs.

He sits there, almost out of breath, but feeling very relieved.  He hears two loud banging noises through the bathroom door.  “Someone’s shitty car must be back-firing in the parking lot,” he thinks to himself.  He takes another few minutes on the commode to ensure the anal onslaught is over, and satisfied that it is, cleans himself up, washes his hands and face in the sink and dries up in the ridiculous blower attached to the wall, its jet engine drowning everything out, and echoing all over the tile bathroom.

He turns back to find where he set the keys to the bathroom and heads out to the pharmacy counter, ready at last to try and social engineer his way to some new points.  He opens the door and makes his way to the counter.

“Holy shit,” Brian thinks to himself as he notices the cash register lying on its side at the foot of the counter.  Bottles lay all around it and a large metal cabinet, usually locked until the pharmacist accesses its contents, lays open at a 45 degree angle tipped over the counter.  He looks around but there is not a single worker in sight.  He rushes over and notices that all the bottles strewn across the counter and floor are controlled substances: narcotics!

“Holy shit!  Don’t mind if I do,” he says to himself, grabbing a shopping bag and filling it with all of the bottles he could grab.  Oxycontin, roxicodone, meperidine, demerol, dilaudid, morphine, methadone, some fentanyl transdermal patches, and a few other things that even his street pharmacist brain had never heard of were all thrown in the bag.

Just when he was finishing up looting all the bottles on his side of counter, he leans over to see if he missed anything.  On the floor just on the other side lay the long-haired Indian pharmacist, breathing shallowly and holding a wound on her neck, blood pouring out between her fingers.  Brian immediately loops the pharmacopoeia over his sweaty, bony shoulders and jumps over the counter, grabs a spare lab coat hanging nearby and rushes to the pharmacist, immediately applying pressure with the coat.  It quickly soaks through with the blood spewing from her neck.  Her eyes look glossy and are wide with terror as she squeezes on Brian’s bicep as though she believes that if she could just hold on to this sickly junkie, the rushing darkness would not overcome her.  All would be well and she could be tricked by Brian into selling him the works he came for.

Brian quickly ascertains that this poor woman is lost to the world.  Should he hold on with her till the bitter end, or should he break away with enough drugs to sate his thirst for at least a month?  As he makes his decision a rookie police officer rushes into the pharmacy,  his Glock 9mm pistol drawn.  He sees the woman bleeding out, clutching at Brian’s arm, as he lurks over her, holding her neck with a bag full of stolen drugs slung over his shoulder.  He fires a single shot straight into the back of Brian’s head.  Brian’s face explodes into the Indian pharmacist’s dead eyes, her bindi lost in the dots of scarlet spraying her face.

“Police!” shouts the rookie officer.

title: [MF] Drugstore Detour

question: What injuries does Brian sustain in his car?

answer: When his phone falls down into the cracks of the car, Brian yanks the cord out of the power outlet and whips himself with it. It leaves a red strip of raised flesh on his legs. He is trying to raise it to stop himself from thinking about heroin.

question: Why does Brian go to the pharmacy?

answer: Brian is a heroin addict. He is driving Sandra's car to the pharmacy to pick up insulin syringes for both of them so that they can shoot up. To do this he pretends that he has diabetes, and uses that prescription.

question: Why does Brian escape violence at the pharmacy?

answer: Brian escapes the violence because he is in the bathroom. One of the side-effects of heroin is that one has prolonged bowel movements. After sitting on the toilet for a long time he emerges to find that a shooter has killed everyone in the pharmacy.

question: Why does the police officer shoot Brian?

answer: When Brian exists the bathroom he finds that the pharmacy has been robbed and everyone has been shot. He decides to take advantage of the situation and steal a large quantity of medications. One of the pharmacists has been wounded and grabs onto his leg for help. At that moment a police officer enters, and it appears to the officer that Brian has shot the pharmacist. The officer fires at once, killing him.


text:
  My eyes opened suddenly, my heart raced in my ears, a panic brought from the depths of a dream ending. Something was watching me, I felt it in that subhuman part of my brain that we all have, that animal instinct that told us of danger unseen. Something was watching from those dark recesses of my room, those corners that held shadow just so perfectly to invite the imagination to cast horrors unknowable. And so my heart races as my eyes scanned the room that I knew so well, the room that held me safe against all things.

  Eyes do not see entirely correctly when they are suddenly forced out of REM sleep and back into reality. Things are distorted, a haze that shrouds things for the briefest moments of time. They bring with them the fragments of dreams and force them into reality, but they aren’t quite there, so as I peered into the darkness that blanketed my room, I saw things that weren’t there.

  Yet something lay there, watching with eyes unseen. My heart raced still, drumming endlessly in my ears. What intention did it have, whatever it might be? My left over animal side knew of danger, but my human brain questioned. Did it want to watch me in my most vulnerable of moments, knowing that it could end me without a fight? Or did it want something worse?

  And then my eyes beheld something I wanted to believe came from the remainder of my dream, but I knew it was not. A grim visage indeed, the outline of a man that wasn’t a man, some dark mockery of our form cast in that forbidding gloom and I knew it was staring at me.

  The head was too pale, I saw as my eyes slowly began to adjust, and utterly without features except for two eyes and a mouth, though they weren’t quite right. They eyes were pits, swirling pools of void that drew in the darkness around it. The mouth opened, splitting decayed lips and revealing the same void that were its eyes. My ears were assaulted with the sound of rushing air and groaning metal, the sound of screams from every thing that ever existed, all pleading out for mercy that they would never receive from a master that didn’t know the concept.

  And then silence…

  All sound stopped, every background sound that our ears adjust to over the years of living in a time of constant noise, including the drumming of our own hearts and the rush of our blood, stopped. The true silence fell on my ears and threatened my mind with madness, maybe even more so than the sight of the thing before me.

  The darkness around the horror warped, distorted to conform to its shape, shimmering yet completely still at the same time like a ripple moving through the surface of calm water. The head moved in a way unnatural, like the still frames of a strobe light, one moment leaning left and the next right.

  Arms as pale as the head reached out toward me, and my fear grew a hundredfold, as razor wire, corroded by time and blood, seethed from the curve of the elbow and began crawling to cover them. They snake around those too pale arms and squeezed, bleeding that void made liquid from every inch, yet the blood refused to fall. Around the throat and across the torso it went, cutting deep to reveal not the fragility of a human form, but nothing.

  I pleaded with my mind to wake me, that this must be some dream. Nothing like this could exist in truth, for this was a creature born of horror and shadow. Yet as that thing stared at me, and as the silence pressed on me, I knew it was no dream, that this was real. Somehow, at that moment, I knew this thing was ancient, that it had existed all along the course of our short time on the planet. That this was the real reason we feared darkness, and begged for the light.

  The devil we fought against in every religion, the boogeyman we warned our children about, thinking it was some tradition that we all jokingly passed down. It was Hell, or The Abyss or the Inferno or Perdition, made real.

  I realized I had lain back down, having jumped with a start to my elbows when I’d awoken. How long had I been lying down again? It hovered above me; razor ripped false skin not dripping on me. A leg on each side of my torso, or was it floating above me? The head twitched back and forth and those eyes cast upon mine, and I knew death in that moment. I felt the loneliness of Ninth Circle of Hell, the cold of the void, and the agony of a wrathful god.

  It leaned down, ever closer, and I could smell it. The was the smell of the rotting flesh of one’s most beloved person, sulfur and frost, burning flesh and bile, rust and blood. My heart raced faster, and it pained me, a burning that spread too rapidly through my body, an agony that made me scream, but I found myself unable to open my mouth. Every inch of me begged to scream, and let my pain be known, but I found myself silent.

  I don’t know how long I have been like this, screaming in silent agony, freezing and burning and weeping no tears, begging for the end of this nightmare that could not be. A hundred thousand years passed, each second passing just a little too slow, and I felt every moment of it, and yet no time past. And I know that this will be my everything, forever.

  I’ve forgotten the warmth of another person’s touch, the embrace of a loved one, the feel of passionate lips on mine. The tastes of my favorite foods, the sound of my favorite band are all gone now. So too the feeling of a cool breeze at dusk on a hot day, even the simple joy of lying under a blanket in the depths of winter to read a book. My thoughts now are all the same, Let me die…

  A million billion years of suffering every second, and every second too slow every minute never becoming two.

Let me die…
Please…let me die…
…end this.

  But it never does quite end…it is always going on and on, all of time spread before me each moment a suffering. I sometimes wonder, now, what the man I used to be was like. I can no longer remember if that man, so long ago, was a happy man with a good life, or if I was reviled by those around me. Was I a funny man, cracking jokes all the time and able to get a room of people laughing? Was I sad with the things that brought to bed that night, whenever that last night in my bed was?

  That horrible silence is always my answer, a harsh truth that makes my questions meaningless. Only those pits of swirling blackness matter, that soul destroying gaze. It knew me, far more than I knew myself, and every moment it chipped away at me, an endless march toward nonexistence, but the pain makes it seem preferable. I would join that nothingness in time, but not before every ounce of suffering could be pulled from me, and it was.

 …let me die. A plead that lingered unnoticed forever, an endless begging ignored.

  My eyes opened suddenly, my heart raced in my ears, a panic brought from the depths of a dream ending. I did not know what woke me, be it my brain ejecting me from a dream it was finished with, or simply being rested. I scanned the room; parting the veil of sleep to discover my room empty, save for the darkness and myself. Outside I heard a car door close, no doubt my neighbor getting home from a midnight shift at the convenience store down the road.

  Rolling over I reached out and found my phone, which I took and pressed the button on time to engage the too bright, too sudden light from the screen. The clock read five in the morning, but one would hardly know it. The sun hadn’t yet breached the horizon, nor did it show any signs of attempting it today.

  That dream, that hell of an existence, remained in fragments, the entirety destroyed like the surface of a mirror. Hours and coffee would see it gone for good, as the rest of the day would greet me to bring me back to my life, a normal life of working a job I neither enjoyed nor detested. I rolled from my bed, placing feet to warm fuzzy rug, and yawned.

  I found myself in the shower; warm beads of water beat down on my tensed muscles. I didn’t remember the act of getting in the shower, but I was thankful for the warmth. The news had said it would be another cold day, at best being as high as forty degrees Fahrenheit. My heater was broken in my car, and I still hadn’t gotten around to fixing it.

  The rush of cold air as I stepped outside brought the remembrance of that horrible dream in portion.  I remember the feeling of floating through a cold too terrible to be real. I shook my head, trying to dispel it, it was only a dream. My jacket pulled tighter around my chest, I made my way to my car.

  My neighbor greeted me from his lawn as he retrieved his trash can from the curb, a gesture made and returned every day. Nothing was special about this day, only the remnants of that dream. I felt a smile cross my face, knowing that everything was okay.

  The sun shined down on my cold face, warming it for a moment, a perfectly normal yet sincere second of time that could exist only for those alive. The dead know not the feeling of warm sunshine, only cold dirt, and that was worth remembering.

  My eyes opened suddenly, my heart raced in my ears, a panic brought from the depths of a dream ending. The silence contained the world in perfect stillness, and my tormentor’s unforgiving eyes greeted my suffering again. I thought I saw a gleam of sadistic pleasure in there, somewhere, buried deep beneath the existing nothingness.

 A moment of sincere joy, the simple feeling of warmth from the sun, was given to me as hope. And it was taken from me, reminding me of my true fate.

 …let me die. I begged through silent eyes, for no scream could pass my lips.

 …let this be the end, I’ve suffered enough.

 …Finish this, please.

 Somehow I knew it would never end.

--Tommy Lawrence, 2013

title: Forever Agony, Forever Silent (horror short story, feedback wanted)

question: Summarize the horror elements in the narrative.

answer: The horror elements in the story are presented in a way that the reader is unable to form a full image of what the cause of horror is. Terms such as horrors unknowable, a haze that shrouds things, a man that wasn't man, etc., all depict a source of horror that is primarily indescribable. The effect on the narrator is not fear from shock or the threat of danger, but an overwhelming horror that leads to madness. The descent of the narrator into madness is shown through the way the narrative evolves from fearful to raving and ultimately, surrender. A final twist in the narrative flow is executed by ending the story in a way that makes it appear that all of the horrors that the narrator encountered had finally passed, but in the end, it was the horror taking the narrator's last sense of hope away.

question: If the narrative is to be considered as a form of symbolism, provide an interpretation of the story.

answer: The narrator, Tommy, dreads the life he lives. He could be living a monotonous existence and is tired of it (million, billion years of suffering every second), or has suffered through severe loss (forgotten the warmed of another person's touch, embrace of a loved one), or is under the effects of substances (pleaded with my mind to wake me, that this must be some dream), or a combination of any of the above. Occasionally, Tommy has moments where he feels that things might become better, but it does not take long before his depression puts him back in a position where he sees no way to break out of the cycle of his existence and sees only constant hardship in his life and so he just wants to die.

question: Identify the religious beliefs of the writer of the story.

answer: While not certain, it is likely that the writer follows a Judeo-Christian religion due to the references to hell in the story and the lack of references to other religious beliefs.


text:
[Map of Kuwait, with Iraq to the north] The IRAQ–KUWAIT BORDER is 254 km (158 m) in length and runs from the tripoint with Saudi Arabia in the west to the Persian Gulf coast in the east.[1]

Description

The border starts in the west at the Saudi tripoint on the Wadi Al-Batin, and then follows this wadi as it flows north-eastwards. The border then turns east, following a straight line for 32 km (20 m), before another straight line veers to the south-east for 26 km (16 m), terminating at the coast by the junction of the Khawr Abd Allah and Khor as Subiyah opposite Hajjam Island.

History

Historically there was no clearly defined boundary in this part of the Arabian peninsula; at the start of the 20th century the Ottoman Empire controlled what is now Iraq and Britain controlled Kuwait as a protectorate.[2] Britain and the Ottoman Empire theoretically divided their realms of influence via the so-called 'Blue' and 'Violet lines' in 1913-14, by which the Ottomans recognised British claims on Kuwait, divided from Ottoman Mesopotamia along the Wadi Al-Batin (the so-called 'green line', _see map right_).[3][4][5]

[Map with red circle and green circle boundaries according to the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913] During the First World War an Arab Revolt, supported by Britain, succeeded in removing the Ottomans from most of the Middle East. As a result of the secret 1916 Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement Britain gained control of the Ottoman Vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, which it organised into the mandate of Iraq in 1920.[6] In 1932, the year that Iraq gained independence, Britain confirmed that the border between Iraq and Kuwait would run along the Wadi Al-Batin, as well as confirming that Bubiyan and Warbah islands were Kuwaiti territoriality, though the precise positioning of the northern straight line segments near Safwan remained imprecise.[7]

Kuwait gained independence in 1962, though Iraq initially refused to recognise the country claiming it as part of Iraq, later backing down following a show of force by Britain and the Arab League in support of Kuwait.[8][9][10] A treaty of friendship was signed in 1963 by which Iraq recognised the 1932 border.[11] Despite this, over the ensuing decade Iraq often raised the issue of sea access and the traditional claim to Kuwait, most notably in 1973 with the 1973 Samita border skirmish.

In 1990 Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait, precipitating the Gulf War by which Kuwait's sovereignty was restored.[12][13] In July 1992 the matter of border demarcation was referred to the United Nations, which accurately mapped the boundary and then demarcated it on the ground, following the 1932 line with some small adjustments.[14] The border was accepted by Kuwait but not Iraq.[15] The United Nations Iraq–Kuwait Observation Mission monitored the border during the period 1991-2003. Relations between the two states have improved since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Barrier

The IRAQ–KUWAIT BARRIER ( _Hudud al-'Irāq-al-Kuwayt_) is a border fence extending into Iraq, into Kuwait, and across the full length of their mutual border from Saudi Arabia to the Persian Gulf. Constructed by authorisation of the United Nations Security Council, its stated purpose was to stop a re-invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.

The border barrier, made of electrified fencing and concertina wire, is braced by a and trench, complete with a dirt berm and guarded by hundreds of soldiers, several patrol boats, and helicopters. Construction of the barrier began in 1991.

In January 2004, Kuwait decided to install a new iron barrier along the border. The barrier was estimated to have cost $28 million and the entire length of the border; asphalted roads were be also constructed to facilitate border security movement.[16]

Settlements near the border

Iraq

-   Safwan
-   Umm Qasr

[1]

[2]

[3] Briton Cooper Busch, _Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1894-1914_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 308, and 319.

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10] Helene von Bismarck, “The Kuwait Crisis of 1961 and its Consequences for Great Britain’s Persian Gulf Policy”, in _British Scholar_, vol. II, no. 1 (September 2009) pp. 75-96

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

title: Iraq–Kuwait border

question: Summarize what the text states about Kuwait gaining independence in 1962.

answer: According to the text, Kuwait gained independence in 1962. Iraq initially refused to recognize the country claiming it as a party of Iraq but backed down when Britain and the Arab League showed support of Kuwait. Afterwards, a treaty of friendship was signed in 1963 in which Iraq recognized the Kuwait border. But, despite the treaty, Iraq raised issues of sea access and the traditional claim to Kuwait.

question: Summarize what is stated in the text about the Iraq-Kuwait Barrier.

answer: The Iraq-Kuwait barrier is a border fence extending into Iraq and into Kuwait. It is the full length of their mutual border from Saudi Arabia to the Persian Gulf. The border was created for the purpose to stop a re-invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. The border is made of electrified fencing and concertina wire. It is guarded by hundreds of soldiers, several patrol boats, and helicopters.

question: Did the barrier prove helpful to Kuwait to keep it from being re-invaded by Iraq?


text:
The bell tinkled, announcing the arrival of him and her as the shop door slammed shut behind them. The shopkeeper looked at them through shriveled, slanted eyes, and offered the couple a half smile. They walked down separate parallel aisle towards the cigarette counter. He stopped and stooped low reaching for crisps, smoky bacon. She sauntered, glided, to the counter reaching for the chewing gum.

"Evening miss." The shopkeeper said accentlessly. "Can I interest you in a chocolate bar, half off." he offered. A swirling fan hung haphazardly from ceiling rocking irregularly and noisily. It's hum filled their ears, its breeze rustled their clothes.

She smiled sweetly. "No, I'm afraid you can't. You can, however, interest me in a twenty pack of your cheapest, dirtiest cigarettes." The shopkeeper turned his hunched back towards them. She felt her boyfriends presence at her back. "Not those, the ones up there." She said pointing to the top shelf. The man reached for the cigarettes rocking on his toes, his corduroy trousers fluttered at his ankles.

"That will be an even fiver miss." he said as he turned to face her. He stopped sharply when he saw the cold gray eye of a gun staring at him across her shoulder. He dropped the cigarettes.

"I'd pick them up if I was you." The gunman man spoke for the first time. "And if you could fill a bag or two up with a few other packets, I'd be much obliged." The man checked his reflection as he spoke. The fan rattled above them, the roof creaked.

"Don't forget the money honey." the girl said to the shopkeeper who began to shake.

"Please don't hurt me, I have children!"

"What's your name?" She asked resting her hand gently on his arm. He flinched. Stung.

"My name?" He stuttered. "Trout, Artemus Trout. I have a son, Dwight, he's four. And a Daughter!"

"Trout?" The girl's partner cut him off. "You sound more like a science fiction writer than the night manager of the local *Safeway*."

"Mr Trout." She said, sweet as iced tea, as if the shopkeeper was a dinner guest. "Alfie here really has no intention of hurting you, we just need to smoke and you need to remember that that is a real gun."

Presently the thin chord of the ceiling fan lost its battle with gravity and crashed towards the ground. The spinning blade struck Alfie's arm. Bang bang. The gun snapped twice illuminating the shop with its flash. A mist of dust filled the room making the couple cough and retch. Mr Trout was no longer standing. The pair held each other and moved carefully to the shrunken figure on the ground. It whimpered.

"Mr Trout?" She said as Alfie reached for his arm. "We killed him!" she cried. Alfie shook his body with no reply. He was crouched near Mr Trout now, scared to get to close knowing he had to roll him over. Alfie hesitated arm hovering. Suddenly the body convulsed and flipped over. Alfie screamed bereft of masculinity and fell to the ground.

"Please don't shoot again. You only just missed that first time." said Mr Trout curled up sucking his thumb. The pair broke into relieved laughter, and gave each other a look that said lets get the hell out of here.

They picked up the bag of money and the cigarettes, and walked towards the exit slowly; with their fingers interlocked, the still smoking gun in his spare hand the money in hers.

"Oh." He said as he returned to the shivering weeping ball of the shopkeeper Mr. Trout and placed a single coin on the counter. She looked at him head tilted, lips slightly parted. "I forgot to pay for the crisps."

title: Bang bang. (625 Words)

question: Summarize the climax of the story.

answer: The shopkeeper is being mugged by a couple when suddenly the ceiling fan falls and hits Alfie's arm. He accidentally shoots at the shopkeeper. Alfie and his girlfriend begin to panic thinking they accidentally killed a man. The shopkeeper turns over and begs them not to kill him. They sigh in relief then leave the shop with their bag of money and cigarettes.

question: What does the story say about the shopkeeper?

answer: The shopkeeper's name is Artemus Trout. He is being mugged by a couple. He begs them not to shoot him, telling them that he has two children relying on him. They let him go after stealing a bag of money and cigarettes from his shop.